Page 31 - DLIS405_INFORMATION_STORAGE_AND_RETRIEVAL

Information Storage and Retrieval

Notes The vocabulary in each class is comprehensive and complemented by an exceptionally brief faceted
notation considering the detail available, providing indexing to any depth the classifier wishes.
The structure of the subject within each class is clearly and simply laid out with rules provided for
the quick and consistent placing of any item. A thorough A-Z index is provided in each volume.
Users can access a subject catalogue record via any part of the whole, depending upon the primary
interest of the user.

BC1
The Classification (known as BC) was originally devised by Henry Evelyn Bliss and was first
published in four volumes in the USA between 1940 and 1953. Bliss stated that one of the purposes
of the Classification was to “demonstrate that a coherent and comprehensive system, based on the
logical principles of classification and consistent with the systems of science and education, may be
available to services in libraries, “to aid revision ... of long established ... classifications” and to
provide an “adaptable, efficient and economical classification, notation and index.” A fundamental
principle is the idea of subordination - each specific subject is subordinated to the appropriate general
one. This version of the classification is now known as BC1.
BC1 was first applied in broad outline at the College of the City of New York (where Bliss was
librarian) in 1902. The full scheme followed the publication of two massive theoretical works on the
organization of knowledge. Its main feature was the carefully designed main class order, reflecting
the Comptean principle of gradation in specialty. Work on a radical revision of BC1, incorporating
the great advances in logical facet analysis initiated by Ranganathan and developed by the
Classification Research Group in Britain, began in the early 1970s.

Origins of the System

Bliss was born in New York in 1870 and in 1891 began work in the library of the College of the City
of New York (now City College of the City University of New York).
Bliss had a lifelong interest in the organization, structure and philosophy of knowledge and was
very critical of the library classification systems that were available to him. He believed that because
the popular Library of Congress system had been designed for a specific library (the Library of
Congress) it had no use as a standard system outside that library. He also greatly disliked the Dewey
Decimal system.
Bliss wanted a classification system that would provide distinct rules yet still be adaptable to
whatever kind of collection a library might have, as different libraries have different needs. His
solution was the concept of “alternative location,” in which a particular subject could be put in
more than one place, as long as the library made a specific choice and used it consistently.
In 1908 Bliss reclassified 60,000 of his library’s books, and in 1910 he published an article with a
rough scheme of his general ideas. But as he continued to develop his system he realized that it was
going to be a much larger project than he had anticipated. The first of his four volumes appeared in
1940 (the year he retired) and the last in 1953, two years before his death.

Some of the underlying policies of the BC system were:
Alternative location
Brief, concise notation
Organizing knowledge according to academic expertise
Subjects moving gradually from topic to topic as they naturally related to one another.

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