The Gravitational Pull Away from Pre-Coordinated Subject Headings

The Gravitational Pull Away from Pre-Coordinated Subject Headings Technicalities Column March 9, 2016 by John J. Riemer Head, UCLA Library Cataloging and Metadata Center On a number of fronts in recent years, I have perceived the library community beginning to edge away from its historic commitment to pre-coordinated subject headings. I would like to use this space to provide observations and points for professional discussion of this issue. Overtures from the National Library of Medicine In fall of 2015, NLM announced the results of its consultation of the library community about the necessity of its continuing to distribute its cataloging records containing the Medical Subject Headings in pre-coordinated format: “In June 2015, NLM proposed discontinuing distribution of its bibliographic records with artificially reconstructed subject strings in CATLINE and SERLINE products. This proposal was sent to the Regional Medical Libraries, MEDLIB, and MEDCAT discussion lists, as well as to subscribers of the NLM MARC21 files. Responses to the proposal were unanimously in favor of discontinuing the distribution of subject strings and having the records in the distributed files match the records as they appear in LocatorPlus and the NLM Catalog.” 1