Children's Subject Headings (CSH) List
Subject Cataloging | Children’s and Young Adults’ Cataloging Program (CYAC)
The Children’s and Young Adults' Cataloging (CYAC) Program provides cataloging tailored to children and young adults materials. The CYAC Program catalogs items by creating bibliographic records complete with Children’s Subject Headings and a brief noncritical summary to offer easier subject access to those materials. CYAC catalogers apply current CYAC and Library of Congress (LC) subject cataloging policies and practices. Note that MARC 21 coding is used to distinguish between Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) (650 #0) and Children’s and Young Adults' Subject Headings (650 #1). The cataloging records are available from several sources, as described in About the Program.
One of the responsibilities of the Program is to maintain the CYAC Subject Headings. Monthly editorial meetings are held to ensure that CYAC Subject Headings continue to suit the cataloging needs of children’s material.
Effective July 2021, authority records were created for all CYAC subject headings, including those which duplicated existing LCSH records, formally separating the Children’s and Young Adults’ Subject Headings from LCSH.
CYAC Subject Heading Proposals
Proposals are submitted when the topic of a resource cannot be adequately indicated with an existing subject headings. CYAC catalogers consult numerous sources in order to arrive at the term considered most effective for CYAC purposes. Once a heading is submitted to the CYAC Program for approval, proposals are discussed. The main steps taken to establish a new children’s subject heading are:
- Literature in the subject area is consulted;
- Spelling, except for some hyphenated terms, is accepted from Webster's Third New International Dictionary and Random House Dictionary of the English Language;
- Index terms are checked in indexing sources widely used by the public, such as the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and the New York Times Index;
- Sears List of Subject Headings, children's encyclopedias, and reference sources usually found in public and school libraries are also consulted.
References
Previously complete hierarchies were not provided for terms in the Children’s Subject Headings List. Efforts are currently underway to evaluate and/or create broader term, narrower term, related term, and “used for” references for the CYAC subject headings. Today all new proposals must include the hierarchial structure.
Scope notes
Scope notes limit the application of a heading as it is used in the catalog, helping users determine to what extent it covers the materials they seek and making it possible for catalogers to maintain consistency in the way headings are assigned. For the Children’s and Young Adults’ Subject Heading list, scope notes may also be used to define the scope of headings when they are used in a way that differs from LCSH.
Subject Cataloging with Children’s and Young Adults' Subject Headings
Historically, the subject headings used in the CYAC Program represented three categories: standard LCSH, modified LCSH, and headings established for the exclusive use in CYAC cataloging. Since the formal separation of the Children’s and Young Adults’ Subject Headings from LCSH in July 2021, all headings currently in use in CYAC subject cataloging have individual authority records and are listed in the Children’s and Young Adults’ Subject Headings. The CYAC Subject Headings exhibit the following features, which distinguish them from LCSH:
- Words and phrases that would be superfluous in a juvenile catalog are deleted in headings like Separation anxiety [in children] and First aid [in illness and injury]. The adjective Children’s is usually deleted, so that a heading such as Children’s parties becomes Parties, and Children’s songs becomes Songs.
- While many headings are established in the inverted form, preferred CYAC Program practice is to modify headings or create new headings in direct form, using natural language. Thus, Mythical animals is used rather than Animals, Mythical.
- Hyphens are removed from headings like Water supply; Fortune telling; Metalwork. In general, hyphenated headings are established following guidelines in the Chicago Manual of Style.
- Glosses are removed from headings. For example, the LCSH terms Separation (Philosophy) and Separation (Psychology) are compressed into the single CYAC term Separation. Such granularity—e.g., differentiating a term as either philosophical or psychological in nature—is unnecessary in a children’s catalog.
- Most animal and plant species are established in the plural form.
- The common names of plants, animals, and diseases are often used instead of the scientific ones. Thus, Bedwetting is used rather than Enuresis and Tube-lipped nectar bats is preferred over Anoura fistulata.
- Generally, headings for personal names, corporate bodies, and geographic names are drawn from the Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF). However, non-English-language names are frequently used in forms more commonly known in the United States. Therefore, personal names, names of corporate bodies, and titles of works may be changed to conform to popular English usage, as with Howard, Mary, Lady, 1519-1557 rather than Richmond and Somerset, Mary Fitzroy, Duchess of, 1519-1557; Solidarity (Polish labor organization) rather than NSZZ “Solidarność” (Labor organization); International Children’s Rain Forest (Costa Rica) rather than Bosque Eterno de Los Niños (Costa Rica); and Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821–1881. Crime and punishment rather than Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821–1881. Prestuplenie i nakazanie.
- Finally, some headings and subdivisions are used instead of the LCSH equivalents: Sports—Fiction instead of Sports stories; Trees—Planting instead of Tree planting; and Christmas—Drama instead of Christmas plays.
Application of Children's and Young Adults' Subject Headings
Some of the chief differences between the CYAC subject headings and LCSH are in application rather than in form. For example:
- Omission of subdivisions containing the word Juvenile, such as —Juvenile fiction and —Juvenile literature, which would be superfluous in a children’s literature catalog.
- Omission of any geographic subdivision for subject headings denoting classes of persons, such as Athletes; Composers; and Explorers.
- Liberal assignment of subject headings to fiction to provide a helpful approach to the literature. For example, if a story adds to the reader’s information about a country, a social problem, or a disease, headings such as the following are used: Switzerland—Fiction; Drug abuse—Fiction; AIDS (Disease)—Fiction. Abstract concepts are also recognized, such as Friendship—Fiction and Self-reliance—Fiction.
- Use of both specific and general subject headings. In a catalog for a children’s collection, a young reader can locate works through both a specific and a general approach, whereas the regular assignment of subject headings may provide only the specific subject heading. Examples of this expanded analysis are: 1. Dodos. 2. Birds.; 1. Middle schools. 2. Schools.; and 1. Lift-the-flap books. 2. Toy and movable books.
- Use of both popular and scientific or scholarly terms on nonfiction works. For material intended for very young children, popular terms like Weather or Fossils are applied. When the book is intended for older children, both the popular and scientific terms are frequently assigned. Thus, a single record may carry such headings as 1. Weather. 2. Meteorology. or 1. Fossils. 2. Paleontology. When nonfiction books are intended for young adults, ordinarily only the scientific term is provided: Meteorology or Paleontology.
- Use of headings denoting form, genre, or format. Such headings, created to make certain types of material more accessible to young readers, include Jokes; Stories in rhyme; Spanish language materials.
- The MARC Distribution Service Subject-Authorities product provides records in MARC 21 and MARCXML formats via FTP. This fee-based subscription service provides new and updated records on a weekly basis.
- CHS Subject Headings Lists consist of new and changed CSH headings and are posted at www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/subject/weeklylists; free subscriptions, through e-mail or RSS feed, can be arranged at http://www.loc.gov/rss.
- Classification Web https://classweb.org/Auto/, a fee-based site that also provides access to Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT) and Library of Congress Classification.
- LC Authorities (http://authorities.loc.gov), a free web-based database that allows for browsing, display, and download (in MARC 21 format) of authority records.
- Authorities and Vocabularies (http://id.loc.gov), a free Web-based service that allows for browsing, display, and download (in RDF/XML, Turtle, or N-triples) of the authority records.
- Introduction to Children’s and Young Adults’ Subject Headings
Subdivisions
Although many of the most commonly used LC subdivisions can be used in a catalog devoted exclusively to children's literature, some subdivisions require modifications in form or application. The following subdivisions are exceptions to LCSH form and practice.
--Adaptations:
Use as a form subdivision under name, name/title, and title headings, and under headings for literatures, for individual or collected works whose form has been changed from the original (e.g., prose to graphic novel).
--Biography:
Use as a form subdivision under headings for ethnic groups, fields and disciplines when a heading for the class of persons does not exist and cannot be created, and the heading Women for works of individual or collective biography.
--Cartoons and comics:
Use as a form subdivision under headings for nonfiction works in comic book, comic strip, or cartoon form.
--Collections:
Use as a form subdivision under individual literatures and major genres of literatures, with or without adjectival qualifiers, for publications that consist of two or more works by different literary authors.
--Fiction:
Use as a form subdivision under subjects for individual or collected works of fiction about those subjects.
--Folklore:
Use as a form subdivision under names of countries, cities, etc., and under classes of persons, ethnic groups, uniform titles of sacred works, and topical headings for folklore texts on those subjects.
--Habits and behavior :
Use as a topical subdivision under headings for individual animals and groups of animals, including birds, reptiles, and fish.
--Humor:
Use as a form subdivision under subjects for humorous works about those subjects.
--Kings, queens, rulers, etc. :
Use as a topical subdivision on nonfiction works under names of countries, cities, etc., and under ethnic groups.
--Pictorial works:
Use as a form subdivision under subjects for nonfiction materials that consist exclusively or predominantly of pictures.
Availability of Subject Products
CYAC subject headings are available in multiple formats:
If you have questions about the CYAC Program or the construction and use of Children’s Subject Headings (CSH) please visit the Contact Us page.
Last Updated: 9/18/2022
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