Subject Access to Urban Studies Monographs

Library of Congress subject headings (LCSHs) are generally felt to be especially inadequate in dealing with social science materials. I attempted to see whether PRECIS indexing "brought out" what a group of urban studies works were "about" better than LC subject cataloging. PRECIS does turn out to provide more access points than LCHS; but this advantage would disappear in an on-line catalog having key-word access. PRECIS also ends up providing apt headings more of the time than LCSH; its advantage here, however, would diminish if LCSH (1) employed more up-to-date vocabulary and (2) included a time facet more freely. Neither LCSH nor PRECIS turns out to be particularly successful in dealing with "multi-tiered works," those whose "intellectual subject(s)" differ from their "ostensible subject(s)." I argue that the best way to provide good subject access to these (as well as many other kinds of) works would involve supplementing traditional subject headings with abstracts or summaries.