SOME PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING CLASSIFICATION FOR LIBRARIES
I
The letter inviting me to take part in this conference echoes to me now across the busy field of the past month with notes something like this: "Come, if you will, and talk to us and with us, but please be practical." Perhaps I have elsewhere in-adroitly given the impression that I believe classification for libraries should be a matter of science or of philosophy. I did indeed say in print, some months ago, that "To be practical today and tomorrow, man must be scientific." Upon science, that is verified and organized knowledge, practical common sense is becoming more and more dependent. To be practical without knowledge is in most matters to be ineffectively practical. How practical should we be in classification for libraries, and how should we be practical effectually?
Those who have had to do with classification only in small collections of books for popular use may regard it as a comparatively simple and unimportant thing. They do not see why there should be so much trouble and fuss about it. This we may term the naïve view, to borrow a phrase from recent philosophical literature. But some of those who have undertaken to maintain a classification for a large university or reference library know that it is one of the most difficult and complicated of our problems. They apprehend furthermore that it has not yet been solved satisfactorily. This may be termed the critical view. It may vary from moderation to extremes optimistic or pessimistic.
Not a toy librarians want but a tool, as we say. The mechanism of a library, however, is not operated by merely mechanical hands. There should be somewhat in library service beyond mere statistical and technical economies. Our arrangement of books should not be inconsistent with the organization of knowledge, lest we fail in an inestimable service to the seekers and disseminators of knowledge.