Page 35 - Training for Librarianship Library Work As a Career

TKAINING FOR LIBRARIANSHIP

speed in use. Classification according to
color, size, author, date of publication, name
of publishers, language, etc., is possible, but
since most persons are interested in the sub-
ject of a book, classification by subject is
most frequently met with in libraries. Sev-
eral standard schemes of classification which
have been widely employed in Hbraries now
exist. Among these the Dewey Decimal, the
Library of Congress, the Expansive and the
Adjustable classifications may be mentioned.
The last-named is to be found mainly in
Enghsh libraries. The Dewey Decimal clas-
sification, prepared by Melvil Dewey, has
been adopted in over half of the libraries of
the United States. It divides all knowledge
into ten broad classes, each class being sub-
divided into ten subclasses, and so on. This
principle of subdivision by tens gives the
classification its name. Many variations of
these standard classification schemes exist.
Satisfactory as are these standard schemes
when applied to general collections, they are
not as completely satisfactory when applied
to special collections. The scope here is con-
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