Page 111 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Knowledge Organization: Classification and Cataloguing Theory

Notes
was able to provide bibliographic records for the majority of collections. It would be,
however, wrong to make any hasty generalizations. Just as libraries are slow to adopt a
system, they are equally slow to abandon it, notwithstanding the comparative quality of
UDC itself. Expansion of library networks nationally and internationally favours the
dominant classification system within the region and in some parts of world this may be
UDC, while in others this cannot be the case. In addition, resource discovery on the
Internet and a trend in the merging and federation of large digital and hybrid collections
on a national and international level, contributed to the interest in classification with yet
uncertain impact. These changes in the information environment have coincided with the
changes in UDC ownership, management and distribution since 1992 which, all together,
makes it more relevant to seek up-to-date information on UDC users.
Questions

1. Critically analyse the above case.
2. Write down the case facts.
3. What do you infer from the case?
Source:http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/bitstream/10150/105579/1/UDCuse_
aidaslavic_preprint.pdf

5.11 Summary

Dewey developed and used his scheme in the library of Amherst College, Massachusetts,
and it was published in 1876.

The idea outgrew the plan of mere translation, and a number of radical innovations were
made, adapting the purely enumerative classification (in which all the subjects envisaged
are already listed and coded) into one, which allows for synthesis (the construction of
compound numbers to denote interrelated subjects that could never be exhaustively
foreseen).

Interest in UDC in the United Kingdom was particularly promoted by the enthusiasm of
Dr S C Bradford (1878-1948), who was keeper of the Science Museum Library from 1925 to
1937, and responsible for its adoption of UDC in 1928.

The UDCC assumed ownership of the scheme on 1 January 1992. Its first priority was the
creation of a database of 60,000 entries, known as the Master Reference File (MRF), which
was completed in the spring of 1993 and is now the authoritative statement of the content
of UDC.

The MRF is updated annually in accordance with amendments agreed during the year by
the Revision Group.

UDC can be used, alike other library classifications, for simple shelf arrangement (to any
arbitrary level of specificity/complexity) but is often chosen as a tool by special libraries
and bibliographic services for its strength in detailed indexing.

UDC’s most innovative and influential feature is its ability to express not just simple
subjects but relations between subjects.
The symbols chosen for UDC notation are non-language-dependent, and universally
recognizable - the Arabic numerals, supplemented by a few other signs familiar from
mathematics and ordinary punctuation.

The publication of Alphabetical Subject Index was issued in 1988.

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