=CLASSIFICATION.=
=Definition.=—Classification consists of putting like things together.
We do this every day, and the classification of books is only one
special phase of this general process. Thus, a man who owns a hardware
store does not place his goods helter skelter,—a stove, a box of
nails, some saws and then a furnace, but he runs over his stock and
classifies it, putting stoves in one place, nails in another. By this
classification he gains two things: first, he can find any one thing he
wants more quickly; secondly, he can tell how much of any one article
he has on hand and so decide whether he must lay in a new supply.
Likewise, the zoologist classifies all members of the animal kingdom,
so that he can learn what the different kinds of animals are and
study the relationship between them. Without the help afforded by
classification he would be overwhelmed by the immense number of facts
brought before him and without the aid of classification he would never
have known of evolution, the guiding star of modern investigation.
=First Principles.=—In our every-day life we lose much time hunting
for things for which we have no definite place. We have put them in the
place which was most convenient for us at the moment when we put them
away. Think for yourself how it is with your knowledge. From
observation, from conversation, from reading, you learn a little about
many subjects like electricity, botany, astronomy or politics, but in
this desultory way you do not learn very much about any one of these
subjects. Therefore you do not feel any special need of classifying
your information, but when you take up any of these subjects and pursue
it seriously you learn thousands of facts and relations, and then is
the time that you feel the need of some plan of arrangement of your
knowledge.
=Private vs. Institutional Libraries.=—One has the same experience in
regard to books. A person having a library of from fifty to three
hundred books does not feel the need of classifying them. The ordinary
arrangement is based upon size, color or convenience. The books in the
average house are so placed as to look their best. The classification,
as far as it exists, is an esthetic one. The owner knows the
exact appearance of every volume in his library and when he wants
Longfellow’s poems he can tell at a glance where it is. In a small
private library there is no occasion for all the history being in one
place or all the poems in another. As the library grows, the esthetic
principle of classification can be followed until the owner can no
longer readily remember how each book looks.
But our institutional libraries contain so many books that the
librarian cannot know them in the same way that he can the books in his
own private library and consequently he has to study the question of
classification and devise a method by which not only he, but his
assistants and also such readers as have access to the books, can
readily find them as wanted. Classification, the putting of like things
together, would, therefore, mean in a large library, putting histories
together in one place, the medical books together in another place, and
so with all other distinctive subjects. Each of these large classes
will, however, have to be subdivided. Thus, histories of Greece are put
together in one place, histories of Rome in another, histories of the
United States in still another. The subdivision in the larger libraries
is carried still farther and books on the period of the discovery of
America are put first, followed by books on the Colonial period of the
United States, the Revolutionary War, etc. United States history, if
well represented, is classified geographically. This process of
subdivision into separate groups of books on each state can be carried
still farther if necessary.
=Advantages of Classification.=—The following questions may arise:
What advantages come from the classification, and who are benefited?
The advantages come to those having access to the books. If one goes to
a library to get a volume by Arnold Bennett it makes no difference to
the individual whether the library is classified or not if he cannot go
to the shelves and pick out the book for himself. Likewise, if he wants
Young’s Astronomy he will probably get the book more quickly if he asks
the attendant to get it than if he tries to get it himself, supposing
he does have access to the shelves. But the time when the reader gets
the most help from the classification is when he wants to examine a
number of books on astronomy and can go to the shelves and find the
books on that subject all in one place. Then he can easily find what
different writers have to say about the habitability of Mars or he can
find what book appeals to him as being the most interesting and can
borrow it for home use. Any investigator finds access to the shelves of
a well classified library an immense help.
=An Aid to the Librarian.=—Another person who is greatly benefited by
classification is the librarian, and it is just as important that he be
helped as that the reader be helped. He is, however, helped in a
different way. He knows what the system of classification in use in the
library is and with the outlines of this scheme in mind he goes through
the library and finds out where it is strong and where it is weak and
can plan future purchases accordingly. If, for example, he finds on the
shelves little of value on photography he will make a note of it and
buy more books on that subject when funds are available. If he finds
that there is an undue supply of travel on hand, he will note that also
and buy fewer books in that class in the future. Without the help of
classification the librarian would overlook many such irregularities.
In an unclassified library they would be discovered only through a long
and tedious investigation. His only recourse would be the catalog and
that is not so well adapted to answer such questions.
=Basis of Classification.=—The next question is, what shall be the
basis of classification. It is obvious that this basis should be sought
in the character of the books themselves and should be applied with
constant reference to the reader and his needs. In regard to the first
point, character of the books, we know that books have been written on
all kinds of subjects,—religion, law, history, medicine, etc. and that
those subjects form the only rational basis for classification. A
classification based on these distinctions is the only one that helps
the reader. If a man comes to the library to investigate a particular
point in medicine, it is clear that it will help him if he finds all
the medical books together rather than all the books grouped according
to their date of purchase by the library.
=Present Tendency.=—Many schemes have been devised for the classification
of books, some very simple, others extremely elaborate. The present
tendency is to adopt the more elaborate classification. Formerly
most libraries were not classified at all, but the books were
arranged in the order in which they were received, the only grouping of
the books being in such cases one based on size,—folios in one place,
quartos in another, in order to save shelf room. Assuming that the
books in the library were numbered according to the date of their
accession from one up to, say, twenty thousand, it is clear that the
reader could find a book by a particular writer quickly enough by
looking up its number in the catalog, but if he had wished to consult
thirty books on one subject, it would be a very tedious operation and
most readers would not take the time for it.
=Simple forms of Classification.=—The most common plan in English
libraries is a modification of this scheme. The books are divided into
about ten classes and the books in each class are arranged in the order
in which they are received. The classes are distinguished by capital
letters. An example said to be very common in England, is as follows.
A. Theology and philosophy.
B. History and biography.
C. Travel and topography.
D. Law, politics, commerce.
E. Arts and sciences.
F. Fiction.
G. Philology.
H. Poetry and drama.
J. Juvenile.
K. Miscellaneous and magazines.
As an illustration of the way a book is marked in this scheme, B 2574
might be Green’s “History of the English people.” This book is marked
B. because it is a history. It is marked 2574 because there were
already 2573 books in this class at the time this book was added. This
mark, B 2574, is a very simple one and to that extent satisfactory. The
scheme is a great advance over the preceding one, because it brings the
books of a kind together. Since there are ten classes in this scheme,
it is evident that if a reader wishes to see all the books on one
subject he will have to examine only one-tenth of the library instead
of the whole of it, but even this is not felt to be minute enough. If
the library contains 200,000 volumes one class would contain, on the
average, 20,000 volumes, which is altogether too great a collection to
search through. If Green’s “History of the English people” were marked
B 2574, the next book might be Robinson’s “History of Peru,” marked B
2575, which is of course a very different subject. The case is still
worse in class E, which includes fine arts, useful arts and all the
sciences, so that a book on chemistry might stand between a book on
medicine and one on Raphael. This would not satisfy the reading public
of to-day,—nor the modern librarian. The classes F, fiction, and J,
juvenile, are not so bad; there is not so great a difference between
the books in these classes. They are used more by people seeking
recreation, rather than by those looking for definite titles. Jacob
Abbott wrote some two hundred juvenile books and many of these might be
scattered among the large class J. In class F, fiction, the English,
French, and German authors would all be thrown together. This would be
a disadvantage for any one desiring to read along a particular line.
=Open vs. Close Classification.=—The question of open vs. close
classification is an important one. By open classification we mean one
without minute subdivisions. An illustration of open classification is
the scheme of ten classes described above. As an extreme case of open
classification mention may be made of the theological library in which
only two classes were used, the one class containing the books that
were sound in their theology, the other the books that were unsound.
At the present time the tendency is towards close classification. It is
a necessity in large libraries and an advantage in small ones. In this
country the two great authorities on classification are Charles A.
Cutter and Melvil Dewey. Both have devised and published schemes of
classification which are generally recognized as having many excellent
features. In both schemes the classification admits of very minute
subdivisions. Dewey says that if the library has only one book on a
certain minute subject, that book ought to be put in its own special
class. It does not matter if there is no other book in the class. No
one can fully understand what is meant by close classification until he
has had considerable experience in classifying books. You can pick up
the printed scheme of classification and run your eye over the numbers,
but you will get comparatively little from them until you try to apply
them.
=Minute Bibliographical Classification.=—The following is a very
important distinction in regard to close classification which should be
carefully noted. It is one thing to classify books, but it is quite a
different thing to classify articles in magazines for the bibliography
of a subject. Magazine articles may be classified far more minutely
than books can be. Take, for example, the Bibliographia Geologica, in
which references are made to articles in geological magazines and
publications of geological societies. Here the articles are classified
according to Dewey. Dewey’s class 551 means physical geology. In this
bibliography there is a particular article marked 551.795,513,111,044.
That is to say the general subject of physical geology is subdivided in
one-trillionth parts and this article is assigned to one of those
parts. If one should apply for a library position and be told that he
should have to classify the books as closely as this, he would probably
never get the position. If he were given this article to classify, he
would just as likely as not put it ten billion points out of the way.
As a matter of fact, this bibliography is compiled by a number of
experts in geology. There are similar bibliographies of botany, zoology
and other natural sciences, all minutely classified and all compiled by
experts.
The reason that books cannot be as closely classified as magazine
articles is that they generally deal with broader topics. In the
average library it does not pay to classify books more minutely than is
warranted by the general run of books in the class in which these books
are to be assigned. In this regard, a distinction must be made between
libraries. The Library of Congress has devised a classification of its
own which is very minute, and a number of classifiers are employed to
look after the different fields in which they are more or less expert.
In this way, classification can be carried to the extreme limit of
closeness. Nothing keeps one more modest than classifying, for one is
continually brought face to face with things that one does not know,
and so many things of which one knows so little.
=The Dewey Decimal Classification.= The decimal classification is used
in this country and in Europe. It is suitable for both large and
small collections of books and for indexing. In many schemes of
classification letters are used to denote the classes, in others a
combination of letters and figures. Dewey uses only figures.
Dewey developed his system in 1873 and published it in 1876. Numbers of
three figures were used to denote the classes. Since then it has been
found desirable to subdivide much more minutely and this has been done
with increasing minuteness in the seven editions that have followed the
one of 1876. A general outline of Dewey is here given.
000 General works
100 Philosophy
200 Religion
300 Sociology
400 Philology
500 Science
600 Useful arts
700 Fine arts
800 Literature
900 History
Each of these is divided into ten sections, e. g.
500 Science
510 Mathematics
520 Astronomy
530 Physics
540 Chemistry
550 Geology
560 Paleontology
570 Biology
580 Botany
590 Zoology
Each of these is divided into ten sections, e. g.
530 Physics
531 Mechanics
532 Hydraulics
533 Pneumatics
534 Sound
535 Light
536 Heat
537 Electricity
538 Magnetism
539 Molecular physics.
These sections are still further subdivided until the requisite degree
of minuteness is reached. The system has various mnemonic features
which are helpful. Every figure has a meaning. An alphabetical list of
all these meanings is appended to the classification. Thus after the
word Hydraulics is 532, showing where to look in the classification for
this subject. All books on hydraulics receive the number 532 and are
together on the shelves. This fact illustrates one great advantage of
the Dewey system, that as the library grows the new books can be placed
with the corresponding old ones without re-marking the old ones, while
in the fixed location system the books are marked to certain
localities, and when moved by reason of growth of the library have to
be re-marked. This re-marking includes not only the books but also the
cards referring to the books. The re-marking is very costly and very
unsatisfactory. In Dewey’s system the books in any one class are
arranged according to some method. In most classes an alphabetical
arrangement by the names of the authors is simplest and best.
In scientific classes some librarians prefer the chronological
arrangement. In any case it should be clear and simple.
=Relative Location.=—“With a movable location all new books fall at
once into their proper places like the cards which are added to a card
catalog, and the new-comers push the other books along on the shelf,
just as new cards push the others along in the drawer. The consequence
is that a book which is here to-day may be on the next shelf in a month
or in the next alcove in a year; and the local memory, which is a great
help in finding books quickly is disturbed. The only remedy that I can
see for this is to substitute a subject memory for a local memory, to
get a habit of thinking of a book as belonging to a certain class
instead of as on a certain shelf (a much more rational memory, by the
way), and then to make it very easy to find the classes. This last is
not hard to accomplish. A class memory can be cultivated and may be
assisted by local memory which will find books by their position
relative to other books, instead of by their position relative to
alcoves and shelves, or doors and windows.”—C. A. Cutter.