Of the examples of classification structures that Sperberg-McQueen introduces in his article, his discussion of different classification systems used in cataloguing books immediately made me think back to some of the systems I have encountered. Sperberg-McQueen provides examples of the modes of classifying and separating books under the Dewey Decimal System, a system I am sure many of us encountered in school or public libraries. The classification that UCLA employs, as do many other large libraries, is the Library of Congress system. Someone has already discussed the Dewey Decimal Classification system so I’ll devote my blog post to a bit of the Library of Congress Classification.
The Library of Congress divides works into broad categories that are each ascribed a letter of the alphabet. From there, the primary letter of classification can be followed by another letter that denotes a specific field in that genre of writing. For example, the class ‘N’ refers to fine arts, and a subclass ‘NB’ denotes sculpture while the subclass ‘NK’ refers to decorative arts.
This first letter or first two letters of classification can then be followed directly by a number that also narrows the scope of the subject. Taking the decorative arts subclass ‘NK’ as an example, a book classified as NK 7310 falls within the ‘other art and art industries section’ of decorative arts, more specifically it falls into the ‘metalwork’ category.
At this point any further letters or numbers that follow will specifically reference the work’s title, niche within the field of reference, author, year of publication, edition number, and sometimes whether the work has been translated. To continue the previous example, a book categorized as NK 7310.3 A78 R3813 1985 refers to a book on Art Deco jewelry of the 20th century, written by Sylvie Raulet (hence the R in the classification), and published in 1985. For a more complete overview of how the Library of Congress organizes works see here.
In an earlier blog post, another classmate points out the problem of classifications systems filtering data which can unintentionally lead to a loss of information (as touched upon by the article on the Haitian Declaration of Independence). Some books and sources are not so easily put into a category because they encompass so much information. The Library of Congress has a very good system in place to classify materials but it is hard to create something that is entirely foolproof. This leads me to wonder who or what has the last say in classifying a book? Is it the job of a group of humans or is there some sort of database/technology in place to resolve this conflict?