Poster Sessions, 4:30-5:30 pm

Library of Congress Subject Headings as Subject Terminology in a Virtual Library: The INFOMINE Example

Steve Mitchell
INFOMINE Co-Coordinator and Science Reference Librarian
Bio-Agricultural Library, University of California, Riverside

INFOMINE is an academic virtual library containing several thousand records with links. These records are organized via a hypertext database and presented in HTML format. We currently use Library of Congress Subject Headings as subject terms. In meeting the challenge of employing this major standard in the library world, we use a time-efficient means of selecting and applying LCSH terms which is based on the use of the wealth of LCSH cataloging to be found in Melvyl, the UC's online public access catalog. Our method allows us to use this important subject vocabulary without having to catalog (or re-catalog) Internet resources thus saving much time.