Law cataloguing and classification in Poland. A journey through the time (and practices)

Solutions currently used in Poland for the preparation of subject indexes and the classification of law-related collections needs to be discussed in relation to the experience in creation and preparation of subject indexes of other types of library materials. Law-related collections do not have a unique information language, although work on it was quite intensive in the 1970s. Law-related collections in universal libraries are developed using various subject heading languages (Automatic Catalogs of Academic Libraries Subject Headings KABA, the National Library’s JHP [Język Haseł Przedmiotowych – Subject Heading Language, SHL]), and recently with the used of descriptors and facets. In specialized libraries, where more detailed information needs are met, thesauri are created. This paper presents the most important information languages used in preparation of law-related subject indexes and examples of the descriptions of the same documents using various SHLs and descriptors.