A Brief History of Organization in Libraries

By cptacek
  • 650 BCE

    First Organized Library

    First Organized Library
    The world's first organized library of approximately 30,000 cuneiform tablets was established in Nineveh (present-day Iraq) by Assyrian ruler Ashurbanipal. A fire occurred in 612 BCE but because the tablets were made of clay, they were preserved and later discovered beginning in the 1830s and are now displayed at the British Museum.
  • Period: 650 BCE to

    Fixed Shelf Location

    Prior to the 19th century, nearly all libraries were not open to the public. It was primarily librarians who perused the shelves and so many libraries used the fixed shelf location method of organization, based on book height and date acquired, as it was not necessary for the public at large to understand the system. The Columbia University Libraries switched from the fixed location method of organization to the Dewey Decimal Classification in 1883.

  • Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC)

    Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC)
    In 1876 Melvil Dewey published his first version of his universal classifcation system. Prior to Dewey's system, most libraries used the fixed shelf method where a book has a specific assigned spot on the shelf based on height and date acquired. Dewey's system revolutionized organization in libraries by assigning a call number to each book based on the main topics.

  • Cutter Expansive Classification

    Cutter Expansive Classification
    Charles Ammi Cutter developed the Cutter Expansive Classification system which was inspired by the Dewey Decimal Classification system and was published 6 years later in 1882. Cutter died before he had completed the system but it is still regarded as "one of the most logical and scholarly of American classification schemes" (Winke, 2004) and would go on to be the basis of the Library of Congress classification system which is still used today.

  • Universal Decimal Classification (UDC)

    Universal Decimal Classification (UDC)
    The UDC was created by Paul Otlet and Henry La Fontaine who were working to create their own decimal classification system and first began publishing in 1902. Initially the project was intended to be a translation of the Dewey DC system but with "higher precision combined with economy of presentation" (UDCC.org). This scheme has continued to grow and now there are 72,000 subdivisions in 57 languages used in 135 countries.

  • Library of Congress Classification

    Library of Congress Classification
    The Library of Congress was established in 1800, but for the majority of the first century of its existence, it used Thomas Jefferson's personal classification system. The Library of Congress Classification System (LCC) was created by Charles Martel and J.C.M Hanson and the first outline was released in 1904. It is still used by the Library of Congress today as well as in some academic libraries.

  • Nippon Decimal Classification

    Nippon Decimal Classification
    The first edition of the Nippon Decimal Classification is created by Kiyoshi Mori. The enumerative system is based on the Dewey and Cutter systems and was designed specifically for the Japanese language. This system is used by the vast majority of libraries in Japan today, including university libraries.

  • Colon Classification

    Colon Classification
    Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan developed the Colon Classification (CC) which began publishing in 1933 and "has been called the father of the Indian library movement" (ISKO.org). The CC is the first faceted classification scheme while the previous schemes had been enumerative. This gave Ranganathan's system more flexibility with just 5 main classes: personality, matter, energy, space, and time (known as PMEST). This scheme is still used in many libraries in India today.

  • KVINFO

    KVINFO
    In Copenhagen in 1964, Nynne Koch "began to specially register literature relevant to women" (kvinfo.dk). This evolved into its own institution whose "primary objective is to promote the results of women and gender research to the general public, nationally, and internationally" (Holst). KVINFO uses its own unique classification and subject indexing system by utilizing as many search entrances as possible. This is the only classification scheme with a focus on gender research.

  • Bliss Bibliographic Classification (BC2)

    Bliss Bibliographic Classification (BC2)
    The Bliss system was developed for the first time in 1902, but it would not become the system that is still used today until it was completely revised and republished in 1977 as BC2. This system is significant because it is fully faceted rather than enumerative and "the vocabulary is organized rigorously into clearly defined and easily grasped categories" (blissclassification.org.uk). BC2 was informed by Ranganathan's Colon Classification Scheme.

  • Folksonomy

    Folksonomy
    The term folksonomy was created by Thomas Vander Wal and is defined as "the result of personal free tagging of information and objects (anything with a URL) for one's own retrieval [and]...the tagging is done in a social environment" (Vanderwal.net). While not necessarily a classification system in its own right, folksonomy has changed the face of information retrieval on the internet using grassroots tagging.