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The Bliss bibliographic classification (BC) is a library classification system that was created by Henry E. Bliss (1870–1955) and published in four volumes between 1940 and 1953. Although originally devised in the United States, it was more commonly adopted by British libraries. A second edition of the system (BC2) has been in ongoing development in Britain since 1977.
The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject. It was first published in the United States by Melvil Dewey in 1876. Originally described in a 44-page pamphlet, it has been expanded to multiple volumes and revised through 23 major editions, the latest printed in 2011. It is also available in an abridged version suitable for smaller libraries. OCLC, a non-profit cooperative that serves libraries, currently maintains the system and licenses online access to WebDewey, a continuously updated version for catalogers.
The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress in the United States, which can be used for shelving books in a library. LCC is mainly used by large research and academic libraries, while most public libraries and small academic libraries used the Dewey Decimal Classification system. The classification was developed by James Hanson, with assistance from Charles Martel, in 1897, while they were working at the Library of Congress. It was designed specifically for the purposes and collection of the Library of Congress to replace the fixed location system developed by Thomas Jefferson.
A library classification is a system of organization of knowledge in which sources are arranged according to the classification scheme and ordered very systematically. Library classifications are a notational system that represents the order of topics in the classification and allows items to be stored in the order of classification. Library classification systems group related materials together, typically arranged as a hierarchical tree structure. A different kind of classification system, called a faceted classification system, is also widely used, which allows the assignment of multiple classifications to an object, enabling the classifications to be ordered in many ways.
A library catalog is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations. A catalog for a group of libraries is also called a union catalog. A bibliographic item can be any information entity that is considered library material, or a group of library materials, or linked from the catalog as far as it is relevant to the catalog and to the users (patrons) of the library.
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan was a librarian and mathematician from India. His most notable contributions to the field were his five laws of library science and the development of the first major faceted classification system, the colon classification. He is considered to be the father of library science, documentation, and information science in India and is widely known throughout the rest of the world for his fundamental thinking in the field. His birthday is observed every year as the National Librarian Day in India.
Charles Ammi Cutter was an American librarian. In the 1850s and 1860s he assisted with the re-cataloging of the Harvard College library, producing America's first public card catalog. The card system proved more flexible for librarians and far more useful to patrons than the old method of entering titles in chronological order in large books. In 1868 he joined the Boston Athenaeum, making its card catalog an international model. Cutter promoted centralized cataloging of books, which became the standard practice at the Library of Congress. He was elected to leadership positions in numerous library organizations at the local and national level. Cutter is remembered for the Cutter Expansive Classification, his system of giving standardized classification numbers to each book, and arranging them on shelves by that number so that books on similar topics would be shelved together.
A faceted classification is a classification scheme used in organizing knowledge into a systematic order. A faceted classification uses semantic categories, either general or subject-specific, that are combined to create the full classification entry. Many library classification systems use a combination of a fixed, enumerative taxonomy of concepts with subordinate facets that further refine the topic.
Henry Evelyn Bliss was the author of a classification system he called Bibliographic Classification which is often abbreviated to BC and is sometimes called Bliss Classification. He was named one of the 100 most important leaders in the field of library and Information science in the 20th century by American Libraries in December 1999, which praised his “subject approach to information” as “one of the most flexible ever conceived.” Despite these praises, Bliss was “met with apathy and even derision in his efforts” during his lifetime. His classification system was generally disregarded in favor of other more established classification systems such as the Dewey Decimal System created by Melvil Dewey and the Library of Congress Classification system, causing “more than one author” to label him as a, “prophet without honor.” Although Bliss was an American, his system was more popular in British libraries than in American libraries. A second edition of the system has been developed in the United Kingdom in 1977. Several volumes have been published.
In library and information science, cataloging (US) or cataloguing (UK) is the process of creating metadata representing information resources, such as books, sound recordings, moving images, etc. Cataloging provides information such as author's names, titles, and subject terms that describe resources, typically through the creation of bibliographic records. The records serve as surrogates for the stored information resources. Since the 1970s these metadata are in machine-readable form and are indexed by information retrieval tools, such as bibliographic databases or search engines. While typically the cataloging process results in the production of library catalogs, it also produces other types of discovery tools for documents and collections.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to library and information science:
Robert Singerman is a librarian, and a recognized Judaica bibliographer. He is often cited by Judaica rare book dealers. He holds the position of University Librarian, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, where he was the bibliographer for Jewish Studies, Anthropology, and Linguistics.
Knowledge organization (KO), organization of knowledge, organization of information, or information organization, is an intellectual discipline concerned with activities such as document description, indexing, and classification that serve to provide systems of representation and order for knowledge and information objects. According to The Organization of Information by Joudrey and Taylor, information organization:
examines the activities carried out and tools used by people who work in places that accumulate information resources for the use of humankind, both immediately and for posterity. It discusses the processes that are in place to make resources findable, whether someone is searching for a single known item or is browsing through hundreds of resources just hoping to discover something useful. Information organization supports a myriad of information-seeking scenarios.
Ernest Cushing Richardson was an American librarian, theologian and scholar. Throughout his life Richardson strived to make advances in cataloging systems and increased access to necessary research materials in U.S. libraries. He was named one of the "100 Most Important Leaders [Librarians] had in the 20th Century" by American Libraries in 1999.
In library and information science documents are classified and searched by subject – as well as by other attributes such as author, genre and document type. This makes "subject" a fundamental term in this field. Library and information specialists assign subject labels to documents to make them findable. There are many ways to do this and in general there is not always consensus about which subject should be assigned to a given document. To optimize subject indexing and searching, we need to have a deeper understanding of what a subject is. The question: "what is to be understood by the statement 'document A belongs to subject category X'?" has been debated in the field for more than 100 years
Jack Mills was a British librarian and classification researcher, who worked for more than sixty years in the study, teaching, development and promotion of library classification and information retrieval, principally as a major figure in the British school of facet analysis which builds on the traditions of Henry E. Bliss and S.R. Ranganathan.
Ingetraut Dahlberg was a German information scientist and philosopher who developed the universal Information Coding Classification covering some 6,500 subject fields. Her career spanned various roles in research, teaching, editing, and publishing. Dahlberg founded the journal International Classification as well as both the scientific Society for Classification and International Society for Knowledge Organization.
The British National Bibliography (BNB) was established at the British Museum in 1949 to publish a list of the books, journals and serials that are published in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. It also includes information on forthcoming titles. This is the single most comprehensive listing of UK titles. UK and Irish publishers are obliged by legal deposit to send a copy of all new publications, including serial titles, to the BNB for listing. The BNB publishes the list weekly in electronic form: the last printed weekly list appeared in December 2011.
Pauline Atherton Cochrane is an American librarian and one of the most highly cited authors in the field of library and information sciences. She is considered a leading researcher in the campaign to redesign catalogues and indexes to provide improved online subject access in library and information services as well as "a leading teacher and theorist in cataloging, indexing, and information access."
Hans Hanan Wellisch was a librarian, LIS educator, and indexer known for his work with the International Federation for Documentation, contributing to the Universal Decimal Classification. He headed the committee which translated the abridgement of the UDC into Hebrew and was the compiler of the index to the system.
References
- ↑ "Cataloging News". Cataloging & Classification Quarterly. 33 (1).
In Memoriam: Derek Austin (b. 1921) died May 22, 2001. His work influenced the principles and practice of indexing and thesaurus construction. His career included membership in the [UK] Classification Research Group, and the creation of the PRECIS system. Austin received many awards including the first Ranganathan Award (1976) from FID/CR and the Documentation Research and Training Centre (Bangalore), and the Margaret Mann Citation (1978) from the American Library Association. In "Derek Austin: Developing PRECIS, Preserved Context Index System" (v.25 no.2-3, pp 23–66), also published in Portraits in Cataloging and Classification: Theorists, Educators, and Practitioners of the Late Twentieth Century, he describes his career, the contentment he found in retirement, and concludes with reasons he believed that librarians will become more rather than less necessary in the future
- 1 2 3 Larsen, Poul Steen (August 2001). "Obituary: Derek Austin". LA Record. 103 (8): 498. ISSN 0024-2195.
- ↑ Hjørland, Birger (5 December 2007). "PRECIS (Preserved Context Index System)". Lifeboat for Knowledge Organization. Archived from the original on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 13 November 2011.
- ↑ Henderson, Kathryn Luther, ed. (1975). "Contributors". 1975: Major classification systems : the Dewey Centennial (PDF). 21st Allerton Park Institute.
DEREK AUSTIN worked in public libraries for a number of years, usually as a reference librarian or a subject specialist, learning, as he says, "the hard way how to use indexes and classifications, and generally being disillusioned with existing schemes." From 1963 to 1967, he served as subject editor at the British National Bibliography, "learning as a practitioner just how difficult it is to make a good index or classification." Under the auspices of the NATO Science Foundation and the Classification Research Group, he worked on research into general principles for a new bibliographic classification from 1967 to 1969. From 1969 to 1973 he served as Principal Investigator for the PRECIS Project (UK MARC) trying to translate the general principles into practice. Since 1974, he has served as Head, Subject Systems Office, The British Library.
