By the Book: The Importance of Reading Library Classification Systems

Written by Dr. Bridget Moynihan

Edited by Temi Lasade-Anderson

Illustration by Heather Savage

On a university or college campus, the library is used by every department and school. The library encompasses inter- and transdisciplinary resources, functioning as a place where collections of knowledge are stored and made available to use. While the above is true, these facts create an image of the library as neutral territory — a place where meaning passively resides —  rather than as a site of active meaning-making. To accept this image without critique, however, would be to overlook both the importance and the problems of libraries. 

Libraries are not neutral sites. Far from simply acquiring information, libraries (as well as galleries, archives, museums and other GLAM institutions) provide the impetus for the creation of information, including through catalogues, finding aids, classification systems, and other forms of metadata and knowledge organisation systems. These systems shape the experience that every user will have within these institutions. 

However, outside of specific fields such as Library and Information Sciences, these metadata systems are rarely discussed or deeply considered. While completing a Master of Library and Information Sciences degree, I discovered how much I previously did not know about libraries and how much more there was to learn. With this knowledge, I argue that learning about the power and impact of knowledge organisation systems in libraries and beyond, ought to be required for students in any field — as all fields interact with libraries. 

Knowledge organisation is a complex topic with many facets (see the below further reading suggestions for a greater snapshot). Therefore, for this article, I will focus on one of the most discussed sites of colonial infrastructure in libraries: classification systems. In particular, I’ll focus on two frequently used systems: the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and the Library of Congress Classification (LCC). Cataloguers use these classification systems to assign shelfmarks to books, and they were first developed out of the physical need for every book to be assigned a spot on a shelf so that it could be reliably found by librarians and users. But, those who created these systems have historically been white, Western, heterosexual, cisgendered men, such as Mevil Dewey, who started the DDC in 1873 and is widely acknowledged as both a racist and a sexual predator (Pratt Institute Libraries), and Charles Martel and J.C.M. Hanson, who co-published the first LCC outline in 1904 and were partly influenced by the DDC. Dewey, Martel, Hanson, and others created so-called universal classification systems that work to divide up the whole of published knowledge in ways that fundamentally centre their own subject positions and marginalise all others.

DDC’s problematic bias is immediately evident, for example, in its class for ‘Literature (800)’. This class includes separate divisions for several geographically and linguistically defined areas of Western literature, including  ‘American Literature in English (810)’, ‘English and Old English literatures (820),’ ‘German and related literatures (830),’ ‘French and related literatures (840),’ ‘Italian, Romanian and related literatures (850),’ ‘Spanish, Portuguese, Galacian literatures (860),’ ‘Latin and Italic literatures (870),’ and ‘Classical and modern Greek literatures (880)’ (webDewey). Meanwhile, the rest of the world’s literature is categorised as ‘Other literatures’ (890) (webDewey). This deeply Othered division contains, for example, the subdivisions of ‘Afro-Asiatic literatures’ (892), ‘African literatures’ (896) and ‘Literatures of North American native languages’ (897).

What this bias means is that users who are curious about and searching for literature through DDC will find literary collections of English and other European traditions that are carefully mapped out and given meaningful categorization, while literatures from the rest of the world are minimised and made to be less visible. Literature from Africa, for example, is split between only two subdivisions. Similarly, Indigenous writings and stories from many peoples across what are now known as Canada, Mexico, and the United States are grouped together under the 897 category, with these same Indigenous languages and literatures positioned through DDC’s categorisation as belonging to the colonial construct of North America. DDC’s subdivisions therefore attest to the Western imperialism that undergirds this knowledge system. 

DDC is rife with other examples of these types of conflations and erasures, all of which create problems for cataloguing information related to marginalised cultures, histories, genders, sexualities, languages, and other identities. Changes are being made to DDC to try to update it, such as  those that have seen many books focused on LGBTQIA topics shifting from being categorised as ‘Mental derangements (132)’ and ‘Abnormal psychology (159.9)’ to ‘Sexual orientation (306.7)’ (Lambert). Still, many other problems persist. For example, under the deeply ingrained disciplinary divisions that DDC uses, Indigenous knowledges are classified as myth, while Christian traditions are classified as religion. Through fundamental value judgments such as this, DDC creates a hierarchy of meaning that creates definitions and marks out spaces of belonging in ways that serve hegemonic positions of power.

Given its lineage from DDC, it is not surprising that LCC is equally problematic, as can be briefly evidenced through a consideration of the LCC ‘History of the Americas’ class, which includes the subclass ‘Indians of North America’ (E75-99) (classweb). ‘Indians of North America’ is the only LCC class specifically designated for texts about Indigenous peoples in what is now known as North America and, by using it, LCC effectively makes it so that these Indigenous peoples are:

• Framed as if they belong to the colonial construct of ‘North America’
• Placed under the umbrella of American history, erasing the thousands of years of history that that predate American colonialism and were put under attempted genocide by this same colonialism 
• Relegated to the annals of history, erasing the fact that Indigenous cultures are living, present, modern, and active across what is now known as North America
• Represented homogeneously, as if there is one single group of Indigenous peoples, thereby erasing the numerous  distinct Indigenous cultures that exist
• Forced to use the term ‘Indians of North America’ themselves in order to find books related to their own cultures when using LCC, despite the highly problematic and deeply contested nature of this term. 

The problems of LCC are further entrenched by its complementary Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) index. This index assigns subject headings to library holdings through a controlled vocabulary and is widely used in libraries and archives, even in cases where the library is not using LCC. Just like the LCC, the LCSH uses terms such as ‘American Indians’, ‘Indians, Treatment of’, and ‘Indians of North America’ to classify subjects related to Indigenous peoples (classweb). Some libraries and archives have made modifications to available headings (see, for example, Bone and Lougheed, on the updated subject headings used by the Manitoba Archival Information Network), but so far, the LCSH still officially upholds its original headings for Indigenous subject headings (Library of Congress) and it therefore compounds the problems of LCC.

Instead of accepting status quo systems like DDC and LCC, libraries need to push beyond outmoded and colonial knowledge systems. Decolonial knowledge organisation systems have been and are being developed. For example, the X̱wi7x̱wa Classification System is a system that was developed by Indigenous librarian Dr. Gene Joseph for the X̱wi7x̱wa Library at the University of British Columbia and is itself a system that is based on the Indigenous-created Brian Deer Classification System (X̱wi7x̱wa Library). Systems like these need to be taught and made to be more widely recognized. Additionally, digital technologies reduce reliance on knowledge systems that focus on finding one physical spot on a shelf for each book and encourage thinking of ways to represent books through multiple, more nuanced systems at once. These changes are imperative for libraries to help break the colonial cycles in which they participate and students can help by demanding these changes. 

I hope these examples begin to show the power of classification and other knowledge organisation choices. In the context of the library, they inform the ways that users navigate the library; determine what terms users need to know to search materials; guide what books are grouped together (or dispersed) in the service of upholding different disciplinary definitions and world views; and create hierarchies of meaning and visibility, all of which impact how knowledge within the library is framed, legitimised, and shared. The organisation of information is therefore a form of argument that puts forth ideas about how people, cultures, and systems function in the world. As such, students need to be taught to analyse and critique both these systems and their origins as much as they would any other text or concept.

Works Cited

Bone, Christine, and Brett Lougheed. “Library of Congress Subject Headings Related to Indigenous Peoples: Changing LCSH for Use in a Canadian Archival Context.” Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 1, 2018, pp. 83–95, https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2017.1382641

classweb.org. LCC Enhanced Brower. https://classweb.org

Lambert, Isadora. Melvil Dewey Day: Examining the Problematic Roots of the Dewey Decimal System. 10 Dec. 2021, https://videolibrarian.com/api/content/f36f0950-59f1-11ec-89ec-12f1225286c6/.

Library of Congress. Library of Congress Subject Headings PDF Files – I. https://www.loc.gov/aba/publications/FreeLCSH/I.pdf  

Pratt Institute Libraries. LibGuides: Dewey Decimal System: We Need to Talk About Melvil Dewey. https://libguides.pratt.edu/dewey-decimal-system/melvil-dewey. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022.

WebDewey, DDC 23. http://www.dewey.org/webdewey/standardSearch.html 

X̱wi7x̱wa Library. “Indigenous Knowledge Organization.” University of British Columbia, https://xwi7xwa.library.ubc.ca/collections/indigenous-knowledge-organization/. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022.

Further Readings

The knowledge in this article comes to me through many others well beyond my Works Cited list. Here is a list of some of the further readings to which I owe credit:

Angell, Katelyn, and Charlotte Price. “Fat Bodies in Thin Books: Information Bias and Body Image in Academic Libraries.” Fat Studies, vol. 1, 2012, pp. 153–65, https://doi.org/10.1080/21604851.2012.641895 

Bone, Christine, and Brett Lougheed. “Library of Congress Subject Headings Related to Indigenous Peoples: Changing LCSH for Use in a Canadian Archival Context.” Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 1, 2018, pp. 83–95, https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2017.1382641

Cherry, Alissa, and Keshav Mukunda. “A Case Study in Indigenous Classification: Revisiting and Reviving the Brian Deer Scheme.” Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 5, 2015, pp. 548–67, https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2015.1008717

Duarte, Marisa, and Miranda Belerde-Lewis. “Imagining: Creating Spaces for Indigenous Ontologies.” Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 5–6, 2015, pp. 677–702, https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2015.1018396 

Ewing, Kai, and LGBTQ Center of Durham. “Beyond Dewey: Creating an LGBTQ+ Classification System at the LGBTQ Center of Durham.” LGBTQ+ Librarianship in the 21st Century: Emerging Directions of Advocacy and Community Engagement in Diverse Information Environments, edited by Bharat Mehra, vol. 45, 2019, pp. 225–42.

Howard, Sara A. and Steven A. Knowlton. “Browsing through Bias: The Library of Congress Classification and Subject Headings for African American Studies and LGBTQIA Studies”. Library Trends vol. 67, no. 1, 2018: pp. 74-88. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2018.0026 

Hudson, David James. “On ‘Diversity’ as Anti-Racism in Library and Information Studies: A Critique.” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2017. DOI: 10.24242/jclis.v1i1.6 

Lougheed, Brett, Ry Moran, and Camille Callison. 2015. “Reconciliation through Description: Using Metadata to Realize the Vision of the National Research Center for Truth and Reconciliation”. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly. Vol. 53, nos. 5-6 (2015), pp. 596–614. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01639374.2015.1008718?journalCode=wccq20

Littletree, Sandra, et al. “Centering Relationality: A Conceptual Model to Advance Indigenous Knowledge Organization Practices.” Knowledge Organization, vol. 47, no. 5, 2020, pp. 410–26.

Olson, Hope A. “Mapping Beyond Dewey’s Boundaries: Constructing Classificatory Space for Marginalized Knowledge Domains.” Library Trends, vol. 47, no. 2, 1998, pp. 233–54.

Bridget Moynihan loves working in physical archives and digital spaces, but especially loves working at the points where the two intersect. This interest led to her to attain her PhD in English Literature and her Masters of Library and Information Sciences (MLIS). She has words in the Electronic Journal of the British Library, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Digital Humanities Quarterly, Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, and IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, among others.