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<!--Library of Congress Classification-->
{{short description|System of library classification}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2023}} {{Use American English|date=November 2023}}
The '''Library of Congress Classification''' ('''LCC''') is a system of [[library classification]] developed by the [[Library of Congress]] in the [[United States]], which can be used for shelving books in a library. LCC is mainly used by large research and [[academic libraries]].{{cn|date=March 2026}} LCC was developed in 1897 by [[J. C. M. Hanson|James Hanson]] (chief of the [[Cataloging (library science)|Catalog]] Department), with assistance from [[Charles Martel (librarian)|Charles Martel]] while they were working at the Library of Congress.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dittmann |first=Helena |url=http://archive.org/details/learnlibraryofco0000ditt |title=Learn Library of Congress classification |date=2000 |publisher=Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-8108-3696-9}}</ref> It was designed specifically for the purposes and collection of the Library of Congress, to replace the fixed location system developed by [[Thomas Jefferson]].
 
LCC has been criticized for lacking a sound theoretical basis; many of the classification decisions were driven by the practical needs of that library rather than [[Epistemology|epistemological]] considerations.<ref name=":6">{{cite journal |last=Hickey |first=Doralyn J. |date=1969 |title=Reviewed work: The Use of the Library of Congress Classification: Proceedings of the Institute on the Use of the Library of Congress Classification Sponsored by the American Library Association, Resources and Technical Services Division, Cataloging and Classification Section, New York City, July 7-9, 1966, Richard H. Schimmelpfeng, C. Donald Cook |journal=The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=294–296 |doi=10.1086/619784 |jstor=4306016}}</ref> Although it divides subjects into broad categories, it is essentially [[Library classification#Types|enumerative]] in nature. That is, it provides a guide to the books actually in one library's collections, not a classification of the world.
 
== History ==
The central core of the modern Library of Congress was formed from books sold to the government by Thomas Jefferson after the original collection was burned by the British in the [[War of 1812]]. As a result, the original classification system used by the library was of Jefferson's invention. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, the collection had grown to over a million volumes and his system was deemed too unwieldy.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Library of Congress Classification |url=https://www.librarianshipstudies.com/2017/11/library-of-congress-classification.html |date=June 23, 2020 |website=Librarianship Studies & Information Technology |access-date=2022-10-03}}</ref>
 
[[John Russell Young]], the seventh Librarian of Congress, hired James Hanson and Charles Martel in 1897,<ref>{{Cite web |title=John Russell Young (1840-1899) |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/n83202815/john-russell-young-1840-1899/ |access-date=2022-10-04 |website=Library of Congress}}</ref> who began the development of a new classification system that would more accurately describe the collections the library held. Young's tenure as Librarian ended with his death in 1899, and his successor, [[Herbert Putnam]], continued to implement the updates to the catalog through his long stay in the office.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Herbert Putnam (1861-1955) |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/n85185518/herbert-putnam-1861-1955/ |access-date=2022-10-04 |website=Library of Congress |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221004005650/https://www.loc.gov/item/n85185518/herbert-putnam-1861-1955/ |archive-date= 2022-10-04 }}</ref> By the time he departed from his post in 1939, all the classes except K (Law) were well developed.<ref name=":3" />
 
In creating their classification system, Hanson and Martel evaluated several systems already in existence, including the [[Dewey Decimal System]], [[Charles Ammi Cutter]]'s [[Cutter Expansive Classification]], the [[Index Medicus]],<ref>{{Cite journal|pmc=234678 |pmid=16015800 |date=1916 |last1=Martel |first1=C. |title=Remarks on Cataloguing and Classification |journal=Bulletin of the Medical Library Association |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=43–45 }}</ref> and the [[Putnam Classification System]] (developed while Putnam was head librarian at the [[Minneapolis Public Library]]).<ref>Andy Sturdevant. [https://www.minnpost.com/stroll/2014/02/cracking-spine-hennepin-county-librarys-many-hidden-charms "Cracking the spine on Hennepin County Library's many hidden charms".] ''[[MinnPost]]'', 02/05/14.</ref> The one closest to their needs was Cutter's; however, he died before the completion of his system.<ref name=":4">LaMontagne, Leo E. ''American Library Classification: With Special Reference to the Library of Congress''. Hamden, CT, Shoe String Press. 1961, p. 210.</ref> Hanson and Martel thus decided to develop their own unique system, strongly based on his ideas. They published their first outline of the classification scheme in 1904.<ref name=":3" /> Development of the classes continued throughout the twentieth century. The last class to be developed was K (Law): the first K schedule was published in 1969 and not completed until the 2004 publication of KB.<ref name=":3" />
 
From 1996 onwards, the LCC schedules were available online, and since 2013, there have been no new print editions of the classification system. All updates are now distributed by the Library's Cataloging Distribution Service entirely online.<ref name=":3" />
 
== <span class="anchor" id="Design and Organization"></span>Design and organization ==
LCC divides all knowledge into twenty-one basic classes, each given a single letter of the alphabet as an identifier. Most of these classes are divided further into two and three level sub-classes.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Library of Congress Classification |url=https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcc.html |access-date=2022-10-03 |website=Library of Congress }}</ref> With these sub-classes, numerical ranges are assigned to topics, going from more general to more specific. Unlike in the Dewey Decimal Classification, where the numbers assigned to a topic iterate throughout the system (e.g., the ".05" tag indicated a periodical publication on the topic), the LCC numerical ranges are strictly hierarchal, only corresponding to their level on the outline. LCC is enumerative, meaning that it lists all the classes in officially published schedules, which are updated as needed by the Library of Congress.<ref name=":0" />
[[File:G&G LCC Call number.png|alt=GB 2403.2 .B44 2010 is described as components based on how such an LCC call number is formed: G being the class, GB being in the subclass, 2403.2 being the topic number, .B44 being the Cutter Number, and 2010 being the publication date.|thumb|The call number for ''Glaciers and Glaciation'' (2nd edt.) by Benn & Evans. This indicates that it belongs to the broad class of  "Geography, Anthropology, Recreation," the subclass of "Physical Geography," and the topic of "Ice. Glaciers. Ice sheets. Sea ice." B44 is the Cutter number, after the first author Benn, and 2010 represents the publication year.]]
 
After the range of numbers making up the topical division, call numbers often also include one or more Cutter numbers, modeled after the unfinished [[Cutter Expansive Classification]] index. The full LCC schedules contain tables that describe Cutter numbers for certain types of media, collections of work, and geographical areas.<ref name=":3" /> Cutter numbers also can take the form of an author-specific code, containing a letter and several numbers corresponding to the author's last name. This serves to further distinguish publications and nominally alphabetize volumes within a topic section. The final component of a typical LCC call-number is the publication year, in full.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chan |first=Lois Mai |title=A guide to the Library of Congress classification |date=1999 |publisher=Libraries Unlimited |others=Lois Mai Chan |isbn=1-56308-499-6 |edition=5th |location=Englewood, Colo. |oclc=41211262}}</ref> Library collections can add modifiers to distinguish specific volumes, such as "Copy 1."<ref name="DeweyDiscord">{{Cite news |last=Lavallee |first=Andrew |date=July 20, 2007 |title=Discord Over Dewey: A New Library in Arizona Fans a Heated Debate Over What Some Call the 'Googlization' of Libraries |newspaper=Wall Street Journal |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118340075827155554 |access-date=May 25, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206090626/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118340075827155554 |archive-date=6 February 2015}}</ref>
 
LCC should not be confused with [[Library of Congress Control Number]]s (LCCN), which are assigned to all books (and authors) and defines online catalog entries.<ref name="authors" group="lower-alpha" /> Library of Congress Classification is also distinct from [[Library of Congress Subject Headings]], the system of labels such as "Glaciers" and "Glaciers—Fiction" that describe contents systematically.<ref name="subjects" group="lower-alpha" />
 
One variation from the original LCC system is the [[National Library of Medicine classification]] system (NLM), which uses the initial letters ''W'' and ''QS''–''QZ'', which are not used by LCC. Some libraries use NLM in conjunction with LCC, eschewing LCC's R, QM, and QP, which overlap with NLM's schema.<ref>Taylor, A. G., & Joudrey, D.N. (2009). The organization of information. 3rd ed. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited.</ref><ref>Chan, L. M.(2007). Cataloging and classification: An introduction. 3rd ed. Scarecrow Press.</ref> Another is the Canadian Universities and the Canadian National Library using FC for Canadian History, a subclass that LCC has not officially adopted, but which it has agreed not to use for anything else.<ref name=":1">{{cite web |last1=National Library of Canada |title=Class FC: a classification for Canadian history |url=http://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/SN3-61-1994E.pdf |access-date=May 21, 2018 |website=PDF publication |publisher=National Library of Canada}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{cite web |last1=Rutherford |first1=D |title=Canadian History Call Numbers |url=http://library.queensu.ca/techserv/cat/Sect03/c03Canclass.html#double |access-date=May 21, 2018 |website=Queens University Library |archive-date=January 23, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123214623/https://library.queensu.ca/techserv/cat/Sect03/c03Canclass.html#double |url-status=dead }}</ref>
 
{| class="wikitable"
|+Classes<ref name=":0" />
!Letter||Subject area
|-
|A||General Works
|-
|B||Philosophy, Psychology, Religion
|-
|C||Auxiliary Sciences of History
|-
|D||World History and History of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
|-
|E||History of America
|-
|F||History of the Americas
|-
|G||Geography, Anthropology, and Recreation
|-
|H||Social Sciences
|-
|J||Political Science
|-
|K||Law
|-
|L||Education
|-
|M||Music
|-
|N||Fine Arts
|-
|P||Language and Literature
|-
|Q||Science
|-
|R||Medicine
|-
|S||Agriculture
|-
|T||Technology
|-
|U||Military Science
|-
|V||Naval Science
|-
|Z||Bibliography, Library Science, and General Information Resources
|}
 
== Use and criticism ==
{{See also|Comparison of Dewey and Library of Congress subject classification}}
Together, the Dewey Decimal System (DDC) and LCC make up the two main classification systems used in U.S. libraries.<ref name="DeweyDiscord" /> LCC is favored by large academic and research libraries.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Library of Congress Classification (LCC) {{!}} Library and Information Science {{!}} Research Starters {{!}} EBSCO Research |url=https://www.ebsco.com/ |access-date=2026-05-22 |website=EBSCO |language=en}}</ref>
 
Systems of classification can be evaluated on several metrics, including expressiveness (the ability of the numeration system to express the hierarchal and correlative relationships between topics), hospitality (the ability of the system to accommodate new subjects), and brevity (length of call numbers).<ref name=":3" /> While LCC is significantly less expressive than DDC, it is extremely hospitable, mainly in the fact that five classes (I, O, W, X, and Y) lack any assignment to topics.<ref name=":4" /> LCC call numbers also tend to be shorter than those in DDC.
 
The main difference between DDC and LCC is their approach to classifying. Dewey's system is a comprehensive classification to all topics, with no regard to the actual collections a library might hold. While this has allowed it to be successfully adapted into more modern classification systems for use outside of libraries, such as the [[Universal Decimal Classification]] (UDC),<ref>"A Brief Introduction to the Dewey Decimal Classification". OCLC. Archived from the original on May 3, 2013. Retrieved November 16, 2013.</ref> it does make it more unwieldy for large or specialized collections. On the other hand, Hanson and Martel designed LCC specifically for library use, which means while it does not completely enumerate the world, it does more reflect what books a library might hold.<ref name=":6" />
 
Because LCC was designed around the collections of the Library of Congress, it has an American, European, and Christian bias, as reflected mainly in the earlier developed schedules of D (World History), E and F (History of the Americas), and B (Philosophy, Psychology, Religion). On the other hand, the later-developed K (Law) gives fairly even weight to global law.<ref name=":0" /> Today, the various schedules are maintained and revised by the Library's Policy and Standards Division, in conjunction with experts in each field. However, updating various schedules with classification biases is generally assumed to be impractical due to the massive workload that would result in,<ref name=":3" />  especially as the "discipline" based classes of LCC have been entrenched in the average library user's mind.<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last1=Howard |first1=Sara A. |last2=Knowlton |first2=Steven A. |date=2018 |title=Browsing through Bias: The Library of Congress Classification and Subject Headings for African American Studies and LGBTQIA Studies |journal=Library Trends |volume=67 |issue=1 |pages=74–88 |doi=10.1353/lib.2018.0026 |s2cid=69496735 |via=Muse|hdl=2142/101937 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>
 
Like all classification systems, LCC struggles with catering to interdisciplinary scholars and topics, as ultimately, a book can only be shelved in a single location.<ref name=":5" />  Additionally, LCC has a problem with "othering" marginalized groups, making works related to or authored by members of these groups particularly difficult to locate.<ref name=":5" /> This is not a new issue, and libraries with more specialized collections about minority groups or issues sometimes eschew LCC,<ref name=":5" /> with one example alternative classification being the [[Harvard–Yenching Classification]], specifically developed for Chinese language materials.
 
==See also==<!-- Please respect alphabetical order -->
* [[ACM Computing Classification System]]
* [[Books in the United States]]
* [[Brinkler classification]]
* [[Chinese Library Classification]]
* [[Database of Recorded American Music]]
* [[Dewey Decimal Classification]]
* [[Harvard–Yenching Classification]]
* [[Moys Classification Scheme]]
* [[ISBN]]
* [[Minnie Earl Sears]], formulated Sears Subject Headings, simplified for use by small libraries
* [[MARC standards]]
* [[Resource Description and Access]]
* [[Statement of International Cataloguing Principles]]
* [[Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules]]
 
==Notes==
{{reflist |group=lower-alpha |refs=
 
<ref group=lower-alpha name=authors>
LCCN also covers authors, which LCC does not. For authors (people), the letter 'n' accompanies the number, and they too define URLs in a parallel catalog, such as "n83160096" and "http://lccn.loc.gov/n83160096 ". (So LCCN may be called alphanumeric.)</ref>
<ref group=lower-alpha name=subjects>
LCSH too is developed by the Library and assigns alphanumeric IDs. A closer look at this example shows refinements defined in 2004, 2007, and 2009. [http://id.loc.gov/search/?q=Boarding+schools&q=cs%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fid.loc.gov%2Fauthorities%2Fsubjects LCSH: Boarding schools].<!-- See Talk
--><!--
http://id.loc.gov/search/?q=Boarding+schools&q=cs%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fid.loc.gov%2Fauthorities%2Fsubjects (example Subject Headings identifiers and labels that seem to exhibit development
identifier    label
sh85015136    Boarding schools
sh2004006485  Boarding schools in literature
sh2007102067  Boarding schools—Fiction
sh2009116962  Boarding schools—Juvenile fiction
--></ref>
}}
 
==References==
{{Reflist}}
 
== External links ==
{{Wikisource}}
{{Wikidata property|P1149}}
* "[https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/ Library of Congress classification outline]", LOC
* "[http://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCC/freelcc.html Library of Congress Classification PDF Files]", LOC
* "[https://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/classification/ Classification]", LOC
* "[https://www.loc.gov/cds/ Cataloging Distribution Services]" – Library of Congress
* "[https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html Classification outline]", LOC
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140412225645/http://geography.about.com/library/congress/blhowto.htm How to read LCC call numbers], geography.about.com (via The [[Wayback Machine]])
* [http://www.zackgrossbart.com/hackito/the-library-problem/ How to use LCC to organize a home library], zackgrossbart.com
<!-- official site : [http://lcsh.info/ icsh.info] -->
 
{{-}}
{{Library classification systems}}
 
{{Authority control}}
 
[[Category:Library of Congress Classification| ]]
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