Library of Congress Classification System: 19th Century Dates of Interest
1800The Library of Congress was founded. Its earliest classification system was by size - subdivided by accession numbers.
1812The Library of Congress' collection had grown to 3,000 volumes. A better of collection was needed. The solution was to arrange works under 18 broad subject categories similar to the Bacon-d'Alembert system used in the 1789 Catalogue of Benjamin Franklin's Library Company of Philadelphia.
1814Soldiers of the British Army burned the Capitol, where the collection was then housed.
1818In an effort to re-establish the collection, Thomas Jefferson offered to sell Congress his library of approximately 7,000 volumes. Jefferson had catalogued the collection himself, using a 44 main class and sub-division classification system, nothing like the Bacon-d'Alembert system. This collection to was later victimized by fire.
1899Dr. Herbert Putman, the newly appointed Librarian, decided to re-organize the entire collection. There were many staff members and a brand new building that also influenced Putman's decision to devote efforts at re-organizing what would become a growing collection. The system of Classification chosen by Putman and Charles Martel, the chief Cataloger was build onto the Expansive Classification introduced by Charles Cutter. The "Z"- Bibliography and Library Science was the first class devised and was adopted from Cutter with only minor variations. The schedules comprised of single classes or parts of classes were separately published as they were completed. Most of which were first published between 1899 and 1940. Each schedule is periodically updated and reviewed by committee.
MARC LC Classification CodesIn the MARC format call numbers based on LCC that are assigned by LC or the British Library are placed in the 050 field; those assigned by the National Library or Canada - 055 field; the National Library of Medicine - 060 field; and the national Agricultural Library - 070 field; member institutions are asked to enter locally assigned numbers based on LCC - 090 field. Return to the class syllabus. |