College and Research Libraries


always come with years to institutions any useful service to the institutions themselves 
more than it does to men. Y e t the value of and to historians of our cultural life.—Julian 
his essay is great and he has performed a P. Boyd. 

T h e N e w M e d i c a l Classification for the Library of 

Congress and the A r m y M e d i c a l L i b r a r y — 

A Progress Report 

A t the meeting of the A r m y Medical Li-

brary consultants in October 1944, M a r y 

Louise Marshall reported (in the Bulletin 

of the Medical Library Association 3 3 : 

180-82, 1945) the initial steps which had 

been taken toward producing a system of 

classification suitable for the A r m y Medical 

Library. W o r k i n g under the auspices of a 

committee representing this library, the Li-

brary of Congress, and the A r m y Medical 

Library Survey Committee, and with the 

counsel of physicians concerned with the 

various specialties of medicine, she had made 

the preliminary studies for new alternative 

schedules for Medicine, Class R, and for 

the preclinical sciences in Class Q for the 

Library of Congress system. 

Since that time Miss Marshall has been 

hard at work putting the results of this 

study into effect. T h e schedule for each 

subject division has been drawn up and 

submitted for advice and correction to medi-

cal specialists and to members of the 

committee on classification. A s may be 

imagined, this has proved a long process. 

T h e first draft of the whole is finished, 

and the A r m y Medical Library has begun 

to classify its collection by it. In the 

actual application of the schedules, it is 

expected that alterations, additions, and sub-

tractions w i l l be found necessary. Conse-

quently, until such trial has been thoroughly 

made, it is judged wise not to make the 

provisional first draft of the classification 

available for general distribution. T h e 

process of classifying the A r m y Medical Li-

brary collection should result in establishing 

the system in permanent form. It will then 

be possible to publish it as an integral part 

of the Library of Congress classification 

schedules. 

It should be noted that the notation for 

these new schedules has been planned so 

that it will not conflict with the use of those 

in the original Library of Congress scheme 

for Class Q and Class R . T h e material 

from these classes has been assigned to 

hitherto unused portions of the alphabet, the 

new Q divisions occupying Q S to Q Z , while 

Medicine proper (the former R sections) 

utilizes the wholly vacant letter W . T h i s 

will make it possible for libraries already 

using the present Library of Congress 

classification for medicine and related sci-

ences to continue to do so or, if they prefer, 

to apply the new system, leaving their previ-

ous collections as they are. T h e Library 

of Congress will announce its policy with 

respect to use of the new schedules before 

they are published. 

KEYES D . M E T C A L F , Chairman 

Committee on a New Medical 

Classification for the Library of 

Congress and the Army Medical 

Library 

288 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES