Exploiting LCSH, LCC, and DDC To Retrieve Networked Resources: Issues and Challenges.

This paper examines how the nature of the World Wide Web and characteristics of networked resources affect subject access and analyzes the requirements of effective indexing and retrieval tools. The current and potential uses of existing tools and possible courses of future development are explored in the context of recent research. The first section addresses the new environment, including the nature of the online public access catalog (OPAC), characteristics of traditional library tools, and differences between electronic resources and traditional library materials. The second section discusses retrieval models, including the Boolean, vector, and probabilistic models. The third section covers subject access on the Web, including functional requirements of subject access tools, operational requirements, verbal subject access, and classification/subject categorization. The fourth section describes recent research on subject access systems, including automatic indexing, mapping terms and data from different sources, and integrating different subject access tools. The fifth section examines traditional tools in the networked environment, including Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Library of Congress Classification (LCC), and Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). (Contains 48 references.) (MES)