Talk:Library of Congress Classification

early discussion
I read a book by Mortimer Adler once, the name of which of course escapes me, that traced classification systems. He pointed out that the LC is based on Jefferson's own system, which was based on Francis Baconl. I forget if Bacon had a predecessor. --MichaelTinkler

Now you mention it I recall reading that as well, though I can't which book I read or much of the details. I read a book on the history of library classifications about a year or two. -- SJK

The paragraph on 'bias' needs to be re-written. Library classification schemes have good reason to be 'biased' towards actual library holdings rather than ideal analytical schemes of all knowledge which might someday come to be represented in their collections. --MichaelTinkler

As this is a formal title adopted by the LC I've capitalized "Classification" in the title.

Somebody had managed to change all the Class titles into a backward order and I've reverted this "Library of Congress classification" is not a disambiguator for the various classes. &#9774; Eclecticology 12:06 31 May 2003 (UTC)

In an attempt to improve the aesthetics of the list I put it into a HTML table. I don't mind if it's considered overkill and gets reverted. Let me know. -- sugarfish 00:18, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * I agree that it is a bit of overkill, but the data in the list is very stable so I wouldn't complain too strenuously that the more complicated HTML format is virtually uneditable by normal mortals. In a less stable environment, I might see things differently.  &#9774; Eclecticology 04:02, 2003 Sep 19 (UTC)


 * Is it, then, worth extending the concept to the Sub-Classifications? -- sugarfish 06:32, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * I don't particularly object. The question of the stability of the article comes into the picture.  Although I did originally set some of these pages up in my earliest days on Wikipedia, I did leave the matter of expansion as an open question.  I would appreciate your views on this.
 * Meanwhile, if you're looking for a place to start working your wonders, I've noticed that someone expanded 4 of the subclasses in P. This guy stayed for a few days then disappeared.  I look forward to hearing from you.  &#9774; Eclecticology 21:53, 2003 Sep 19 (UTC)

I've taken the following out for the reason that no evidence is given and sounds highly dubious. What, after all, could LIBRARIANS gain from subverting Christianity and the US? And how could a system of organization be biased against them? Prove me wrong and put back the quote. Until then, let it stay here:
 * In particular, the classification often shows bias towards the United States and towards Christianity.

D.E. Cottrell 07:51, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * No problem. I don't think that I contributed that anyways.  I've left it alone because it struck me as probably true.  The bias should not be seen as an intentional bias, nor does it imply any kind of subversion.  It seems natural to expect that a US developed system would put more emphasis on US centred topics.  Thus we have more subclasses in B devoted to Christian themes.  Class E alone is devoted entirely to US history while all the complexities of Old World history are grouped together in Class D.  Subclass PS is devoted entirely to US literature, while English literature from all other places is put together in subclass PR.  That being said, I don't attach enough importance to that bias to warrant a full scale defence to keep it in the article.   &#9774; Eclecticology 23:49, 2004 Jan 19 (UTC)

lol. I was thinking of a bias in the other direction. (Personal experience, talking!) Oh well, still stands. D.E. Cottrell 05:08, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia outline format
The outlines on the pages linked from "Wikipedia organized by the Library of Congress Classification" are arranged using a combination of wiki indents (HTML definition lists) and manually typed dot-leaders. Looks like heck in my web browser.

Would anyone object to redoing these using HTML preformatted text (&lt;PRE>) blocks? The results would look like the following (from Subclass PG). &mdash;Michael Z. 2005-01-22 16:54 Z 

PG 1-9665.............Slavic. Baltic. Albanian 1-7948............Slavic 1-499............Slavic philology and languages (General) 500-585..........Slavic literature (General) 601-716..........Church Slavic 771-799..........Bulgarian Church Slavic 801-1146.........Bulgarian 1151-1199........Macedonian 1201-1696........Serbo-Croatian 1801-1962........Slovenian 2001-2826........Russian language 2830-2847........Belarusian 2900-3698........Russian literature 2900-3190.......History and criticism 2900-2998......General 3001-3026......Special periods 3041-3065......Poetry 3071-3089......Drama 3091-3099......Prose 3100-3155......Folk literature (including texts) 3199-3299.......Collections 3199-3205......General 3211-3219......Translations [etc.]

LoC Catalog Number
The Loc system started in 1939, according to the article. But I have some books listing a different LoC system, for example "Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-22622" for a book copyright in 1968. What is this? Bubba73 18:50, July 19, 2005 (UTC)


 * The LCCN (Library of Congress Card Number, USMARC tag number "010") serves a function similar to the ISBN, but LoC-specific. It is just a number whose purpose is to uniquely identify a book; it has nothing to do with classification.
 * —Wing 05:18, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Using LC to organize category pages
I see potential for using these pages as a way to getting to [[Category:]] pages. I do a fair bit of random article hunts, trying to attach cats and stubs to orphans. It is very difficult sometimes to find them. When I saw this, I became excited. I can run a library catalog search, find the LC number and use it to find appropriate categories. It's a very librarianish thing to do, I know, but a savvy user could use the same technique. What do you all think? --CTS Wyneken (talk) 21:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

As voss pointed out the current wiki category system is a collaborative thesaurus not to be confused with a classification system. Adding a classification system to controlled vocabulory (thesarus) would mean you are talking about a taxonomy Aarontay 13:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


 * In the summary and conclusions section on page 5, Voss states, "In this paper three indexing systems were discussed: classifications (or taxonomies), simple index terms, and thesauri (see figure 7)." Voss depicts both classifications/taxonomies (e.g., the DDC), and thesauri (e.g., Wikipedia categories) as hierarchies. They differ in that classifications use a tree structure while thesauri use a network structure. Put another way, Wikipedia's category system is a network of classification systems. I think we already knew that, but Voss does a nice job of demonstrating it in gory details. My reply to all that is, "And?..."


 * I posted the The portal namespace improvement drive: Contents and megaportals as one way to get at the ongoing issue of helping readers more easily find Wikipedia articles. I also posted a series of related questions at Portal peer review/Contents. Keeping in mind those general discussions don't use controlled vocabulary terms as precisely as they are used here, I have a question or two for this group of experts. The big improvement drive question most related to the discussions here boils down to, Based on established article classification systems, what main contents topics should be used for Wikipedia's contents pages and their related portals? If you are inclined to do so, please post your reply at the above portal peer review under Main topics classification systems And as long as you're there already, don't forget to weigh in under the other questions too! Thanks! RichardF (talk) 04:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Availability of the LOC classification system?
I notice that the actual classification system is unavailable online for free. Only the outlines are available. What is its copyright status? The LOC seems to charge money for online access, to the tune of $375 down to $68/person in bulk.

http://www.loc.gov/cds/classweb/

How does that articulate with a putative desire to use it to classify all or parts of wikipedia?

In tandem with asking this question here, I'm inquiring via email at the Cataloging Distribution Service email cdsinfo@loc.gov.

-Vonfraginoff 12:56, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Criticism of LCC from the DDC Article

 * The Library of Congress Classification system is also more complicated to use on an ad hoc basis without reference to the collection of the Library of Congress, and unlike DDC cannot be customised for the needs of a smaller library collection. Likewise, with the standardisation of LCC as a product for the preclassification of materials before they are accessioned there is little incentive for librarians to do their own classification of a work, even a work that was obviously classified erroneously by the Library of Congress. This has lead to a "homogenisation" and lack of vigour in the presentation of collections (and especially specialised collections) to the library patron.

I've removed this criticism from the Dewey Decimal Classification article because it seemed to be a little to extended for an article on another topic. Please review it and, if useful, integrate it here. —mako (talk•contribs) 15:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Classification articles nominated for deletion
Editors involved with these should see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Library of Congress Classification:Class B, subclass BS -- The Bible. –Pomte 23:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

All subsets of this page have been deleted.
For more information, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Library of Congress Classification:Class B, subclass BS -- The Bible. All subpages should not be recreated without any good reason. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 02:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Schedule B
I have started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Library of Congress Classification:Class B, subclass BS -- The Bible  about how to deal with this. Inparticular I have question the deletion of --B which was not in my opinion discussed adequately in the AfD. DGG 04:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC) DGG 04:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Automatic addition of "class=FA"
A bot has added class=FA to the WikiProject banners on this page, as it's listed as a featured lists. If you see a mistake, please revert, and leave a note on the bot's talk page. Thanks, BOT Giggabot (talk) 03:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Revert. This is not a featured list. RichardF (talk) 00:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Apologies, and thanks for that. See also your talk page. &mdash; Dihydrogen Monoxide  08:35, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

sub pages
In my opinion, the outcome of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Library of Congress Classification:Class B, subclass BS -- The Bible was correct - these sub-pages are not written in an encyclopedic manner. personally, I believe that encyclopedic sub-articles can be written about these classes, but what we have isnt that.

I have imported the sub-pages into Wikisource: Library of Congress Classification. It is only the "outline" at present, but I expect that over time it will grow into the complete set of subject headers.

As a result, is there anyone who would object to the sub-pages being deleted from Wikipedia? John Vandenberg (talk) 12:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * This information is clearly encyclopedic, and I have no idea what is meant by "encyclopedic manner". These are made more useful by having links from the listings to the subjects themselves.  I think people should be encouraged to develop them all to the sub-class level.


 * I would certainly object to the deletion of these articles. The discussion relating to subclass BS, especially given the ironic development of the term "BS" well after that category was published in 1927.  Using that subclass as a stand-in for a broader discussion would be using an unfortunate straw man.


 * Where this goes in Wikisource should have no bearing on the discussion here. Eclecticology (talk) 20:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I did not agree with the original decision to delete the articles. I am, though, biased because I wrote them with the intention of being content portals so that users could be pointed to a myriad of differing subject headings under a single LC class (or subclass). I stopped at HV (I think) due to the fact that the entire set of B subclass articles were summarily deleted. I am happy to see them restored. I would like to complete the series and wikify them. Any material concerning the sculpting of the classes (and subclasses) themselves could then, of course, be added to each article to help flesh out the history of the system.--NielsenGW (talk) 01:14, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I have to admit my own bias since I was instrumental in starting the whole group of pages in ealy 2002. I would certainly encourage you to carry on with your developments. Eclecticology (talk) 11:14, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

These subpages are currently a duplicate of the primary source, with a small amount of value added due to the wikilinks. I think they should be moved into the Wikipedia: namespace, in a similar manner to b:Wikibooks:LOC Classification/A.

I would love to see greater detail about the development of each classes and subclasses, but that prose should grow dynamically from the main article. John Vandenberg (talk) 02:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The full source is a series of 20 of so books, corrected with multiple separately published addenda on a continuing basis. They do not seem to be copyright, but they are available online in licensed versions only. (the situation seems anomalous & needs checking). Entering the whole thing if permitted into wikibooks or wikisource would therefore be quite a project. The schedules as deleted & restored, in spite of the apparent detail, is a brief summary only, about 0.1% of the original.
 * I am very uncertain about the development of the LC system into a third subject arrangement of WP, in addition to list and categories--done right, it would take continual maintenance by multiple people, just as do the categories. it has the serious disadvantage that outside of the major categories it is not hierarchical--the truncation on a LC number is totally meaningless once you get beyond the letter groups. The original classification was done about the time of the 11th Brittanica, and is just as useless as the EB as a modern classification or summary of knowledge. (as the classic bad example, everything about digital computers and programming has to be fitted into QA76.) The one virtue of using it for books is that the book catalog records come with the numbers. Is it being suggested to place things in exact classification numbers as used by the full schedules, or just in groups as in the summaries? In JV's example -- better seen starting from  I notice that it is applied in a very helter-skelter fashion. Most of the items in "A" do not belong there.
 * (The problem in using Dewey, which is hierarchical and truncatable, is that the whole thing is copyright and detail is not available to us.)
 * there have been various proposal for an additional namespace in WP, a data namespace, which would deal with the problem of where to put it. I tend to doubt the developers will want to do it. DGG (talk) 05:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know to what extent Dewey would be copyrightable, but certainly it would be in the public domain to whatever extent it was already developed before 1923. From what I can see of the Library Hotel case that was really a trademark rather than a copyright case.


 * Any attempt to use the full detailed schedules to categorize articles in any wiki project would be bound to fail. Few beyond those with library familiarity would know what is going on.  I think that what is happening with this at Wikibooks is closer to being on the right track.  They are starting small, and sub-dividing as the need requires.  The fact that so much is ending up in Class A is significant for what it says about how people do things.  They do have an "Uncategorized" category, but it is at the end rather than the beginning.  Still, I wouldn't object too strongly to the misuse of the top-level class A if it provides a place where more experienced people.  AFAIK the LOC does not use this as a single letter class.


 * QA76 made sense in 1905 when the first edition of this class was published. When I was trying to get this going on old Wikisource my suggestion was to move it all to the otherwise unused subclass "TB".


 * I agree that truncating the numeral part of an LC number wouldn't work, but trying that would be to approach the problem from the wrong end. Starting with broad categories and expanding would make more sense. Eclecticology (talk) 11:14, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Could these pages be moved to portal: namespace, to act as part of the currently/rapidly still-developing series of pages linked from Portal:Contents? Pages like Portal:Contents/Overviews were recently moved to portalspace, and I've been contemplating suggesting at Outline of Roget's Thesaurus that it get moved there too. Thoughts? -- Quiddity (talk) 09:15, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * An important distinction needs to be made here between this classification system as a valid encyclopedic topic in Library Science, and how the system might best be adapted to the needs of Wikimedia projects. The former is bound needs to be verifiable, which at the present level of development remains easy.  The latter can be modified to satisfy our needs, whatever they are or may become in the future.  The Thesaurus is really something that Wiktionary should be developing.  Eclecticology (talk) 11:14, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The Thesaurus is already/concurrently being developed at Wiktionary (Wiktionary:Wiktionary:Roget Thesaurus Classification), but it is also essentially working as a portal here: "The portal namespace is for reader-oriented portals that help readers find and browse through articles related to a specific subject." (bolding added). However, being in Wikipedia: namespace means it cannot be easily linked to from articles, whereas portals can.
 * These are the reasons I suggest the possibility of moving the subpages of Library of Congress Classification to Portal: namespace (where they could perhaps all be on one page, maybe in expanding/hidden sections?), rather than eliminating them from here altogether, or moving them to an unlinkable namespace. The root page is obviously an encyclopedic/referenced article, but the subpages should be kept easily browsable. Hope that makes sense (coffee...) -- Quiddity (talk) 20:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The Roget Classification pages are based on an unidentified old version of the system, and are certainly not consistent with the most recent revisions. My copy of the 6th international edition from 2001 has 1075 categories in 15 classes.  Neither project seems to give any consideration to the enormous discrepancies between various editions of Roget and pseudo-Roget.  I suppose that the fortunate part of this discussion is that it's not about Roget.


 * Not everybody uses the Portals, and there has been a deletion proposal on Wikisource to do away with them altogether. Had you not said so above I would never have known that the portals were reader oriented.  There is a link to "All portals" near the top of the Main Page, but that does not really explain what portals are.


 * I don't see that anything would be accomplished by moving the LC pages there. Copying them there, and applying whatever modifications the portalizers want to play with would be a different matter.  This is an issue of an internal fork with two completely different perspectives on the subject. Eclecticology (talk) 00:06, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I suggested "move" rather than "copy", simply in order to keep edit histories properly associated. Whatever works best though :) -- Quiddity (talk) 21:08, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) So far, nobody has taken any of these sub pages and written anything about the classes/subclasses. I seriously doubt anyone has it on their todo list either. In my opinion, having these subpage in main space deters the development of descriptive articles, as they appear to be a well organised directory that most people will refer to, but not expand. I hadnt considered a portal; are they typically allowed to have sub-pages? John Vandenberg (talk) 08:06, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * A few portals have tabs (see Portal:Science, Portal:Energy, Portal:Religion), and Portal:Contents is currently organized to have 6 major subpages (listed in its headerbar). Portal namespace seems to be a somewhat experimental area. I'd say copy the content there, or to a sandbox, and experiment for a while, if you're unsure.
 * However, unless the whole thing take more than 60kb or so, it should all be on one page like the Roget's page, or even if its kept in mainspace, like the List of Dewey Decimal classes currently is. That way, it is easier to do a text search on the whole thing, and there is less to keep track of on watchlists, and less to duplicate in the way of headers/categories/intra-navigation. The less spread out, the better. -- Quiddity (talk) 06:02, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

 * [shelf of books organized by LCC]

I added a photo to show how books are sorted by LCC call numbers. For those who think it's not related to LCC, then may be we should remove the Library of Congress reading room from this article. —21:46, 29 September 2008‎ Raysonho


 * See Library of Congress Classification. (It's the same image, which survived an edit battle.)
 * A better caption may be "Java programming books in the QA (Mathematics) subclass of Q (Science) ." —at least in this location beside the table of one-letter codes.
 * The image displayed in the article is too small to show me much of the LCC system in use. The original file does show something non-trivial —not a lot, because the books are so limited in scope, all with LCC beginning "QA 76 .73 j38" (first four parts meaning Java language?). Six of them exhibit an informative sequence in their fifth and sixth parts. Trimmed to essentials it is this:
 * F553 1997
 * F553 2002
 * F56
 * F566
 * F67
 * G3323
 * P64 (talk) 19:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Deleting subpages
I am thinking of proposing all the subpages at Category:Library of Congress Classification for deletion, as they are not encyclopedia articles, they simply repeat the classification. Wikisource has all this information: as does the Library of Congress:. Fences &amp;  Windows  00:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Could we try merging them into one or two, first?
 * There were a few other suggestions mentioned in the thread just above, that might also be workable. I'd appreciate it if you gave that a glance, and us your thoughts. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The thread was stale, so I didn't give it a thorough read before. I still don't see what value any of these pages have to an encyclopedia. We want to write about the classification, not mirror it. If someone wants to categorise Wikipedia articles as yet another alternative to categories, lists, portals, and outlines, then they can, but a year and a half later I don't think there's been any movement on the idea. Fences  &amp;  Windows  03:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I am interested in further developing the LCC pages. The Transhumanist 23:16, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Value added to the encyclopedia: the Libary of Congress Classification (LCC) is a very good example of an outline of knowledge, which can be compared to Wikipedia's own Outline of Knowledge. And unlike other presentations of the LCC, Wikipedia's version is linked to Wikipedia articles.  So it can also be used to compare the coverage of Wikipedia as a whole to the coverage of the LCC - it shows how much of the LCC is covered on Wikipedia.  The LCC pages also provide another way to navigate knowledge, and Wikipedia.  So this is more than a mere copy of a classification system.  It's been activated.  It's alive!  The Transhumanist 23:41, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


 *  Delete or merge. The information is not relevant to anyone unless they are looking for information at the library, in which case they would use the library's website.  If anything, combine all the subpages into a single page.  Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 18:56, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Having the LCC on Wikipedia is awesome. I use it a lot! Wikipedia presents the LCC in a way that it can be easily studied: Wikipedia's version of the LCC is linkified, providing instant descriptions of each topic in the LCC.  So a reader can rapidly become familiar with the LCC here, because Wikipedia articles are just a click away!  In other presentations of the LCC, the reader is left to wonder what the various categories mean - if he wants to know what a term presented in the LCC is about, he has to look the words up (and key them in) somewhere else.  On Wikipedia you skip that extra step!  Click.  Definitely a keeper.  The Transhumanist 23:15, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


 * That said, I still believe the information can be merged into a single article. Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 20:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Are you saying we should merge the "Class" pages only? Or are you saying that we should merge all the "Class" and "Subclass" pages?


 * Merging all of them will make the page huge.


 * The Transhumanist 15:54, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I meant to suggest (specifically) that the subpages be merged into a single new list/article. So we retain the list that is already here, but have a single link to the more complete list. E.g. merge them all to List of Library of Congress Classifications, or List of Library of Congress Classification classes, or some similar title. So that we end up with 2 pages, instead of 84 pages. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:56, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * That sounds like a reasonable way to compensate. I support it.  Also, keep in mind that we can use a template called TOCLimit to fix the undesirably long TOC. Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 23:29, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You've talked me round. A merge of all the subpages into one new list, to present a wikified version of the entire classification might well be quite a useful navigational tool. Good plan Quiddity! Fences  &amp;  Windows  00:31, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Unless I've misinterpreted something here, it sounds like you want to make a 200KB+ list, in which case, you need to read WP:SIZE. I absolutely disagree that it's only valuable when you're looking for library books. I actually use these all the time when trying to find related topics and when the Wikipedia directory has failed me. Even if that WAS true, think about it: it's already been pointed out that the Wikipedia presentation of the LCC is better because it has wikilinks, and I'm also pointing out that it's much better because it's accessible from a cell phone. I do this all the time, and I know many others who do too. But, if you make the lists be over, say, 20KB, cell phones CRASH. — Skittleys (talk) 23:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm. That's an interesting point, and I believe I'll give on that one, as I can see where this page might be used more often on phones than on PCs.  I wonder why the Library of Congress hasn't gotten their act together in response to this apparent need for a catalog?  Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 23:45, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, and Wikipedia's presentation of it is applying an old tool to a new purpose. If you are used to using the LCC for looking up information in libraries, then it is naturally convenient to have it available for looking up stuff on Wikipedia.  It's a ready-made alternative site map to Wikipedia!  The LCC is a defacto knowledge tree - it shows what belongs to what, and includes links that lead right to Wikipedia's information on those subjects.


 * Since the LCC is an outline, the WP:WPOOK has adopted it. We've been tinkering with its development, and we'll will do more as Wikipedia's outline collection expands.  The Transhumanist 00:14, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Support delete/merge I fully support the merging of these pages. Verbal chat  12:18, 24 July 2010 (UTC)


 * merge These subpages should be merge to facilitate keyword searching. 173.228.62.66 (talk) 22:41, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Maintained how?
(quote with abbreviation): The LCC is a system of lc developed by the LoC.

The lead should make clear whether the classification is maintained by the LOC alone ("developed" originally in the past and currently in the present). If LOC maintains it along with, say publishers or printers, that should be explained.

These points should be covered in some sense: Does the Library classify only books that it receives? If in advance of receipt, how? If not in advance of receipt, how is LC printed in a so-called first edition? Which editions get distinct LC? Does every book have only one? If not, how does it get two?

Probably the article should give an example or three in order to define the classification. Do libraries that adopt LC commonly use suffixes or even prefixes as well? If so then what part of the code is the LC classification? --P64 (talk) 17:12, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

bullet
Before saving a major revision I restore the original arrangement in four paragraphs, so that the tool "Compare selected revisions" is as useful as possible.

• Two inline bullets (•) represent "my" paragraph breaks that I have eliminated before saving (above). And I have no break between pars two and three. That is, I recommend five paragraphs where the second is introduced and the fourth is expanded by the second halves of the current first and second pars. --P64 (talk) 18:06, 11 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Two months later I have thus re-paragraphed the lead section. --P64 (talk) 20:54, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

LCCN, LCSH, LC call number
Edit summary: (see Talk #bullet; improve par's 2,3,4; clarify scope of ref 4; improve ref details; relegate details of all Notes and Refs; ILLUSTRATE the siblings not to be confused LCCN, LCSH, and (newly) LC call numbers; relegate details to Notes (see Talk))

The first half of my edit summary stands on its own except. The second half (bold) concerns the main point for readers. Regarding what "is not to be confused" with LCC i have determined to illustrate Control Numbers and Subject Headings and (newly not to be confused) Call Numbers. At the moment i am too close to have opinions Indeed, in the second Note |ref name=subjects| I have hidden in a comment some of what I "penned" about subject headings. There is no sense yet formatting what will not likely remain in this article. In Talk space the format is trivial, so i show it here.
 * where in the lead section we should preempt confusion --much of it is tacked onto the lead paragraph for another purpose
 * how that material should be divided between lead section and new section Notes --but I have relegated much of it to help other editors along
 * how much unconfusing illustration should not be in this article at all, but only in articles on CN and SH and call numbers --none of which i have yet considered revising.
 * (quote Note 2) "LCSH too is developed by the Library and assigns alphanumeric IDs. A closer look at this example shows refinements defined in 2004, 2007, and 2009." (and continue it)

identifier   label sh85015136   Boarding schools sh2004006485 Boarding schools in literature sh2007102067 Boarding schools--Fiction sh2009116962 Boarding schools--Juvenile fiction
 * Boarding schools (search). LCSH. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2012-05-11.

Editors may observe (and perhaps resolve to change) that I have used thruout one example that is English or British rather than American. For what it's worth, as i extended the illustration (not in the article), I readily found another British boarding school fiction in the Taiwan library, but not this one. --P64 (talk) 18:06, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Is RA public health?
Would RA be public health? --Badger151 (talk) 11:24, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Fine Arts?
It looks like the fine arts section has not been created. Is there anything going on to complete it? Swordman97 talk to me  —Preceding

Use
Comment is needed on the wide spread use of the system, e.g. it is used extensivly in UK academic and research libraries, and no doubt other places too. PaddyBasher (talk) 16:05, 16 August 2022 (UTC)