College and Research Libraries


Review Articles 
Bibliographic Classification 
A Bibliographic Classification, Extended by 

Systematic Auxiliary Schedules for Com-
posite Specification and Notation. 2d ed. 
By Henry Evelyn Bliss. N e w Y o r k , H . W . 
Wilson, 1952-53. 4v. in 3 (v. 1-2 in I, 
$15.00, v. 3-4, $15.00 each). 
It is difficult to review in unfavorable terms 

a monumental work representing a lifetime of 
application and exhibiting enormous erudition. 
Further, since the general position of the 
reviewer with respect to classification systems 
is well known, it might be supposed that the 
review will lack objectivity and balance. 
Hence, I have looked to others for a general 
comment on bibliographic classification to set 
the tone of this review. 

D r . Jesse H . Shera, dean of the School of 
Library Science at Western Reserve Univer-
sity, is probably today's most outstanding ex-
ponent of bibliographic classification, and it is 
from two of his papers that we have taken the 
following statements: 

T o d a y , u n d e r the i m p a c t of a r a p i d l y g r o w -
i n g v o l u m e of g r a p h i c records, a n d the a p p e a r -
ance of n e w f o r m s of p u b l i c a t i o n , t r a d i t i o n a l 
l i b r a r y classifications a r e b e c o m i n g hopelessly 
i n a d e q u a t e . N o a m o u n t of basic r e v i s i o n or 
t a m p e r i n g w i t h t h e i r o r g a n i c s t r u c t u r e can s a v e 
them f r o m this f a i l u r e . A s g u i d e s to the subject 
content of the l i b r a r y they a r e essentially m e a n -
ingless. E v e n l i b r a r i a n s , w h o a r e best qualified 
to i n t e r p r e t t h e m a n d to exploit t h e i r v i r t u e s , use 
the n o t a t i o n only as a g u i d e to location, a n d 
l a r g e l y i g n o r e the i n t e r d i s c i p l i n a r y r e l a t i o n s h i p s 
t h a t they w e r e d e s i g n e d to r e v e a l . Yet, as t h e i r 
efficiency h a s declined, the cost of t h e i r m a i n -
t e n a n c e h a s i n c r e a s e d until at least one m a j o r 
r e s e a r c h l i b r a r y h a s a b a n d o n e d s u b j e c t classifi-
cation of its book stocks a n d h a s t u r n e d to o t h e r 
and m o r e p r o m i s i n g f o r m s of b i b l i o g r a p h i c o r -
g a n i z a t i o n . 1 

T h e h i s t o r y of l i b r a r y classification, then, h a s 
been the n a r r a t i v e of a p u r s u i t of impossible 
goals, a n d its p a g e s a r e s t r e w n w i t h the w r e c k -
a g e of those w h o either w e r e b l i s s f u l l y u n a w a r e 
of t h e d a n g e r s by Which t h e i r p a t h s w e r e beset, 
or w h o hoped to c i r c u m v e n t t h e m t h r o u g h m e r e 

1 "Classification A s the Basis of Bibliographic Or-
ganization," in Bibliographic Organisation; Papers Pre-
sented before the Fifteenth Annual Conference of the 
Graduate Library School, July 24-29, 1950. Ed. by 
Tesse H. Shera and Margaret E . Egan. Chicago, The 
University of Chicago Press, 1 9 5 1 , p.72. 

modification of p r e v i o u s s c h e m a t i s m s or simple 
t i n k e r i n g w i t h n o t a t i o n . T o d a y the essential 
f a i l u r e of t r a d i t i o n a l l i b r a r y classifications is 
no m o r e r e a l t h a n it w a s t h r e e - q u a r t e r s of a 
c e n t u r y ago, but it h a s become m o r e a p p a r e n t 
because of t h e i n c r e a s i n g bulk a n d complexity 
of the m a t e r i a l s t h a t l i b r a r i e s a r e b e i n g called 
u p o n to service, and the g r o w i n g s p e c i a l i z a t i o n 
of the d e m a n d s t h a t l i b r a r i a n s a r e b e i n g asked 
to meet.2 

If we were to review this work by compar-
ing it with other classification systems, we 
could comment on the excellence and simplicity 
of its notation and the fact that being the 
latest system in a long series of similar 
attempts, it is more up-to-date and represents, 
more adequately, current fashions in the 
grouping of ideas and the arrangement and 
subordination of various subjects. But in 
spite of these internal excellencies, and many 
others which could be mentioned, the basic 
question remains concerning the value of the 
enterprise as a whole. Public libraries and 
small college libraries with open shelves will 
undoubtedly continue for many years to 
classify their materials for the shelves in 
order to give some assistance to the reader 
who wishes to examine a range of materials in 
any particular subject. But the idea that a " 
universal bibliographic classification can, in 
any sense, represent a scientific or a logical 
arrangement and collocation of subjects is 
fundamentally false, and there is no point 
in compromising with this falsity. 

It is the great boast of classifiers that a 
classification system arranges material in a 
logical order of hierarchical classes, as con-
trasted with an alphabetical index which 
groups things on the basis of the fortuitous 
fact of the alphabetization of various names. 
T h e fact is that no one has ever succeeded in 
making a detailed classification which was not 
largely verbal in essence. In our studies of 
classification systems we have distinguished 
three different ways in which the subordina-
tion of classes is achieved in any particular 
system: 

2 "Classification: Current Functions and Applications 
to the Subject Analysis of Library Materials," in The 
Subiect Analysis of Library Materials, Ed. by Maurice 
F . Tauber, New York, School of Library Service, Co-
lumbia University, 1953, p.32. 

OCTOBER, 1953 
40 7 



I. Semantic 

As the name indicates, semantic subordina-
tion is purely verbal in character and differs 
from alphabetical indexing only in being ar-
ranged differently on a page. Consider, for 
example, the following sets of terms and 
phrases which might be found in any alpha-
betical index: 

Functions, Types of 
Functions, Continuous 
Functions, Discontinuous 
Functions, Differentiable 
Functions, Integrable 
Functions, Symmetric 
Functions, Additive, of aggregates 
or, 

Science 
Science, History of 
Science, Philosophy of 
Science, Principles and methods of 
or, 
Valves 
Valves, Seated 
Valves, Check 
Valves, Gate 
Valves, Reducing 

If we arrange these sets of terms to look 
like parts of a classification system by utilizing 
indention on a page, as Mr. Bliss has done, we 
get the following: 

Types of functions 
Continuous functions 
Discontinuous functions 
Differentiable functions 
Integrable functions 
Symmetric functions 
Aggregates of additive functions 

or, 
Science 

History of science 
Philosophy of science 
Principles and methods of science 

or, 
Valves 

Seated valves 
Check valves 
Gate valves 
Reducing valves 

Since the beginning of modern librarianship, 
exponents of classification have been able to 
convince a great many people that the indented 
arrangement is more logical than the inverted, 
whereas these two lists differ only in aesthetic 
or physical arrangement. Mr. Bliss shares 

with all other classifiers a failure to recognize 
that his classification, to the extent that it 
achieves subordination by semantic means 
(e.g., subordinates "check valves" to "valves," 
or "discontinuous functions" to "functions") 
depends upon words and not upon any logic of 
ideas which underlies the words. That is to 
say, the boast which classifiers make of having 
achieved logical order as opposed to verbal or 
alphabetical order is empty and meaningless. 

2. Topical 
The second way classifiers achieve subordi-

nation is through "Topical Subdivision." 
This method is called "cross classification" by 
Mr. Bliss in his introduction, and he illus-
trates it by means of the following tables:3 

P l a n t s I n s e c t s B i r d s 

A q u a t i c 

T e r r e s t r i a l 

A m p h i b i o u s 

X e r i c 

A q u a t i c L a n d A m p h i b - X e r i c ^ fllK 

I n s e c t s 

B i r d s 

P l a n t s 

M a m m a l s 

It should be apparent that there is no real 
difference between these two tables and that it 
is no more logical or scientific to subdivide 
forms of life by habitat than to subdivide 
habitat by forms of life. Mr. Bliss realizes 
this; hence, his use of the term "cross classifi-
cation" and his statement that: "Classes, or 
sub-classes, of the same grade, or order, of 
division are termed coordinate, and the prin-
ciple of placing them in such order is coordina-
tion. Subordination and coordination are thus 
relative to division and gradation. The co-
ordinate sub-classes of several coordinate 
classes may be coordinated." However, he 
does not take the final and necessary step 

3 A Bibliographic Classification by Henry E . Bliss, 
Vol. I l l , p. 9. H. W. Wilson Company, N . Y . 

454 • COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



which is the recognition that the subordination 
of one topic to another is arbitrary and paro-
chial and has no claim to logical or universal 
significance. 

These two forms of relationship, the topical 
and semantic, make up the overwhelming 
proportion of most classification systems, and 
all classification systems which are based on 
semantic relationships or the arbitrary subordi-
nation of one topic to another, serve only to 
demonstrate that universal classification is no 
more significant than a pattern of printing on 
a page, and has no logic other than the logic 
of general discourse. 

3 . Taxonomic 
T h e r e remains one other method of sub-

ordination which we call the Taxonomic. In 
certain fields, namely, systematic Botany and 
Zoology, and parts of Chemistry, there are 
highly developed classifications or taxonomies. 
In such fields we get true one place classifica-
tion and subordination because the class, sub-
class or species of an entity is determined 
before it is named and independently of its 
name. It is, perhaps, the success of such 
taxonomies in limited fields which has led to 
what D r . Shera has called "the pursuit of 
impossible goals," the attempt to compress all 
knowledge into a systematic taxonomy. T h e 
great age of library classification, the 19th 
Century, an age of which M r . Bliss is the 
last exemplar, w a s fundamentally an age of 
Biology as contrasted with the 17th Century, 
which w a s the great age of Physics and 
Mathematics. T h e hierarchies of biblio-
graphical classification are hierarchies based 
on biological analogs and have no other w a r -
rant in fact or logic. 

Perhaps the various attempts to create 
taxonomies of knowledge could be justified so 
long as the only alternative seemed the chaos 
of the alphabet and its permutations so alarm-
ingly described by B r a d f o r d ; 4 but modern 
symbolic or "relational" logic has shown us 
that there is an alternative to classification 
which possesses all the order and flexibility 
required f o r the organization of information. 
In the sense of Gilbert's famous lines: 

That every boy and every gal 
That's born into this world alive 
Is either a little liberal 
Or else a little conservative 

4 Bradford, S. C. Documentation. London, Crosby 
Lockwood & Son, 1948. p. 19. 

librarians f o r the past 50 years have been 
either classifiers or alphabetizers. B u t we 
cannot accept this narrow path between com-
pletely unsatisfactory alternatives as the final 
word. In view of the great triumph of mathe-
matical reasoning in modern science, librar-
ians, if they will free themselves from this 
outworn and narrow "either/or," can find in 
mathematics and logic new and viable bases 
f o r bibliographical order and organization.— 
Mortimer Taube, Documentation, Inc., 
Washington, D.C. 

Book Collecting 
ABC for Book-Collectors. By John C a r t e r . 

N e w Y o r k , A l f r e d A . Knopf, 1952. 191 p. 
$3.00. 
Although it is now some months since its 

publication and it can no longer be pointed 
out as a new—or, indeed, even a very recent 
—offering, John Carter's latest book, ABC 
for Book-Collectors, surely deserves to be 
given notice in these columns and before this 
audience. 

" T h i s , " writes the author, "is not an 
encyclopaedia' or even a glossary. I t is an 
A B C , which is something much humbler. 
And it is not an A B C of bibliography, or of 
printing or binding or book-production terms, 
though many of these come into it. It is an 
A B C of book-collecting, f o r novices, would-be 
collectors and that section of the literate 
public which takes an interest in our pursuit 
without necessarily wishing to share it." 

T h e objective has been "to set down, and to 
define, and sometimes to comment upon, such 
words and phrases, commonly used in book-
collecting, as would be likely to puzzle an 
educated reader faced f o r the first time by 
a bookseller's or an auctioneer's catalogue." 

M r . C a r t e r ' s ABC is something of a cross 
between a dictionary and a primer, f o r many 
of its entries are not merely definitions of 
terms or phrases, but form astute and valu-
able little essays on the subjects treated. 
"Advertisements," f o r example, is covered by 
a scholarly three-page treatise, while under 
"Auctions" the reader is given a five-page 
exposition of that domain, sub-divided to in-
clude separate sections on catalogues, bidding, 
prices, and terminology. 

Another of the longer entries—and one 
which seems particularly significant from this 

OCTOBER, 1953 
40 7