The library system built for one collection, not for the whole world
In short: Most classification systems attempt to map all human knowledge. But the Library of Congress Classification was different. It wasn't designed as a universal map, but as a practical tool to organize a specific, massive, and growing collection of books.
Unlike the Dewey Decimal System, which seeks a universal structure, the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is essentially enumerative. This means it was designed to provide a guide to the books actually held within the Library of Congress's own shelves. Developed starting in 1897 by James Hanson and Charles Martel, the system was a response to the sheer scale of the collection, which had grown to over one million volumes by the end of the nineteenth century. This growth rendered the original fixed-location system, invented by Thomas Jefferson, far too unwieldy to manage.
The architecture of LCC is a hybrid of existing expertise. Hanson and Martel evaluated several established schemes, including the Index Medicus and the Putnam Classification System, but ultimately leaned heavily on the work of American librarian Charles Cutter. Specifically, they utilized the arrangement from Cutter's Expansive Classification (1s91–93), which organizes knowledge into groupings of the humanities, social sciences, and natural and physical sciences. The resulting system uses a mixed notation of capital letters and Arabic numerals to allow for high levels of specificity.
The system divides knowledge into 20 or 21 large classes, each identified by a single letter. While the structure moves from general to specific and theoretical to practical, it lacks a unified theoretical or epistemological basis. Instead, it prioritizes the practical needs of a massive research institution. This focus allows for unique features, such as the ability to associate subjects by country rather than topic in certain classes like political science. While the development of most classes was largely completed by 1939 under Librarian Herbert Putnam, the Law class (K) remained a work in progress for decades, with the final part, KB, not published until 2004.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Library of Congress Classification | Classification System, Cataloging, Dewey Decimal | Britannica
- Also: Library of Congress Classification
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