Library Of Congress Classification Pdf Files

[Karlyn Hemmerling]

Thispage provides print-ready PDF files of Library of Congress classification schedules. Data for these files was selected in May 2024. For users desiring enhanced functionality, LCC is included in the web-based subscription product, Classification Web.

This page provides print-ready PDF files of Library of Congress classification schedules. Data for these files was selected in May 2021. For users desiring enhanced functionality, LCC is included in the web-based subscription product, Classification Web.

This page provides print-ready PDF files of Library of Congress classification schedules. Data for these files was selected in February 2020. For users desiring enhanced functionality, LCC is included in the web-based subscription product, Classification Web.

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.[1] The classification was developed by James Hanson (chief of the Catalog Department), with assistance from Charles Martel, in 1897, while they were working at the Library of Congress.[2] It was designed specifically for the purposes and collection of the Library of Congress to replace the fixed location system developed by Thomas Jefferson.

LCC has been criticized for lacking a sound theoretical basis; many of the classification decisions were driven by the practical needs of that library rather than epistemological considerations.[3] Although it divides subjects into broad categories, it is essentially enumerative in nature. That is, it provides a guide to the books actually in one library's collections, not a classification of the world.

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 million volumes and his system was deemed too unwieldy.[4]

John Russell Young, the seventh Librarian of Congress, hired James Hanson and Charles Martel in 1897,[5] 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.[6] By the time he departed from his post in 1939, all the classes except K (Law) were well developed.[4]

In creating their classification system, Hanson and Martel evaluated several systems already in existence, including the Dewey Decimal System, Charles Ammi Cutter's Cutter Expansive Classification, the Index Medicus,[7] and the Putnam Classification System (developed while Putnam was head librarian at the Minneapolis Public Library).[8] The one closest to their needs was Cutter's; however, he died before the completion of his system.[9] 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.[4] 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 completed until the 2004 publication of KB.[4]

From 1996 onwards, the LCC schedules were available online, and since 2013, there have been no new print editions of the classification system. All updates are now distributed by the Library's Cataloging Distribution Service entirely online.[4]

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.[10] 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.[10]

After the 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.[4] 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.[11] Library collections can add modifiers to distinguish specific volumes, such as "Copy 1."[1]

Systems of classification can be evaluated on several metrics, including expressiveness (the ability of the numeration system to express the hierarchal and correlative relationships between topics), hospitality (the ability of the system to accommodate new subjects), and brevity (length of call numbers).[4] While LCC is significantly less expressive than DDC, it is extremely hospitable, mainly in the fact that five class (I, O, W, X, and Y) lack any assignment to topics.[9] LCC call numbers also tend to be shorter than those in DDC.

The main difference between DDC and LCC is their approach to classifying. Dewey's system is a comprehensive classification to all topics, with no regard to the actual collections a library might hold. While this has allowed it to be successfully adapted into more modern classification systems for use outside of libraries, such as the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC),[16] it does make it more unwieldy for large or specialized collections. On the other hand, Hanson and Martel designed LCC specifically for library use, which means while it does not completely enumerate the world, it does more reflect what books a library might hold.[3]

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.[10] Today, the various schedules are maintained and revised by the Library's Policy and Standards Division, in conjunction with experts in each field. However, updating various schedules with classification biases is generally assumed to be impractical due to the massive workload that would result in,[4] especially as the "discipline" based classes of LCC have been entrenched in the average library user's mind.[17]

Since this whole PKM/B (base) thing has taken off there has been endless endless endless discussion on how to organize things. Systems seem to pop up all the time ranging from PARA to Johnny Decimal, to folksonomies, etc, etc. This is a really fascinating and interesting time to be around and also very exciting to see this developing. however one thing that gets lost in all of these back and forth and arguments is that there is an entire field dedicated to the representation organization cataloging and classification of knowledge, a field that has been around for hundreds of years & has the experience of thousands of people involved: library and information science.

I use Directory Opus in windows to tag certain areas with colors. The colors are similar across my Zotero, my Airtable, my Google Calendar, and my files. This means I can tell with one glance what area of my life it comes from.

I had been trying to force my system into Universal Decimal but kept running against how large and impossibly big the categories it was seeking to describe were. Then I ran into Cutter Classification.

The result was the Expansive Classification, a classification system that could be expanded up or down to meet the needs of libraries big to small. Before he died, Cutter completed and published an introduction and schedules for the first six classifications but his work on the seventh was interrupted by his death in 1903. The Library of Congress took the work that he had done and made it into the Library of Congress System.

Nice work. Not for me though: This is a rigid system. Which means it does not take into account my future self with different priorities, values, intelligence level, view of life etc.

One thing that Nick has been very clear about and that I would be clear about too is that this is a personal knowledge base so you should take these classifications as a starting place and make your own.

The thing I fear about setting up a numeral system is that it feels a little alien to me, especially when I can search and hit pretty quickly. I set up basic MOCs at this point, but as I get further down my road, I wonder if they will be enough.

UT Libraries was designated a land-grant selective depository library for U.S. Government Documents publications in 1907.The current selection rate is approximately 24 percent of the publications in the List of Classes that are made available to participating depository libraries. UT selections are primarily digital format.

The UT Libraries' Online Catalog is the place to begin a search for government publications held by or made accessible by the library. As with other library materials, the catalog shows specific formats and locations for government publications. Search by title, author, subject. SuDocs classification searching is available on the ONESEARCH Browse page. You can use the pull down menu and choose SUDOC Call Number.

Print and cd/dvd, government documents shelved by SuDocs number are located in the Storage collection in the Hoskins Library. These materials may be borrowed for regular loan periods. Some Pre-1976 government documents held in the Libraries' collection may not accessible in the online catalog. The shelf list card file in Research Services, is used to verify holdings for uncataloged documents held in Hoskins Storage. Please contact the Map & Government Information Librarian with any shelf list card file questions. It may also be necessary to check print indexes or databases to locate the correct citation in order to find documents published before July 1976.

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