As J. McRee (Mac) Elrod has pointed out below, the use of History--Sources
is an extremely useful heading for contemporaneous items. Correct or
incorrect. I think it should be discussed more widely. But possibly not on
this list.

We add this combination locally to any item that can be consider as
historical source material, as our history students are expected to make
use of primary and contemporary source material and make their own analysis
rather than relying solely on the opinions of others. Any library seeking
to assist serious historical research would find this device a boon.

Our library includes nearly 2 million items, including a strongly funded
history collection. We have been following this policy for all new
cataloguing since the early 1980s. The total number of items in our
database with History--Sources as part of the subject heading is 2855. But
as nearly are subdivisions of something else, it means that we are not
overwhelmed.
An example a page from our keyword subject heading index follows :

Your Search: HISTORY SOURCES
                                                                   2855
Matches
  Selected (May be truncated) Titles
      8. State governments -- Australia -- History -- Sources 1

      9. Interstate relations -- Australia -- History -- Sources 1

     10. Australia -- Politics and government -- History -- Sources 1

     11. Mensheviks -- History -- Sources 1

     12. Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 -- Sources 20

     13. Soviet Union -- History -- 1917- -- Sources 1

     14. Methodism -- History -- Sources 1

                                            - - - More on Next Screen - - -

Patricia Scott,
Bibliographic Services Librarian
University of Adelaide.

At 05:30 PM 21/11/97 -0500, you wrote:
>>It is not only a problem for manuscript catalogers, as Jackie Dooley
>>pointed out, but for rare book catalogers. There is no way to distinguish
>>by subject heading a pamphlet printed in 1645 on the Battle of Naseby and a
>>1992 monograph on the Battle of Naseby.
>
>For the first we find $xHistory$xSources helpful, standard or not.
>
>Why isn't this discussion on autocat?
>
>Mac
>
> __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod ([log in to unmask])
> {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
> ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________
>
>
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Patricia Scott
Bibliographic Services Librarian
Barr Smith Library fax: +61 88 303 4369
University of Adelaide telephone: +61 88 303 5373
Adelaide
South Australia 5005

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