The contribution of the observation of the textual structure of books to subject cataloguing: a case study in the UNESP university libraries

The indexing is a kind of description whose aim is to establish concepts expressed in a document and representing them according to a documentary language. There are elements that can contribute to a more complete selection of terms that will represent the document, like the observation of its textual structure and the context where the indexing professional acts. The analysis of the book textual structure can be carried out in a way that facilitates the indexing, as the professional can foresee the parts of the text where he localizes and identifies the more representative terms of the textual content. In such a way, it is intended to comprehend and inquire, with the applying of Verbal Protocol, the use that Unesp libraries' indexers do from the textual structure during the determination of subjects in such a way as to obtain the disclosure of their procedures, difficulties and restrictions through the externalization of thoughts during the recording of the indexing task. From the data analysis, it was possible to find out that the right hand page, the back of the title page, the chapters and other parts of the book's structure provided the greater number of terms, becoming the most important ones for the indexing task.