The Library of Congress Subject Heading list (LCSH) is now used very widely in the English speaking world as a means of subject searching in library catalogues. In the UK this is a relatively recent phenomenon, and there is no substantial history of library school education in the use of LCSH or, indeed, of subject indexing or subject heading languages in general. Essential LCSH caters primarily for those unfamiliar with LCSH, and addresses the basics of locating, selecting and applying subject headings. It also aims to identify some of the common problems and misunderstandings experienced by beginners, and to suggest some useful strategies for coping with them. To this end, there are provided various practical exercises designed to test understanding and provide practice.

Because LCSH is not particularly systematic in its structure, it has been difficult to determine the best structure for the book. The early chapters provide some basic background, and describe the general conventions and policies at work in LCSH; after a section on content analysis, the following chapters deal with the way in which subject content can be expressed through the choice of headings, and the construction of structured headings. Otherwise, I have tried to concentrate on how various aspects of subject content can be represented, dealing with commonly occurring themes such as place, period, form, persons, name headings for people, organizations and places, and finishing with the specific subjects of literature and music, which have some of their own particular rules and practices. Two final chapters deal with electronic LCSH and LCSH online.

As with the previous titles in this series (Essential Classification and Essential Thesaurus Construction), the content is based very much on the content of the cataloguing and classification module of the MA in Library and Information Studies at University College London. As this particular title has a narrower focus than the other titles, it includes an extra helping of material designed to deal with some of the more obscure corners of LCSH. Nevertheless, it is still intended for the student and the novice cataloguer, and hence it is essentially an introductory work and not a comprehensive text. For a truly authoritative work on LCSH I recommend Lois Chan's Library of Congress Subject Headings: principles and application.