I haven't been following the discussion on keywords, Dewey Decimal numbers
and Sears Subject Headings as closely as I would like, but thought I would
throw in my two cents worth.
I feel that the best solution is to combine all three of these methods to
make books accessible. When I catalog a book that is somewhat general in
nature (particularly if it's an adult level book that I'm putting in my high
school collection) I take some extra time to flesh out the catalog record.
If the Table of Contents is a good representation of the content of the
book, I type it pretty much verbatim into the contents tag. For some books,
I check the index and add the most thoroughly covered topics there to the
general notes field with the heading "Keywords". I still use Dewey and I
still use Sears (sometimes my adaptation of Sears if I'm doing original
cataloging). I tend to add more subject headings though, to reflect how I
think my students will use the book--some broader headings, some more
narrow, etc. In my ninth grade library orientation I include an exercise in
shelf browsing to help them with the concept that Dewey does in some way
represent subjects, although not always in a way that they will understand.
(Case in point: Books on diseases that describe those diseases go in the
600's; those about people who have the disease go in the 300's ... or
sometimes 921 for biography.)
I think the more information and search tools we can provide for the
students, the better. If it leads them to three pages on a topic in a 250
page book, at least they're reading and appreciating that some information
comes on paper, not on a computer screen.
Just IMHO.
Deb Waugh
Librarian/Instructional Technologist
The Emmett G. Shufflebarger Library
at Graham High School
Bluefield, Virginia
debwaugh.lm_net@frontiernet.net
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