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Unit 2: Library Classification

A year before the Library’s move to its new location, the Joint Library Committee held a session of Notes
hearings to assess the condition of the Library and plan for its future growth and possible
reorganization. Spofford and six experts sent by the American Library Association, including future
Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam and Melvil Dewey of the New York State Library, testified
before the committee that the Library should continue its expansion towards becoming a true national
library.
Based on the hearings and with the assistance of Senators Justin Morrill of Vermont and Daniel
Voorhees of Indiana, Congress more than doubled the Library’s staff from 42 to 108 and established
new administrative units for all aspects of the Library’s collection. Congress also strengthened the
office of Librarian of Congress to govern the Library and make staff appointments, as well as requiring
Senate approval for presidential appointees to the position.

Post-reorganization (1897–1939)
The Library of Congress, spurred by the 1897 reorganization, began to grow and develop more
rapidly. Spofford’s successor John Russell Young, though only in office for two years, overhauled
the Library’s bureaucracy, used his connections as a former diplomat to acquire more materials
from around the world, and established the Library’s first assistance programmes for the blind and
physically disabled.
Young’s successor Herbert Putnam held the office for forty years from 1899 to 1939, entering into
the position two years before the Library became the first in the United States to hold one million
volumes. Putnam focused his efforts on making the Library more accessible and useful for the
public and for other libraries. He instituted the interlibrary loan service, transforming the Library
of Congress into what he referred to as a “library of last resort”. Putnam also expanded Library
access to “scientific investigators and duly qualified individuals” and began publishing primary
sources for the benefit of scholars.
Putnam’s tenure also saw increasing diversity in the Library’s acquisitions. In 1903 he persuaded
President Theodore Roosevelt to transfer by executive order the papers of the Founding Fathers
from the State Department to the Library of Congress. Putnam expanded foreign acquisitions as
well, including the 1904 purchase of a four-thousand volume library of Indica, the 1906 purchase of
G. V. Yudin’s eighty-thousand volume Russian library, the 1908 Schatz collection of early opera
librettos, and the early 1930s purchase of the Russian Imperial Collection, consisting of 2,600 volumes
from the library of the Romanov family on a variety of topics.

In 1903, Herbert Putnam persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt to transfer
the executive order by the papers of the founding fathers from the state
Department to the library of congress.

2.7 Bliss Bibliographic Classification

The Bliss bibliographic classification (BC) is a library classification system that was created by Henry
E. Bliss (1870–1955), published in four volumes between 1940 and 1953. Although originally devised
in the United States, it was more commonly adopted by British libraries than by American ones. A
second edition of the system (BC2) has been developed in Britain since 1977.
The Bibliographic Classification (BC2 or Bliss) is the leading example of a fully faceted classification
scheme. It provides a detailed classification for use in libraries and information services of all kinds,
having a broad and detailed structure and order.

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