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Subjects

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Learn how to add subject headings to a title in OLIB.

►Searches > Titles
►Cataloguing > Subject Headings

OLIB caters for any number of subject headings for each catalogued item.

These are authority control records, each value only being stored once on the database and linked to all the titles using that heading. For authority control of subjects, there is a Controls page in Subject Headings where the status of a new heading is defaulted to "To be checked".

Subject headings may also be linked to classmarks. Depending on how your system is configured in Admin Client Defaults these headings can be automatically applied to the catalogue record when entering the classmark.

Add a subject heading to the title

  1. Go to  Searches> Titles
  2. In modify mode, in the Subjects section, click Search.
  3. In the Subjects layout, search for the subject heading to be used.
  • If found, check the box to select and Insert, or Insert and Continue to search again and add more headings. On the final insert, OLIB returns you to the Titles layout, and displays the attached subjects.
  • If not found click New Record to create the new heading with the correct subject heading type if needed. Save and Close to return the new subject to the working title.
  1. Save the changes to include with the current working Title.

 Note: if you wanted a team of librarians to reclassify all records under a certain subject heading, you could first of all enter a subject search for the titles to be reclassified and save the search as a workspace. You could then join the team members to a user group, giving the group permission to the workspace. Team members could then share the workspace and amend each record as necessary.

Titles already linked to this subject heading

  1. Go to Cataloguing> Subject Headings.
  2. Search for a heading.
  3. When viewing the Subject details page, the Titles section lists all Titles already linked to that subject heading (sorted by Title, then Subtitle).
  4. This is helpful in areas of your catalogue where the titles are often not unique, but the subtitles are.

Subject Types

These are the types of subject heading in use, e.g. MESH, LC Geographical. If you require separate fields to display these, see Categorised Classes and Subjects Display. You may prefer to discuss with your OCLC Consultant. Subject Types are also used to set up the Thesaurus.

Names as Subject Headings

This is an example of Subject Types, where for example, a person or place name are the subject of a work, such as

Subject                   Annie Besant

Type                          Surname

Affiliation               Fabian Society

Full name                Annie Wood Besant

Title of a work    The Political status of women

Attributes are available for names as subjects in the Subject Headings domain. If required, the new attributes can be added to the Subject Headings layout using Layout Manager:

Affiliation · Full Name · Number of Part · Numerals · Title · Title of a Work

Each of these attributes represents a MARC subfield code, e.g.

$uAffiliation

To use the new attributes for imported data, create a Subject Type with a MARC tag of 600, 610 and/or 611 (Personal, Corporate, Meeting Name). This will mean that the data in these tags will import as subjects, not names.

Exclude subject heading from Folio facets

By default, a subject is included in Folio facets. An attribute is available that allows you to specify Yes/No whether a subject heading should appear in Folio facets.

The system administrator needs to add the attribute to your Subjects layout using Layout Manager.

Exclude from Folio Subjects Facet is the name of the attribute. In Layout Manager in the Subjects layout the suggested placement is in the Controls sheet below Status.

  1. When the above field is in place, go to Subject Headings.
  2. To exclude a heading simply search for the relevant subject and set Exclude from Subject facet=Yes.

Thesaurus

Subject headings are also used in thesaurus construction. There is a setting in OLIB Defaults (Cataloguing). When you add a subject to a Title record, if the subject has one or more broader terms and this value is set to Yes, these broader terms will also be added to the Title record when you add the subject itself to the Title. The broader terms will be added to the end of the list of subjects that have already been assigned to the Title. The standard move Up/Down feature can be used to re-sequence them on the cataloguing layout if required.