Bliss bibliographic classification
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The Bliss bibliographic classification (or BC for short) is a library classification system that was created by Henry E. Bliss (1870–1955), published in four volumes between 1940 and 1953. Although originally devised in the United States, it was more commonly adopted by British libraries than by American ones. A revised, second edition of this system (BC2) has been developed since 1977 in the United Kingdom.
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Origins of the system
Bliss was born in New York in 1870, and in 1891 began to work in the library of the College of the City of New York (now known as the City College of the City University of New York).
Bliss had a lifelong interest in the organization, structure and philosophy of knowledge, and was very critical of the library classification systems that were available to him. He believed that because the popular Library of Congress system had been designed for a specific library (the Library of Congress), that it had no use as a standard system outside of that library. He also greatly disliked the Dewey Decimal system.
Bliss wanted a classification system that would provide distinct rules, yet still be adaptable to whatever kind of collection a library might have, since different libraries have different needs. His solution was the concept of "alternative location", in which a particular subject matter could be put in more than one place, as long as the library made a specific choice and used it consistently.
In 1908, Bliss re-classified 60,000 of his library's books, and in 1910 he published an article with a rough scheme of his general ideas. But as he continued to develop his system, he realized that it was going to be a much larger project than he had originally anticipated. The first of his four official volumes appeared in 1940 (the year he retired), and the last in 1953, two years before his death.
Some of the philosophies of the BC system were:
- alternative location
- brief, concise notation
- organizing knowledge according to academic expertise
- for subjects to move gradually from topic to topic as they naturally related to one another
Examples
GER Biochemistry of muscles in animals
MN&,S History of Finland in the 19th century
PWWbca,L The building and equipment of the YWCA in Albany, New York
Bliss deliberately avoided the use of the decimal point because of his hatred of Dewey's system. Instead he used upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and every typographical symbol available on his extensive and somewhat eccentric typewriter (which included both forward and reverse italics).
Adoption and change
BC was not used by many North American libraries. The system was not without its flaws (the result of largely being a one-person project), and the layout of Bliss' text was difficult to read. A few library schools sometimes taught the BC system to their students, but only in a minor capacity. The failure of the system to catch on in North America was partially due to its internal deficiencies, but also because the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress systems were already well-established.
The City College library continued to use Bliss' system until 1967, when they reluctantly switched to the Library of Congress system. It had gotten too expensive to train new staff to use BC, and too expensive to maintain in general.
The case was different, however, in Britain. BC proved more popular there and spread to other English-speaking allied countries. Part of the reason for its success was because libraries in teacher's colleges liked the way Bliss had organized the subject areas on teaching and education. By the mid-1950s, BC was being used in at least 60 British libraries, and in 100 by the 1970s.
In 1967, the Bliss Classification Association was formed. Their first publication was the Abridged Bliss Classification (ABC), intended for school libraries. In 1977 they began to publish and maintain a much-improved, revised version of Bliss' system, referred to as BC2.
See also
- Colon classification
- Dewey Decimal Classification
- Library of Congress classification
- Universal Decimal Classification
References
- Bliss, Henry E. (1910). A modern classification for libraries, with simple notation, mnemonics, and alternatives. Library Journal 35, 351-358.
- Bliss, Henry E. (1935). A system of bibliographic classification. New York: H.W. Wilson.
- Bliss, Henry E. (1940-1953). A bibliographic classification, extended by systematic auxiliary schedules for composite specification (4 volumes). New York: H.W. Wilson.
- Maltby, Arthur & Gill, Lindy (1979). The case for Bliss. London: Clive Bingley. ISBN 0851572901
- Thomas, Alan R. (1997). Bibliographical classification: the ideas and achievements of Henry E. Bliss. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 25 (1), 51-104.
External links
- Homepage of the Bliss Classification Association and BC2. (http://www.sid.cam.ac.uk/bca/bchist.htm)