The Library World Volume 12 Issue 4

THE CATEGORICAL TABLES of the S.C. which are used entirely for the sub‐division of subjects have only been criticized for two reasons, and neither is very serious. It has been said that in many cases they make the notation too cumbrous and the numbers too long; and someone has objected to these tables for including subjects which are already in the main schedules. A lengthy symbol is almost inseparable from minute classification, because it is impossible without enormously increasing the main tables to provide for the many forms and standpoints which require expressing if an attempt is to be made to get right up to the specific subject. An example of enormous expansion will be found in the uncompleted Library of Congress Classification, in which no fewer than 7,079 numbers are used for music, a subject which in the S.C. is even more fully detailed in 332 numbers. For instance, there is no place in the Congressional scheme for the viol family of instruments, in connection with which there is a very large literature, so that, in spite of its great array of numbers, it appears that it is possible to miss important headings even in the most ambitious scheme. This inflation is caused by the constant repetition of forms, localities, and other categories, which in the S.C. are expressed once and for all in separate tables, by numbers which always mean the same thing. Thus:—