The or SWD (translated as ''Subject Headings Authority File'') is a
controlled vocabulary
Control may refer to:
Basic meanings Economics and business
* Control (management), an element of management
* Control, an element of management accounting
* Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization
* Controllin ...
index term system used primarily for
subject indexing
Subject indexing is the act of describing or classifying a document by index terms, keywords, or other symbols in order to indicate what different documents are ''about'', to summarize their contents or to increase findability. In other words, i ...
in
library catalogs. The SWD is managed by the
German National Library
The German National Library (DNB; german: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to colle ...
(DNB) in cooperation with various
library
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
networks. The inclusion of keywords in the SWD is defined by (RSWK) (English: Rules for the keyword catalogue). Similar
authority systems in other languages include the
Library of Congress Subject Headings
The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) comprise a thesaurus (in the information science sense, a controlled vocabulary) of subject headings, maintained by the United States Library of Congress, for use in bibliographic records. LC Subject ...
(LCSH) and the (). Since April 2012 the SWD is part of the (GND) (English: Integrated Authority File).
Scope
The SWD has about 600,000
descriptors and 700,000 non-descriptors (
synonyms and quasi-synonyms) as well as synonymous descriptor chains with references to a descriptor. Its growth rate is about 5.5% per year. About three-quarters of the descriptors refer to individual concepts (language identifier, person, entity, title, ethnography etc.) and a quarter are abstract concepts. Linking using hierarchical (about 115,000) and associative (26,000) relations is not very dense, so the SWD cannot be viewed as a
thesaurus
A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea:
Synonym dictionar ...
(as of mid-2003).
The terms in the SWD are also arranged in a separate
classification with nearly 500 classes in 36 main groups.
Structure
The various terms are placed in a classification scheme and also contain references to sources, related terms, preferred term and to a lesser extent hierarchical links. But the SWD is probably not a complete thesaurus because of the low degree of linkage. The SWD is available online through the catalogue database ILTIS and is available for a fee as BIBLIODATA, together with the (PND) (English: Name Authority File) and the (GKD) (English: Corporate Bodies Authority File) on the standard data CD-ROM and the standard file TITAN. In both cases, the user interface of the SWD leaves much room for improvement. Instead of making SWD accessible as a user-friendly navigation tool, it assumes that users are familiar with SWD and its classification scheme and enter the appropriate descriptor in the correct form before running a search. Navigating the system or moving from one concept to another by means of hyperlinks is not possible. The strategy of the German Library to distribute authority records commercially makes the extended use of the SWD difficult, e.g. in other keyword systems.
For the exchange of authority records, there is a separate machine exchange format for libraries called
MAB-SWD. The head official of the Southwest German Library Network (SWB) offers online access (OSWD).
See also
*
*
Faceted Application of Subject Terminology Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST) is a general use controlled vocabulary based on the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). FAST is developed as a part of WorldCat by OCLC, Inc., with the goal of making subject cataloging less ...
(FAST), a simplified syntax of LCSH
*
Canadian Subject Headings (CSH)
External links
Searching the OSWDabout the SWD
* Rules for the Keyword Catalogue (RSWK) 3rd edition, Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut, 1998
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schlagwortnormdatei
2012 disestablishments in Germany
Library cataloging and classification
Identifiers
Thesauri