Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 History and principles of LCSH
- 3 Subject heading lists and the problems of language
- 4 Format and display of LCSH
- 5 The choice and form of headings
- 6 Content analysis
- 7 Assigning main headings
- 8 Structured headings
- 9 Topical subdivisions
- 10 Geographic subdivisions
- 11 Free-floating subdivisions
- 12 More complex headings: combining the different types of subdivisions
- 13 Chronological headings and subdivisions
- 14 Name headings
- 15 Literature and the arts
- 16 Headings for music
- 17 Classification Web
- 18 LCSH in the online world
- 19 Bibliography
- 20 Glossary
- Index
13 - Chronological headings and subdivisions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 June 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 History and principles of LCSH
- 3 Subject heading lists and the problems of language
- 4 Format and display of LCSH
- 5 The choice and form of headings
- 6 Content analysis
- 7 Assigning main headings
- 8 Structured headings
- 9 Topical subdivisions
- 10 Geographic subdivisions
- 11 Free-floating subdivisions
- 12 More complex headings: combining the different types of subdivisions
- 13 Chronological headings and subdivisions
- 14 Name headings
- 15 Literature and the arts
- 16 Headings for music
- 17 Classification Web
- 18 LCSH in the online world
- 19 Bibliography
- 20 Glossary
- Index
Summary
Like place, period is commonly found as an element in the subjects of books. This is not limited to the discipline of history, but occurs in the great majority of subjects. Period can be expressed as specific periods, actual dates, or in broader and more general ideas of time:
French social cinema of the nineteen thirties
On lutes, recorders and harpsichords: men and music of the baroque
October nineteenth, seventeen eighty-one: victory at Yorktown: the story of the last campaign of the American Revolution
Studies in ancient Indian law and justice
Science in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, 1500-1800
Post-medieval archaeology in Britain
The royal pardon: access to mercy in fourteenth century England
Aldus Manutius: printer and publisher of renaissance Venice
Since period is such a common element of compound subjects you might expect that time subdivisions would be provided for in the same way as geographic subdivisions, but that is not the case. There is a very limited selection of periods available within the free-floating subdivisions, and time is usually expressed through various kinds of main heading. This means that you cannot create headings with dates, as you created headings with places, but are restricted to those dates and times that are specified. It is rather difficult to predict how any individual heading will be dealt with, but it is possible to discern some general approaches.
Free-floating subdivisions for history
There is some provision for very basic historical arrangement of a topic, using the subdivision ‘–History’, which is further qualified by century divisions for the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. LCSH uses numbers here in preference to words and the subdivisions are written as, for example:
History–16th century
History–20th century
The ‘History’ part must always be included, and these subdivisions may be applied to any topic:
Cathedral libraries–History–18th century
Crossword puzzles–History–20th century
–To 1500 is available for history before the modern period, but there is no means of expressing the medieval period more precisely using the free-floating subdivisions.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Essential Library of Congress Subject Headings , pp. 163 - 168Publisher: FacetPrint publication year: 2011