19 Classify and Catalogue – two sides of a page

One small point that may be worth pointing out here is the distinction between two parts of the process: one is cataloguing, the other is classifying.

A catalogue (catalog) is basically a list of all items: they could be our own possessions, or they could be even a seller’s stock list (or inventory) or our own wish list. When it comes to books, there are usually two basic types of lists used: one is an Author Catalogue, which starts each item with the author’s name, followed by whatever details we feel are needed to identify the item uniquely. The other type of list is a Subject catalogue, where the first entry is the code number or word for the subject. If anybody remembers, our institutional libraries used to have these two types of catalogues written on cards of approximately 3 by 5 inches, stored in sliding trays that formed an impressive piece of furniture near the entrance. Earnest scholars would spend hours thumbing through these cards, trying to locate their particular requirements.

Both types of catalogues have their uses. If we wish to locate records (cards) for books by a particular author, say Dickens, and we do not know where in the library shelves these books will be found, we go the Author Catalogue and pull out the tray for the D’s. Of course, the utility of these cards depends on what else is recorded on each book’s record: usually it includes the serial number of the book in the library’s stock register (the Accession number) which should be a unique identifier, the book title, year of publication, and publisher’s name and edition, and perhaps the international standard book number (ISBN). There are detailed codes written for this (the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules AACR2, for instance) But apart from these, the most useful to locate the book would be a location number or code. In the least ordered library, they could be simply stacked in the order of their accession numbers, as we suggested could be done for reprints of papers, as they don’t have solid spines which will enable them to stand up on their own in the shelves. For most collections, however, it will be nice to have them grouped by subject, which is where the Classification scheme comes in.

Commercial bookshops usually do not adhere to a very strict code of classification, and generally group books by broad subjects, like Physics, Chemistry, Sociology, Politics, History, Current Affairs, and so on, maybe even under further subdivisions if it is a campus bookshop, say different branches of Chemistry or Physics or whatever (usually following the university syllabus). Meticulous (let’s face it: somewhat obsessive-compulsive) documentation experts like Dewey (or to a greater degree, Ranganathan of the Colon Classification) like to reduce these non-standard subject headings to a standard code with a consistent system of labeling. Dewey, of course, uses mainly numbers: the 3-digit numbers stand for the one thousand subject headings (Sections), which are then expanded by adding on further digits to the right after a decimal point (the successive digits show the hierarchical position, rather than a value). The Colon Classification system follows a different philosophy, which I won’t even try presenting here (maybe another day!). It is my impression that the Dewey Decimal system is more popular because it has a strong management backup with the OCLC Online Computer Library Centre, Inc. (obviously), is constantly being developed by specialists at the Library of Congress, and more than anything has an infinitely more friendly and common-sense approach as against the Colon’s (let us face it) somewhat dry language, exaggeratedly punctilious rules and cryptic terminology (well, one has to admit that it lives up to its rather unfortunate name).

The Dewey number locates the book under the broad discipline (more or less the 3-digit Section heads, but also maybe under further subdivisions where there are distinct areas), and then under the most appropriate specific subject according to the entries in the schedules. However, for large collections, one can go even further, by adding various suffixes from the half-dozen Tables provided in Volume I. These enable various aspects or facets to be specified: a favourite is the geographical or regional coverage, for instance, from Table 2. The Standard Subdivisions in Table 1 provide tags for various aspects: the suffix -01, “Philosophy and theory”, for example, is the first subdivision provided in many numbers in the schedules (it could be used for Policy as well). The suffix -09 introduces the geographical locations, persons, and periods from Table 2, and so on. Table 3A and 3B provide tags for different numbers of authors and so on (for collections and anthologies, for instance). Table 3C provides “Additional Notation for Arts and Literature” to be added “where instructed”. Table 4 provides “Subdivisions of Individual Languages and Language Families” (from 400), Table 5 “Ethnic and National Groups”, Table 6  provides tags for “Languages”, while Table 7 for types of persons has been deleted.