Page 27 - DLIS405_INFORMATION_STORAGE_AND_RETRIEVAL

Information Storage and Retrieval

Notes Dewey Decimal Classification, but uses auxiliary signs to indicate various special aspects of a subject
and relationships between subjects. It thus contains a significant faceted or analytic-synthetic element,
and is used especially in specialist libraries. UDC has been modified and extended through the
years to cope with the increasing output in all disciplines of human knowledge, and is still under
continuous review to take account of new developments.

The documents classified by UDC may be in any form. They will often be literature, i.e.
written documents, but may also be in other media such as films, video and sound
recordings, illustrations, maps, and realia such as museum pieces.
UDC classifications use Arabic numerals and are based on the decimal system. Every number is
thought of as a decimal fraction with the initial decimal point omitted, which determines filing
order. For ease of reading, a UDC identifier is usually punctuated after every third digit. Thus, after
61 “Medical sciences” come the subdivisions 611 to 619; under 611 “Anatomy” come its subdivisions
611.1 to 611.9; under 611.1 come all of its subdivisions before 611.2 occurs, and so on; after 619
comes 620. An advantage of this system is that it is infinitely extensible, and when new subdivisions
are introduced, they need not disturb the existing allocation of numbers.

The Main Categories

0. generalities
1. philosophy, psychology
2. religion, theology
3. social sciences
4. Philosophy, Linguistics, Languages
5. natural sciences
6. technology
7. the arts
8. language, linguistics, literature
9. geography, biography, history
A document may be classified under a combination of different categories through the use of
additional symbols. For example:
Symbol Symbole name Meaning Example

+ plus addition e.g., 59 + 636 zoology and animal breeding
/ stroke extension e.g., 592/599 Systematic zoology (everything from
592 to 599 inclusive)
: colon relation e.g., 17:7 Relation of ethics to art

[ ] square algebraic e.g., 311:[622 + 669](485) statistics of mining and
brackets subgrouping metallurgy in Swedn (the auxiliary
qualifies 622 + 669 considered as a unit)
= equals language e.g., = 111 in English; 59 = 111 Zoology, in English

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