Page 106 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Unit 5: Universal Decimal Classification (UDC)

5.9 Comparisons with Special Classifications Notes

UDC was begun in 1895 by two Belgian lawyers, Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, for the
classification of a huge catalogue of the world’s literature in all fields of knowledge. Otlet wrote
in 1897 that “this repertory will consist of an inventory of all that has been written at all times
in all languages, and on all subjects, a kind of artificial brain dealing with everything.”12 Otlet
and La Fontaine dreamed of universal peace coming through the help of hyper-documentation.
Although they did not see either world peace or completion of an inventory of knowledge, their
dream of a repertory of the world’s knowledge may be coming to pass on the World Wide Web.
UDC was based on the DDC (then in its fifth edition) but was, with Dewey’s permission, expanded
by the addition of many more detailed subdivisions and the use of typographical signs to
indicate complex subjects and what we know today as facets. DDC’s decimal notation was
retained (except for final zeros), but for long numbers a decimal is placed after every third digit,
e.g. 546.791.027*238 (the number for elements, with *238 being the atomic number for uranium).
The 10 main classes as well as some subdivisions are still the same in UDC as they are in DDC,
but class 4 (i.e., DDC 400) has been amalgamated with class 8 and is currently vacant. Many
major and almost all minor subdivisions are now quite different from those in DDC. The main
difference lies, however, in the synthetic structure of UDC. A work dealing with two or more
subjects can be classed by two or more UDC class notations, linked by a colon sign (the most
commonly used of the typographical symbols), as in the following example:
362.1: 658.3: 681.31 Hospital: Personnel management: Computers
For a work on the use of computers in the management of hospital personnel. Such a class
notation is, however, not a “call number” but is intended for a classified catalogue in which each
of the three class notations may serve as an access point, while the other two are shown in
rotation, e.g.:
658.3: 681.31: 362.1
681.31: 362.1: 658.3
If UDC is to be used for shelf classification, one of the three class notations may be chosen as a
call number for a work on this complex subject. UDC’s faceted structure has its roots in DDC’s
device for indication of place, namely, the intercalation of –09 followed by the class notation for
a country or region, e.g., –0973 for the United States. UDC uses many of the same place notations
as DDC but encloses them in parentheses. For example, “plant cultivation in the U.S.” is 631.50973
in DDC but 631.5(73) in UDC (note that the main class notation is the same in both). In addition
to the place facet UDC also has specific symbols and notations for the language of a work, its
physical form, nationalities and peoples, time periods, materials, persons, specific points of
view, and recurring subdivisions in certain classes, all of which can be appended to basic notations
either alone or in combination, as in the following example:
631.5 Plant cultivation—written in Russian
631.5(038) —Glossary
631.5"17" —18th century
631.5(= 97) (85) —By American Indians in Peru

Due to this highly faceted structure and largely expressive notation the UDC has been used
successfully in computerized information retrieval. UDC schedules were first published from
1904 to 1907 in French, followed later by full editions in English. UDC has since been published
in whole or in part in 23 languages. It is widely used in many countries where English is the
main or a co-official language (e.g., the British Isles, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India) and
in countries using other languages (e.g., Germany, Japan, Russia, Spanish speaking countries).

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