Page 16 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Unit 1: Concept of Library Classification

system in which knowledge fields are related and inter-linked. UDC codes can Notes
describe any type of document or object to any desired level of detail. These can
include textual documents and other media such as films, video and sound
recordings, illustrations, maps as well as realia such as museum objects.

Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC): Dewey Decimal System first classifies books into
nine broad categories, each identified by a number in the hundreds.

Example: Books on religion start are in the 200s; books on social sciences are in the 300s.
Numbers are assigned within those categories; for example, 201 are for books on the
philosophy of Christianity. Some topics use the 10s column for subdivision; for
example, books on law are in the 340s; books on criminal law start with 345. Further
division of categories is done by adding decimal numbers. A library assigns a DDC
number that unambiguously locates a particular volume to within a short length of
shelving which makes it easy to find any particular book and return it to its proper
place on the library shelves.

Did u know? The system is used in 200,000 libraries in at least 135 countries.
Library of Congress Classification (LCC): The Library of Congress Classification (LCC)
is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress. It is used
by most research and academic libraries in the U.S. and several other countries,
including Taiwan, ROC. Most public libraries and small academic libraries continue
to use the older Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). Indeed, the Taipei public
library in ROC uses Dewey for English-language books. The classification was
invented by Herbert Putnam in 1897, just before he assumed the librarianship of
Congress. With advice from Charles Ammi Cutter, it was influenced by his Cutter
Expansive Classification (developed in the 1880s) and by the DDC, Dewey (from
1876). It was designed specifically for the purposes and collection of the Library of
Congress to replace the fixed location system developed by Thomas Jefferson. By
the time Putnam departed from his post in 1939, all the classes except K (Law) and
parts of B (Philosophy and Religion) were well developed.
The use of a universal, multidisciplinary classification scheme in an Internet context could
result in the following advantages:

They can cover all subject areas.
They are widely supported.
Continuous updating.
User familiarity.
Multilingual access to a collection.
Availability in machine-readable form. (Since most of them are available in machine
readable forms.)
Universal classification schemes, however, are subject to several criticisms:
Rigid or false ontology: The limitations of enumerated classification numbers had
given birth to more flexible analytico-synthetic classification schemes like CC.
Delay in updating and adding new subject areas.
Further no classification scheme is able to fully represent the Universe of Knowledge.

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