Philosophical bases of subject cataloging

•Subject cataloging, like many library activities, is concerned mainly with organizing knowledge for effective use.
•The cataloger first determines the significant characteristics of a work,
• and then translates the subject content into terms of the systems being used --the notation of the classification scheme and terms selected from the library’s authorized subject vocabulary.
•The nature of the work and library’s policies guide the cataloger's decisions regarding specificity and depth of analysis .

MeSH Applications

•The MeSH thesaurus is used by NLM for indexing articles from 4,800 of the world's leading biomedical journals for the MEDLINE/PubMED® database.
•It is also used for the NLM-produced database that includes cataloging of books, documents, and audiovisuals acquired by the Library.
• Each bibliographic reference is associated with a set of MeSH terms that describe the content of the item.
•Similarly, search queries use MeSH vocabulary to find items on a desired topic.

•while minor descriptors were used only in the computer file; with the growth of the literature and the complexity of the subject matter covered, this distinction became unhelpful, and in 1991 it was removed. From 1963-1990, minor descriptors were listed in small caps in MeSH with the instruction see under [a major descriptor]. All preferred descriptors are now in large caps; indexers usually allocate 10 - 12 to each article, but those thought to be most significant are preceded by an asterisk in the computer file, and only these are used as headings in IM, in order to keep down the cost of additional printed entries. The distinction is now the importance of a partic­ular descriptor in relation to a given article, rather than the significance of the descriptor in itself. No distinction is made in searching the computer file.

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