Page 150 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Unit 7: Library Classification Canons and Principles

Notes
Acquisition Board for Public Libraries were created which, although with a similar name,
would have totally new goals. Before 1939, the Republican Board had adopted the UDC
but not through legal regulations. There was no desire to legislate this aspect so as not to
hinder the lively growth of libraries. The new Board created in 1939 ratified the adoption
and extension of the UDC but the direction of the activities of the new Board was
diametrically opposed to that of its predecessor. This new Board was committed to a
policy and measures whose dynamics was, basically, the burning of books, 2 control,
purging and repression.

UDC and Legislative Change in the Library Network of Catalonia
During the Spanish Second Republic, an autonomous government had been created for
Catalonia. At the end of the Civil War, the autonomous government of the Generalitat
disappeared and, once again, the Library of Catalonia depended on the Council of
Barcelona, as had occurred during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in 1923. The new
Central Administration set the guidelines for Catalan libraries and, via the aforementioned
decree of 29 July of 1939, the UDC, that is, the 1934 version of the Dewey decimal classification
system, was implemented.
Nevertheless, ten years before, the Decimal System had already been implemented in
Catalonia, with the modifications made in 1905 by the International Bibliography Institute
or, in other words, the version of the Universal Bibliographical Repertoire Manual. This
system was implemented in the Library of Catalonia and throughout the public library
network at the request of the director of the Library of Catalonia and classification teacher
from the Library College of Catalonia, Jordi Rubio Balaguer. In the Library of Catalonia,
the implementation began later, while the latter was transferred during the Civil War
under the direction of Jordi Rubió i Balaguer. However, the final implementation occurred
once the war was over, after 1939, when Rubió had already been dismissed from his post.
So the new guidelines in the recently installed library meant that, in the end, the UDC was
implemented and not the Decimal Classification System. As in the rest of the Spanish
state, Catalan public libraries were subject to the classified collection arrangement in
reading rooms and stacks, though in some cases it was not totally implemented as in
many libraries users did not have direct access to the shelves. Nevertheless, the UDC was
used to organize and distribute the systematic catalogues.

UDC in the Current Spanish Library Scene
Following the end of Franco’s dictatorship, and the introduction of democracy in 1978, a
great change occurred in Spanish legislative and library environment. The decree of
19 May 1989 approved the Regulations for State Public Libraries and the Spanish Library
System which laid down the regulatory standards for the organisation and modus operandi
of state-owned libraries. Regarding the technical processing of collections, the Regulations’
preamble expounded the abolition of the Order of 29 July which had implemented the
Decimal System. The new royal decree did not prescribe the compulsory use of any
classification systems and this was left awaiting new provisions which would regulate the
normalisation and unification of a classification system.
Such new provisions have yet to be issued. In Chapter III, Article 10, the Regulations state:
“Technical and systemization of data. Following a report by the Library Coordinating
Council, the Minister of Culture shall dictate the technical standards for: (a) The drawing-
up of the different types of catalogues listed in the previous article. (Alphabetical catalogue
of authors, subjects, titles and systematic procedure)”. Furthermore, in conjunction with
the administrative decentralisation of the state and the creation of the Autonomous
Regions, between 1979 and 1983, specific competences were created in library matters in
Contd....

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