Library of Congress Classification: Difference between revisions

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.<ref name="DeweyDiscord">{{Cite news |last=Lavallee |first=Andrew |date=July 20, 2007 |title=Discord Over Dewey: A New Library in Arizona Fans a Heated Debate Over What Some Call the 'Googlization' of Libraries |newspaper=Wall Street Journal |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118340075827155554 |access-date=May 25, 2013 |quote=Some 95% of U.S. public '''libraries''' use Dewey, and nearly all of the others, the OCLC says, use a closely related Library of Congress system.}}</ref> The classification was developed by [[J. C. M. Hanson|James Hanson]] (chief of the [[Cataloging (library science)|Catalog]] Department), with assistance from [[Charles Martel (librarian)|Charles Martel]], in 1897, while they were working at the Library of Congress.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dittmann |first=Helena |url=http://archive.org/details/learnlibraryofco0000ditt |title=Learn Library of Congress classification |date=2000 |publisher=Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-8108-3696-9}}</ref> It was designed specifically for the purposes and collection of the Library of Congress to replace the fixed location system developed by [[Thomas Jefferson]].

The central core of the modern Library of Congress was formed from books sold to the government by Thomas Jefferson after the original collection was razed by the British in the [[War of 1812]]. As a result, the original classification system used by the library was of his own invention. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, the collection had grown to over a millionsmillion volumes and his system was deemed too unwieldy.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Library of Congress Classification |url=https://www.librarianshipstudies.com/2017/11/library-of-congress-classification.html |date=June 23, 2020 |website=Librarianship Studies & Information Technology |access-date=2022-10-03}}</ref>

[[John Russell Young]], the seventh Librarian of Congress, hired James Hanson and Charles Martel in 1897,<ref>{{Cite web |title=John Russell Young (1840-1899) |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/n83202815/john-russell-young-1840-1899/ |access-date=2022-10-04 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}}</ref> who began the development of a new classification system that would more accurately describe the collections the library held. Young's tenure as Librarian ended with his death in 1899, and his successor, [[Herbert Putnam]], continued to implement the updates to the catalog through his long stay in the office.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Herbert Putnam (1861-1955) |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/n85185518/herbert-putnam-1861-1955/ |access-date=2022-10-04 |website=Library of Congress, Washington,|url-status=dead D|archive-url=https://web.Carchive.org/web/20221004005650/https://www.loc.gov/item/n85185518/herbert-putnam-1861-1955/ 20540|archive-date= 2022-10-04 USA}}</ref> By the time he departed from his post in 1939, all the classes except K (Law) were well developed.<ref name=":3" />

In creating their classification system, Hanson and Martel evaluated several systems already in existence, including the [[Dewey Decimal System]], [[Charles Ammi Cutter|Charles Ammi Cutter's]]'s [[Cutter Expansive Classification]], the [[Index Medicus|Index Medius]],<ref>Martel, C (1916). "[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC234678/ Remarks on Cataloguing and Classification]". ''Bulletin of the Medical Library Association''. '''5''' (4): 43–5. [[{{PMC (identifier)|PMC]] 234678}}. [[{{PMID (identifier)|PMID]] 16015800}}.</ref> and the [[Putnam Classification System]] (developed while Putnam was head librarian at the [[Minneapolis Public Library]]).<ref>Andy Sturdevant. [https://www.minnpost.com/stroll/2014/02/cracking-spine-hennepin-county-librarys-many-hidden-charms "Cracking the spine on Hennepin County Library's many hidden charms".] ''[[MinnPost]]'', 02/05/14.</ref> The one closest to their needs was Cutter's; however, he died before the completion of his system.<ref name=":4">LaMontagne, Leo E. ''American Library Classification: With Special Reference to the Library of Congress''. Hamden, CT, Shoe String Press. 1961, p. 210.</ref> Hanson and Martel thus decided to develop their own unique system, strongly based on his ideas. They published their first outline of the classification scheme in 1904.<ref name=":3" /> Development of the classes continued throughout the twentieth century. The last class to be developed was K (Law): the first K schedule was published in 1969 and not being completed until the 2004 publication of KB.<ref name=":3" />

LCC divides all knowledge into twenty-one basic classes, exchanges given a single letter of the alphabet as an identifier. The vast majority of these classes are divided further into two and three level sub-classes.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Library of Congress Classification |url=https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcc.html |access-date=2022-10-03 |website=www.loc.govLibrary of Congress }}</ref> With these sub-classes, numerical ranges are assigned to topics, going from more general to more specific. Unlike in the Dewey Decimal Classification, where the numbers assigned to a topic iterate throughout the system (e.g., the ".05" tag indicated a periodical publication on the topic), the LCC numerical ranges are strictly hierarchal, only corresponding to their level on the outline. LCC is enumerative, meaning that it lists all the classes in officially published schedules, which are updated as needed by the Library of Congress.<ref name=":0" />

After the range of range of numbers making up the topical division, call numbers often also include one or more Cutter numbers, modeled after the unfinished Cutter Expansive Classification index. The full LCC schedules contain tables that describe Cutter numbers for certain types of media, collections of work, and geographical areas.<ref name=":3" /> Cutter numbers also can take the form of an author-specific code, containing a letter and several numbers corresponding to the author's last name. This serves to further distinguish publications and nominally alphabetize volumes within a topic section. The final component of a typical LCC call-number is the publication year, in full.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chan |first=Lois Mai |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41211262 |title=A guide to the Library of Congress classification |date=1999 |publisher=Libraries Unlimited |others=Lois Mai Chan |isbn=1-56308-499-6 |edition=5th |location=Englewood, Colo. |oclc=41211262}}</ref> Library collections can add modifiers to distinguish specific volumes, such as "Copy 1."<ref name="DeweyDiscord" />

One variation from the original LCC system is the [[National Library of Medicine classification]] system (NLM), which uses the initial letters ''W'' and ''QS''–''QZ'', which are not used by LCC. Some libraries use NLM in conjunction with LCC, eschewing LCC's R, QM, and QP, which overlap with NLM's schema.<ref>Taylor, A. G., & Joudrey, D.N. (2009). The organization of information. 3rd ed. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited.</ref><ref>Chan, L. M.(2007). Cataloging and classification: An introduction. 3rd ed. Scarecrow Press.</ref> Another is the Canadian Universities and the Canadian National Library using FC for Canadian History, a subclass that LCC has not officially adopted, but which it has agreed not to use for anything else.<ref name=":1">{{cite web |last1=National Library of Canada |title=Class FC: a classification for Canadian history |url=http://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/SN3-61-1994E.pdf |access-date=May 21, 2018 |website=PDF publication |publisher=National Library of Canada}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{cite web |last1=Rutherford |first1=D |title=Canadian History Call Numbers |url=http://library.queensu.ca/techserv/cat/Sect03/c03Canclass.html#double |access-date=May 21, 2018 |website=Queens University Library |archive-date=January 23, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123214623/https://library.queensu.ca/techserv/cat/Sect03/c03Canclass.html#double |url-status=dead }}</ref>

|C||[[#Class C – Auxiliary Sciences of History (General)|Auxiliary Sciences of History]]

|D||[[Library of Congress Classification#Class D – World History (except Americanand History) of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc.|World History and History of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc.]]

|E||[[Library of Congress Classification#Class E - American– History of America|History of America]]

|F||[[Library of Congress Classification#Class F – Local History of the United States and British, Dutch, French, and Latin AmericaAmericas|History of the Americas]]

Because LCC was designed around the collections of the Library of Congress, it has an American, European, and Christian bias, as reflected mainly in the earlier developed schedules of D (World History), E and F (History of the Americas), and B (Philosophy, Psychology, Religion). On the other hand, the later-developed K (Law) gives fairly even weight to global law.<ref name=":0" /> Today, the various schedules are maintained and revised by the Library's Policy and Standards Division, in conjunction with experts in each field. However, updatedupdating various schedules with classification biases is generally assumed to be impractical due to the massive workload that would result in,<ref name=":3" /> especially as the "discipline" based classes of LCC have been entrenched in the average library user's mind.<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |lastlast1=Howard |firstfirst1=Sara A. |last2=Knowlton |first2=Steven A. |date=2018 |title=Browsing through Bias: The Library of Congress Classification and Subject Headings for African American Studies and LGBTQIA Studies |journal=Library Trends |volume=67 |issue=1 |pages=74–88 |doi=10.1353/lib.2018.0026 |s2cid=69496735 |via=Muse|hdl=2142/101937 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

===Class A – Generalgeneral Worksworks===

===Class E – History of AmericaAmericas===

{{Main|Library of Congress Classification:Class E -- History of AmericaAmericas}}

* Class F does not have any subclasses, though Canadian Universities and the Canadian National Library use FC for Canadian History, a subclass that LCC has not officially adopted, but which it has agreed not to use for anything else.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />

* [[Library of Congress Classification:Class T -- Technology#TG - Bridge engineering|Subclass TG]] – [[Bridge|Bridges]]s

LCCN also covers authors, which LCC does not. For authors (people), the letter 'n' accompanies the number, and they too define URLs in a parallel catalog, such as "n83160096" and "<nowiki>http://lccn.loc.gov/n83160096</nowiki> ". (So LCCN may be called alphanumeric.)</ref>

* "[https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/ Library of Congress classification outline]", loc.govLOC

* "[http://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCC/freelcc.html Full listLibrary of LCCCongress classificationClassification schedulesPDF Files]", loc.govLOC

* "[https://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/classification/ Library of Congress – classificationClassification]", loc.govLOC

* "[https://www.loc.gov/cds/ Cataloging Distribution Services]" – source of Library of Congress Classification schedules. loc.gov

* "[https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html Classification outline]", loc.govLOC