A Study of Indexing Consistency Between Library of Congress and British Library Catalogers

摘要

The article aims to compare the indexing consistency between the Library of Congress (LC) and the British Library (BL) catalogers with regards to their using the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). Eighty-two titles, published in 1987 in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS), were identified for comparison, and for each title its LC subject headings, assigned by both LC and BL catalogers, were compared. By applying Hooper's "consistency of a pair" equation, the average indexing consistency value was found for 82 titles. The average indexing consistency value between LC and BL catalogers is 16 percent for "exact" matches, and 36 percent for "partial" matches. The major findings of the study are discussed, and, in the Appendix, the examples of LCSH that assigned by both LC and BL catalogers for the same document are provided along with its consistency value.