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The Manhattan College Library uses two classification systems -- the Dewey Decimal Classification System for books acquired before 1980 and the Library of Congress Classification System for books acquired since 1980.
1. Dewey Decimal Classification System The Dewey Decimal Classification System was created in 1876 by Melvil Dewey, while he was the acting librarian at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Up until this time, public libraries were few in number, and patrons were not permitted to go into the stacks to search for books. Academic libraries of this era were essentially like warehouses. Dewey set about to improve the way materials were organized in libraries so that patrons could have ready access to these materials. He worked to persuade libraries to adopt his standardized system of classification. It was his belief that a uniform system of organizing books and information would ensure that a person could go to any public library in the country and find that the books would be arranged in a similar way. In the United States the Dewey Classification System is used by most public libraries and some small academic libraries. In the Dewey Classification System, the call numbers of books begin with a number; for example, 973 for U.S. history. This system uses ten broad categories for organizing the information, which are as follows:
2. Library of Congress Classification System The Library of Congress developed its own system for classifying information in the early 1900s, because the Dewey Decimal Classification System was not flexible enough to meet the needs of its vast collection. The Library of Congress Classification System is now used in the United States by most academic and research libraries and some large public libraries. Library of Congress call numbers begin with a letter; for instance, L for education. The Library of Congress System organizes information into twenty-one broad categories, which are as follows:
Some examples of books with Library of Congress call numbers are shown below:
If there is a decimal point in the call number, keep in mind the actual numerical value of the decimal when trying to locate a book on the shelves. For instance, .7 has a higher value than .6034. Therefore, a book with the call number 974.8 is shelved after a book having the call number 974.7969. |