The Library of Congress Classification Scheme and its Relationship to Dewey

Stevenson, Gordon

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/1784 Copy

Description

Title

The Library of Congress Classification Scheme and its Relationship to Dewey

Author(s)

Stevenson, Gordon

Issue Date

1975

Keyword(s)

• Classification, Dewey decimal
• Classification

Abstract

It strikes me as an interesting circumstance that I have been given the opportunity to speak about the relationship between the Library of Congress classification (LCC) and the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) on November 11, a day which I will always think of as Armistice Day. There is no armistice for the respective advocates of these two great classification systems; or, if there is an armistice, there should not be one. The long-range implications of the issues surrounding the Dewey/LC debate are too crucial to pretend that differences of opinion over the merits of the two systems are trivial. LCC and DDC are very, very different. They are so different, and they are different in such ways, as to raise the most basic questions about the very purpose of general library classification, its structure, its uses, and its future in the United States. In a very real sense, these are competing systems. Decisions are made, human resources are allocated, and money is invested in one system or the other. This competition was neither asked for nor wanted by the Library of Congress nor the publishers of the Dewey system. But it does exist and has been a rather expensive proposition over the past ten to twenty years, if not longer.

Publisher

Graduate School of Library Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Series/Report Name or Number

Allerton Park Institute (21st : 1975)

ISSN

0536-4604

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1784

Copyright and License Information

Copyright owned by Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1975.

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