College and Research Libraries


the very important shift from the librarian 
as custodian to the librarian as bookman, 
bibliophile, and man-of-letters, to the present 
librarian as administrator and specialist in 
management. Yet there is probably no single 
development more important than this in 
altering the complexion of the profession of 
librarianship. 

While these are negative points, and the 
study runs counter to the approach to li-
brary history for which this reviewer has long 
argued, the volume, based on a doctoral 
dissertation at Stanford, is carefully written 
and documented and should serve as a source 
of information to students of university li-
brary history.—Jesse H. Shera, School of 
Library Science, Western Reserve University. 

Subject Classification: 
A Comment 

Anent Dr. Mortimer Taube's very inform-
ative and entertaining review, in the October 
1953 issue of C & RL of Henry Evelyn Bliss' 
Bibliographic Classification, I think it is 
about time that someone came to the defense 
of shelf classifications in libraries. They have 
been almost generally maligned these past few 
years with hardly a voice raised in protest. 
I am not speaking of any shelf classification in 
particular, since librarians as a whole seem 
to feel the same way about the particular one 
they have fallen heir to, i.e., that they are 
poor things, but mine, and after all so much 
better than the one that belongs to my neigh-
bor. Despite the fact that the general im-
pression seems to exist that shelf classification 
is a dead dog at which everyone can take an 
occasional kick, they are still very vigorously 
alive and likely to remain so for a considerable 
length of time. Studies have pointed out to 
the point of ennui that subject bibliographies, 
card catalogs, "coordinate indexes," etc. are 
"better" and "more effective" than shelf 
classifications, but fail to make clear that this 
sort of comparison entirely missed the point 
that shelf classifications cannot be expected to 
serve the same purposes as these other 
methods of information control. Shelf classi-
fication is at best only an auxiliary method of 
organizing materials for use, and because of 
the shortcomings of the other methods it is a 
most necessary auxiliary. Since location 
symbols are necessary in any case, shelf 

classification serves a double purpose and 
are certainly more desirable than location 
symbols that have no subject significance. As 
a perennial browser I can only regard with 
horror the present advocacy of the elimination 
of shelf classification. I have a suspicion as 
well that many of the people who use li-
braries, who to date seem to have had a very 
small voice in the controversy, would feel the 
same way about it. 

It should seem apparent to anyone that 
alphabetic and classified arrangements which 
Dr. Taube has gratuitously thrown together 
under that much maligned and ill-used term 
"semantics" are not the same thing at all. 
By framing his case with a very judicious 
choice of terms, he has made them appear 
equivalent techniques with the implication 
that it is a matter of complete indifference or 
pure whim which arrangement one chooses. A 
selection of any other group of terms almost 
at random will indicate that this is not so, 
e.g.: 

B i c y c l e s 
C y c l e s 
G u i t a r i s t s 
M u s i c i a n s 
T r i c y c l e s 
U n i c y c l e s 
V i o l i n i s t s 
Z i t h e r p l a y e r s 

C y c l e s 
U n i c y c l e s 
B i c y c l e s 
T r i c y c l e s 

M u s i c i a n s 
V i o l i n i s t s 
G u i t a r i s t s 
Z i t h e r p l a y e r s 

The basic difference between the two 
methods, of course, is that whereas both may 
be embodied in the form of word symbols, 
classifications are not bound by the symbols 
used to embody the meaning, while in the al-
phabetic system the word symbols are the 
basis of the arrangement. Dr. Taube does 
his cause no service by appearing to confuse 
them. 

Classification is a process that is inevitable 
no matter how one may choose to disguise it, 
and by the nature of the case it is especially 
inevitable in libraries. A library classifies 
materials in the process of ordering them in 
conformity with its acquisitions policies and 
in dividing them in subject departmentalized 
libraries. Despite the animadversions of the 
scholars, shelf classifications will continue to 
be used for a long time in libraries, and in 
view of the current and continuing practice, 
the whole discussion sometimes seems some-
what academic.—David A. Kronick, Refer-
ence Section, Armed Forces Medical Library. 

244 COI.LEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES