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The Classification of Material in the Library
Goals:This class will teach the basics of the Library of Congress (LC) classification system and how things are arranged using this system within HKUST Library.
Contents
1. How Do You Organize Things?
Organization is important - the better it is organized (and the better you understand its organization), the easier it is to retrieve something meaningful.
How many ways can I organize a pile of books?
- By size?
- By color?
- By whether they are hardback or paperback?
- Are they fiction or non-fiction?
- By what they are "about"?
- How often do I use them?
Let's complicate things further, how do I organize a pile of newspapers?
- By date? (all the newspapers published on the same day in one pile?
- By title? (all the 明報 in one pile, all the South China Morning Posts in another?)
- By language?
- By city of origin?
How do you organize things at home?
2. Library Catalog Records
Librarians use the Library Catalog to organize the material intellectually. Various information has come to be recorded as a standard in Library catalogs all over the world.
Author = who wrote it.
- Helps to find other things written by this person.
Title = what it is called.
So I know if I've read it before, or heard of it, and will know how to quote it.
Call number & location = Where it is.
Tells you where to look for it, which Library, which section, which shelf?
3. Call number = Classification Number
A call number can be a random number, but in modern libraries the call number is a classification number.
Dewey Classification System
Used in Hong Kong public libraries and in most school libraries, and at HKU. An outline of Dewey Classificatio categories is available from OCLC.
LC (Library of Congress) Classification System
Used by HKUST Library. It was created by the Library or Congress in the USA. Most university and research libraries in North America use it. Here is an outline of the LC Classification from the LC's own home page.
Classification numbers are built in Dewey, they are assignedin LC.
Both systems try to bring together similar items.The similarity is based on the following criteria:
- "What it's about?" - subject
- "Who wrote (composed, acted, etc.) it?" - author
- "What's it called?" - title
4. Basic Classification Number Anatomy & Creation
Example A
| QR | Microbiology |
| 370 | Virology (QR355->QR502) |
| .O75 | Title of book (Origin and Evolution of Viruses) |
| 1999 | Publication Year |
Example B
| DS | Asian history |
| 796 | Chinese History (DS701-> DS799.99) |
| .H75 | Hong Kong History (social & intellectual aspects) (DS796.H75) |
| W55 | Author's name (Wiltshire) |
| 1991 | Year of publication |
Why is there an an alphanumeric combination for title in Example A, but for author in Example B?
Book A has no author - it is edited by a group of people, and each chapter is written by individuals. You can't really say "whose" work it is. The rules developed over the past 150+ years say that a book in this situation has its "main entry" as title. It is arbitrary, but it works.
Example B - is written by a single person, so it has the author as its main entry.
Why does Example B have two alphanumeric sequences?
DS796 = Cities in China.
H7 is a pre-assigned number for Hong Kong. A book about Shanhgai would have a number of DS796.S2... These type of alphabet-number combinations are called "geographic subdivisions" or "Geographic Cutter".
Alphanumeric sequences are also often used to specify a narrow subject scope within a class number. For example:
RA644.C3 - Cholera
RA644.I6 - Influenza
RA644.M2 - Malaria
RA644.P9 - Polio
5. Cutter Numbers
How are these alphanumeric sequences made?
Charles Cutter (1837-1903) was a librarian in Massachusetts in the USA and his Rules for a Dictionary Catalog and his Expansive Classification laid the basis for how English language libraries are organized.
One of his inventions was the Cutter Table. It allows one to arrange names or titles in an alphanumeric sequence forever.
It's not hard to arrange things alphabetically with a finite set. But if you are constantly receiving new material, and don't want to keep changing the assigned numbers, you need something flexible.
Cutter Table from MIT's Catalgoing Oasis.
For fun, you can visit Kyle Banerjee's Cataloging Calculator, which can make Cutters for you.
Librarians follow the basic table and then check against what their library owns to make to make sure the numbers are not duplicate.
Why are some Cutters longer than others?
If a certain areas or disciplines are "crowded", one must cutter further to be able to inter-file correctly.
Example C
| Classification number | Main entry - Author's name or book title (if there is no author) |
| E184.C5 C45 1991 |
Chen, Huaidong |
| E184.C5 C466 2002 | Chen, Shehong |
| E184.C5 C468 1995 | Chen, Yanni. (Chen Yanni : Niuyue yi shi) |
| E184.C5 C4685 1997 |
Chen, Yanni. (Zao yu Meiguo, Chen Yanni cai fang.) |
| E184.C5 C473 1998 |
Chin, Frank |
Example D
| TK | Electrical Engineering |
| 5103.2 | Telecommunications (TK5101-> TK6720) |
| .I54 | Title of Journal (International journal of wireless information networks) |
Why does this call number lack a publication year?
When you see a classification number in the Library Catalog that has no publication year, it is most likely a periodical.
6. Classification of Literature (Novels, Essays, Poetry, etc.)
Literature is more complicated. The classification for Literature is "P". After generalities, all literature is divided up by:
- Language of original work - This means that Chinese translations of Shakespeare will be shelved in the area for English literature
- Sub-divided by geographical location - This means that French literature from Quebec is separated from French literature from France.
- Subdivided by time period of author - This means that the Tang -epoets are shelved together
- Subdivided - by author's name.
- Subdivided by the name of the work
- Subdivided by whether this is a translation or criticism of that work (if it is such).
Example E - Two novels by Louis Cha
| Call number | Title |
| PL
2848 .Y8 L79 1981 |
鹿鼎記 |
| PL
2848 .Y8 S53 1990 |
神鵰俠侶 |
金庸, also known as Louis Cha has written several novels. As an author he has a classification number of PL2848.Y8
This shows that he is a Chinese language author who began writing (or, at least publishing) after 1949. His family name is Chin (PL2848) and his given name is Yong (Y8).
But...why is he listed as "Chin"? His name is 金, which in pin-yin is
"Jin" and in Cantonese pin-yin "Gum".
Because, until 2001, the US Library of Congress used a Romanization
system called "Wade-Giles" where Chin meant Jin and Ch'in meant Qin. You
can look at the Pinyin &
Wade-Giles Conversion Tables for further details.
7. Translation Numbers
If you see a call number where the last Cutter ends in "12", you know it's a translation into Chinese
If you see a call number where the last Cutter ends in "13" you know it's a translation into English.
Example F:
| Call number | Title | Author |
| BF
561 .G65 1996 |
Emotional Intelligence | Daniel Goleman |
| BF
561 .G6512 1996 |
EQ | 丹尼爾‧高曼 |
8. Shelf-order & Filing
Understanding filing sequence is very important. The main trick is
to think of the numbers in a Cutter number as if they are behind a decimal.
For example:
.B658 is smaller than .B7, just like 0.658 is smaller than 0.7
These are in proper order:
| QA
177 .A4513 1996 |
QA
177 .A53 1992 |
QA
177 .A534 1999 |
QA
177 .A79 1997 |
These are in the wrong order. Can you spot the mistake?
| HC
427 .W3 1998 |
HC
427 .W35 1994 |
HC
427 .W36 1997 |
HC
427 .W355 1996 |
9. Where are Things in the Library?
Book Collection
Classes A-P are on LG4 - Business, Humanities &
Social Sciences
Classes Q-Z are on LG3 - Books in Science,
Engineering, & Mathematics
Periodicals
All periodicals are kept on LG1.
To learn more about the locations of other material, go here .
last modified 29 September 2009
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