How do I add subject headings to an entry?

SnakFrequently Asked Questions

Bliv bruger af LibraryThing, hvis du vil skrive et indlæg

How do I add subject headings to an entry?

Dette emne er markeret som "i hvile"—det seneste indlæg er mere end 90 dage gammel. Du kan vække emnet til live ved at poste et indlæg.

1Diversity
aug 8, 2017, 4:21 pm

It is important to have subject headings included in our entries yet when I try to edit records, I can't add subject headings or other pertinent information from a First Search entry that I've used as the base record. WHY? If Library is part of LT's name why are some standard cataloging fields inaccessible or unavailable?

2MarthaJeanne
Redigeret: aug 8, 2017, 5:48 pm

Subject fields are not editable. They come in when library sources are used for entering the book. If you need subjects, you should avoid using Amazon sources.

You also have access to subjects from other entries in the work.

LT members can use tags to give subject information about their books.

3Diversity
aug 8, 2017, 5:59 pm

I'm using Library of Congress/First Search for my record information. But not all records pull in LC Subjects though I select those that do when available. If you have small libraries using this and using Tiny Cat, then the ability to add real subject headings in a subject heading field is a must.

Consequently, users should be able to add subjects if they are going to the trouble of using bona-fide cataloging records as the base for information.

4jjwilson61
aug 8, 2017, 6:09 pm

>1 Diversity: You can't edit subjects because they follow a controlled vocabulary and Tim doesn't want to allow people to enter bad ones, but he also can't spend the resources to enable the code to check if they're correct or not. Hence the solution of only allowing them to be able to come from library sources.

5Crypto-Willobie
aug 9, 2017, 9:01 am

You could add them in comments..

6bnielsen
aug 10, 2017, 5:01 am

What >4 jjwilson61: said + Subjects can be a pain in the exported TSV file, because a few of them contain characters, that are not unicode (because they originate from various sources with various character sets and didn't get converted correctly).

7MarthaJeanne
Redigeret: aug 10, 2017, 5:24 am

So if you put the subject headings you want into tags, your patrons have access to them. You are not faced with duplicates, nonapplicable ones like 'Large type books', bad character set issues, ...

Not even a particularly bad example: https://www.librarything.com/work/2773690/workdetails/

8gilroy
aug 10, 2017, 7:43 am

>7 MarthaJeanne: Television feature?

9MarthaJeanne
aug 10, 2017, 9:36 am

I normally don't look at subjects because of such things. My guess is there is a video recording in there somewhere.

10Ludi_Ling
Redigeret: nov 27, 2017, 1:02 pm

I added LoC subject headings to my MARC record, which I then imported into LibraryThing. However, it looks like the subject headings (along with a lot of the information encoded in the MARC file) were dumped during the import. Is this normal? It's kind of annoying, since I took the time to carefully catalogue my books.

EDIT: not to worry - I discovered everything looks fine in TinyCat. Dunno why it doesn't show in Librarything!

11deckla
jun 28, 2018, 10:21 am

Re: subject headings. I understand Tim’s concern about legitimate subject headings and controlled vocabulary, but some “work records” from Library Thing are ridiculous—for example, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland headings are definitely not LCSH kosher. It would be great if TinyCat users who are librarians could edit these, for their local catalog at least. Failing that, can we limit subject headings to, say, 10? (I know the rule of three has been superseded by RDA, but 21 subject headings is—well, Alice would appreciate this—absurd!)

12gilroy
jun 29, 2018, 7:34 am

>11 deckla:

Um, so how would you guarantee that your edits would fit all 17354 copies of the book in question?

13jjwilson61
jun 29, 2018, 9:20 am

It doesn't seem to hard to be able to distinguish between subject headings that are about the work as a whole and ones that are about editions or books.

14lorax
jun 29, 2018, 10:30 am

LT has, historically, been averse to giving special powers to anyone, so on the face of it deckla's "Let TinyCat users edit this data, but not others" wouldn't fly. These days, though, they're much more focused on the newer products and less on "ordinary people cataloging their books", so who knows what they might be convinced to do if TinyCat users wanted it.

15MarthaJeanne
jun 29, 2018, 10:49 am

But not all TinyCat users are librarians, and all personal members are eligible for free TinyCat, so I don't see that limiting it to TinyCay users is going to be a helpful distinction.

16lorax
jun 29, 2018, 1:22 pm

>15 MarthaJeanne:

Oh, I was using that as shorthand for "paying TinyCat organizations". Sorry for the confusion.

17Trinity_Marshall
apr 4, 2019, 1:16 pm

Why not write a code that looks at the call number, and populates a different field ("Call Number Subject" or some such) with the general subject information associated with it? For example: BS1154 would cause the following to appear: The Bible > Works about the Old Testament > Commentaries > German > Early through 1950. ? The PDF files for LOC are available for free on the LOC website, and you could just import the data straight. That way, you could import your data from Amazon, find the correct LOC call number for the book in a library somewhere, and then BAM, once you type the call number in, LT would populate that field with the appropriate information. Just a thought.

18gilroy
Redigeret: apr 4, 2019, 1:41 pm

>17 Trinity_Marshall: Because it may be easier to bring the information DIRECTLY from the LOC when you add the book to your library?