Dear Elhanan, According to the Library of Congress Subject Headings Manual H1718, … "Headings for specific topics within a legal system are established in the form [topic] ([qualifier for legal system])." What this means, as you had mentioned, is that one can use a topic discussed within the realm of Jewish law and establish it in the form of, for example, "Bal tashhit (Jewish law)." Note that we are dealing with one topic. In the case of the laws covered in Yoreh De'ah, if one law is the topic, for example, mourning, we follow the instructions in H1718. We can follow these instructions as well if the focus of our book is on two or three subjects. However, Yoreh De'ah deals with many different laws which, when discussed as a whole, (I think this is what your concern is), would have to be handled differently as we are dealing with many topics. At the Library of Congress we deal with this issue by using the subject headings:
1. 650 - Jewish law (to bring out all the topics together) 2. 650 - Judaism $x Customs and practices (to bring out the non-law aspects of Yoreh De'ah) Further, when the KBM schedule was developed, the subject heading "Hoshen mishpat" (sh2004005635) was established to address collectively the topics covered by Hoshen mishpat. There were some concerns among cataloging staff about the formulation of the heading, so we did not follow suit and propose similar headings for topics collectively covered in the other three sections of Shulhan 'arukh, however this question may be revisited. It should be noted that there are LC class numbers for these 4 collective topics: BM523.2 (Orah hayim law), BM523.4 (Yoreh de'ah), KBM523.6 (Even ha-'ezer law), and KBM523.72 (Hoshen mishpat law). I hope this answer is satisfying to you. Nahid Dayanim Gerstein Israel & Judaica Team Library of Congress From: owner-heb-n...@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu [mailto:owner-heb-n...@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Elhanan Adler Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 4:01 AM To: 'heb-naco@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu' Subject: Large divisions of halacha Shalom all A question regarding subject headings for books which encompass a large section of halacha- In LCSH there are many specific subjects with "(Jewish law)" appended. Presumably many more are just waiting to be established. Some are based on general legal terms such as "Child support (Jewish law)" and some are uniquely Jewish such as "Bal tashhit (Jewish law)" But halachic literature is also commonly divided into large sections, usually based on the four sections of the Tur/Shulhan arukh - thus for example a book may be on "the laws of yoreh de'ah" as a subject grouping - without being a work on the shulhan arukh yoreh de'ah (so a 600 author/title/part subject is not justified). And 'laws of yoreh de'ah' includes kashrut, family purity, mourning, charity, and many more topics. What subject heading(s) do you assign to such works. It seems that something like "Jewish law - yoreh deah topics" makes sense but is probably not a kosher approach. Any suggestions? Best wishes Elhanan Elhanan Adler Email: elhan...@savion.huji.ac.il, elha...@libnet.ac.il Mobile tel.: 972-54-6829657 Tel. (home) 972-2-6515977 Fax (home): 972-2-6517129
