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Presentation
Merrill's Code for Classifiers
SIRLS Researchers Get-togethers (2004)
  • Anita S. Coleman, San Jose State University
Abstract
This Microsoft PowerPoint presentation of 25 slides includes several pictures and quotations about and from the "Code for Classifiers: Principles governing the consistent placing of books in a system of classification" by William Stetson Merrill. Coleman briefly explores the problems of classification presented in the Code, the model of collaboration that was used to develop the principles documented in the various editions of the Code, and how the Code can be used to develop a federated classification (classifying) model for digital library organization. The discussion also makes it clear that early American library classification was not just a "mark and park" strategy for book shelving. Librarians and library educators of the time (early 1900s) were deeply interested in bibliographic classification as a solution to the many problems of knowledge organization for information retrieval.
Keywords
  • Classification,
  • Digital Libraries,
  • Interdisciplinarity
Publication Date
August 24, 2004
Location
University of Arizona, Tucson
Citation Information
Anita S. Coleman. "Merrill's Code for Classifiers" SIRLS Researchers Get-togethers (2004)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/anita-coleman/60/