I've always though of LCSH as part of the same "chunk" as authority
control, because it's all about references and structures and as
helping to consolidate the idea of controlled vocabularies, and I'm
surprised that Kathy finds it easier than classification, which my
students get much less wigged about than making LCSH strings!



>I teach classification before subject headings--regardless of the textbook
>order--primarily because I think there's more to learn/it's harder for
>students to grasp the intricacies of number classification. By teaching
>them first, I give them more time in the class to work on call # structure
>in exercises, since we continue to work on description, headings, then
>number classification, & then subject classification as we work thru
>exercises throughout the class. In other words, records just get longer &
>more complete as we progress.
>
>This gives them the most practice, of course, on description--which is the
>most rule-bound and thus allows less variation based on cataloger
>judgment--but I've never figured a way to make sense of starting with number
>classification & then subject headings *before* description :-) Somehow,
>that's too much like dropping folks into the middle of unrelated chaos--I
>prefer to give them some context first!
>
>Kathleen A. Nystrom, Adjunct Instructor for School of Information Science &


--
Cheryl Boettcher Tarsala
Adjunct Assistant Professor
LEEP Program, Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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The views expressed here are my own and not those of UIUC or GSLIS.