University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The Library of Congress Classification Scheme and its Relationship to Dewey

Stevenson, Gordon

Content Files
Stevenson7898.pdf

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

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
Date of Ingest
2007-08-02T19:29:18Z
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
Genre of Resource
Conference Paper / Presentation
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1784
Copyright and License Information
Copyright owned by Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1975.

Owning Collections

1975: Major classification systems : the Dewey Centennial PRIMARY
21st Allerton Park Institute (1975); Edited by Kathryn Luther Henderson