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Brenda, et al. --
It depends on what you mean by "LCSH" -- I imagine you mean the
international name authority file (NAF) maintained by LC. While the LC
subject headings list does contain some names, LCSH is mostly topical
subjects (topical-ness as defined by LC). Also, I don't know whether
you're looking at headings via the LC database or actually looking at
the authority records via RLIN, OCLC or similar database.

All that aside, the actual heading on a name authority record in NAF
serves a couple primary purposes. First, we want to identify a person
with a pretty solid form of their name that will differentiate this
person from all others. We are not always successful but there are ways
to code undifferentiated persons. Secondly and this is where LC might
"fail" you, we want the heading to be able to stand for a long time. So,
once Alfred Hitchcock is set up, we don't want to change the heading
unless it's problematic (say, another Alfred Hitchcock born in 1899).
Remember that the heading as it appears on LC copy is used by thousands
of libraries around the world, and we all use it on original cataloging
too. If we change the authority record to include the death date, all of
those bibliographic records are out of date. The authority record, on
the other hand, has source fields that tell you Hitchcock died in 1980.

The LC bibliographic database will not tell you everything that might be
available if you search the authority records themselves. (LC is working
on a publicly available version of their authority records and we hear
it might be ready by early 2002.) The headings alone are probably better
for collocation (aka authority control) than for biographical info.

Sherman Clarke
NYU Libraries

----- Original Message -----
From: Brenda <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, May 4, 2001 9:25 am
Subject: LCSH - Updates

> Recently, I have been searching LCSH to update life dates for
> various filmmakers, set designers, etc. I have been surprised and
> disappointed that so many entries are not up to date, eg. Alfred
> Hitchcock, 1889-. I have had better luck searching biography.com
> for the info I need.
>
> Is there some update site for LCSH I don't know about?
>
> Brenda MacEachern, Slide Curator
> Richard & Beryl Ivey Visual Resources Library
> Visual Arts Department
> University of Western Ontario
> London, Ontario
>
> [log in to unmask]

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