II. Indexing Images: Some Principles

II.C. Proper Name Indexing

Picture researchers usually find geographical and biographical access useful in addition to topical subjects. Therefore, picture repositories may want to index under the name of a person, organization, or place in cases where these are represented in an image and identified.

As described in Section I, TGM I does not include proper noun name headings for people, organizations, events, structures, or geographic places; its scope is limited to subject categories only. In most cases, proper name headings can be found in either the Library of Congress Name Authority File (personal names and corporate bodies) or Library of Congress Subject Headings (geographic features, structures, events, etc.). The Prints and Photographs Division utilizes the headings found in these sources and contributes headings as necessary to these national authority files. Institutions that do not have access to the Library of Congress authority files will most likely want to create local or shared authority files of commonly used proper names in order to maintain consistency in indexing proper name subjects of pictures.

In certain cases, the Prints and Photographs Division appends subdivisions to names taken from or added to one of the authority files cited above in order to specify what aspects of the subject are covered by an image. Topical subdivisions are drawn from the lists given in Appendices A through D. Further information about subdivision practice may be found in Section III below.

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