Page 29 - DLIS103_LIBRARY_CLASSIFICATION_AND_CATALOGUING_THEORY

Library Classification and Cataloguing Theory

Notes (v) Main features: UDC is owned, managed, maintained, and distributed by an international
consortium of publishers with its headquarters in The Hague. Its editorial team comprises
six Associate Editors lead by an Editor-in-Chief and supported by the UDC's Advisory
Board of over 20 members. Salient features of UDC are:
UDC is a practical bibliographic classification, truly international in efforts and
exposition of contents. It is considered as the first faceted classification and a syn-
thetic classification which is able to specify minute subjects, aspects, formats and
their varied viewpoints.
It is the first officially internationally used classification system being published in
French, German and English.
Its notation is independent of any particular language or script , and its translations
have appeared in about 39 languages.
It lays more emphasis on subject analysis and document specification.
Its auxiliary apparatus of relations and synthesis is quite powerful. This makes the
UDC a truly multidimensional scheme.
It is more suitable for micro documents, electronic information and information
retrieval in online and networked databases, and websites.
Its structure is flexible to accommodate new subjects, and change citation order for
flexibility of shelf arrangement and searching.
(vi) Organization of knowledge and layout of the schedules: It is a general classification covering
the whole domain of knowledge. As already said, it has borrowed its basic structure from
its parent, the DDC, with the exception of merging main classes 4 with 8 literatures.
The main class 4 is still vacant. The main classes thus are:
Generalities
Philosophy; Psychology
Religion Theology
Social Sciences
[Vacant]
Natural Sciences; Mathematics
Technology
The Arts
Language; Linguistics; Literature
Geography; Biography; History Unlike the DDC there is no condition of minimum
of three digits in a class number.
(vii) Common auxiliary tables: Any number from the main table can be extended by notation
from auxiliary tables, which are of two types, (i) Common auxiliaries: universally appli-
cable to all classes; and (ii) special auxiliaries: applicable restrictively or locally.
(viii) Notation and Layout: The UDC notation is a mix of decimal numbers, punctuation signs,
and symbols with permissible use of alphabets, or other non-UDC symbols. The use of
decimal notation has made it a truly international classification with many technical
advantages. It is hierarchical, expressive, hospitable, mnemonic, faceted and synthetic.
Layout of the abridged edition (2003) explained here is that of the pocket edition (1999). In
this edition instead of verbal signs, following symbols independent of language have been
used to give notes and inst ructions under an entry in the schedules.
(ix) Index: Current terminology uses British spellings and idiom. In the index of the abridged
edition there are 9500 main and 3500 subentries making a total of 13,000 entree contained
in 107 pages. It gives an average of three access points per entry in the tables. Index entry
is culled from the electronic files are arranged in word-by-word order to conform to the BS
ISO 999 Standard. Specific names are entered following AACR 2 specifications. It includes
all the principal divisions, inclusion notes, common and special auxiliaries and built - in
compound numbers.

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