Faculty Publications

Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

August 2004

Publication Title

SIRLS Researchers Get-togethers

Keywords

Classification, Digital Libraries, Interdisciplinarity

Disciplines

Library and Information Science

Abstract

This Microsoft PowerPoint presentation of 25 slides includes several pictures and quotations about and from the "Code for Classifiers: Principles governing the consistent placing of books in a system of classification" by William Stetson Merrill. Coleman briefly explores the problems of classification presented in the Code, the model of collaboration that was used to develop the principles documented in the various editions of the Code, and how the Code can be used to develop a federated classification (classifying) model for digital library organization. The discussion also makes it clear that early American library classification was not just a "mark and park" strategy for book shelving. Librarians and library educators of the time (early 1900s) were deeply interested in bibliographic classification as a solution to the many problems of knowledge organization for information retrieval.

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