CHOICE OF SCHEME FOR CLASSIFICATION - Indian Statistical ...

1. A mere Indo-Arabic numeral denotes the serial number of the reference in the
bibliography given at the end of the paper; and
2. The word 'Para' followed by an Indo-Arabic numeral within circular brackets
denotes the number of the paragraph of Molgaard-Hansen's paper forming the
basis of this paper and appearing as serial number 23 in the bibliography at the
end of the paper.
0 INTRODUCTION
01 Genesis
This paper has been prompted by a communication received on 12 JUNE 1967
from RASMUS MOLGAARD-HANSEN, Chairman of the FID/CR.
02 Method of Choice in a Danish University in 1967
This communication (23) describes the trend of the Proceedings of a Meeting held
at Odense on 18 April 1967, and attended by twenty representatives of the Danish
University and Specialist Libraries and of the Classification Committee of the Danish
Public Library System. The discussion at the Meeting was based on the report made to
Torkil Olsen, Chief Librarian of the newly formed University Library at Odense, by the
two librarians M Weitemeyer and A Tiedje. These two librarians had never used either
DC or LC or UDC. They were asked to examine the result of classifying an assortment of
225 books picked out from the field of humanities and history according to DC, LC, and
UDC; and to compare the respective sequences and report their findings on their relative
merits. The Meeting considered also a report by K Birket-Smith on the possible adoption
of LC by the Odense University Library.
03 Method of Choice in Delhi University in 1943
The method of choosing a Scheme for Classification, described in the preceding
section, was not available in India about a generation ago. In 1943, S Das Gupta took
charge of the University Library at Delhi. He had to choose a Scheme for Classification.
At that time, the library profession had not been well established. The number of
professional librarians was very small. Therefore, he used the preference of scholars as
the test. He made an assorted collection of books in a subject. He also made a duplicate
collection. There were only two schemes to be considered - Colon Classification and
Decimal Classification. He classified one of the collections by CC and labelled its book
case 'Classification A'; and the second collection by DC and labelled its book case
'Classification B'. Then some of the professors in the subject spent a fairly long time in
comparing the relative helpfulness of the two arrangements. Their verdict was
unanimously in favour of 'Classification A' - that is, Colon Classification.
Das Gupta wrote to me that he used the names A and B to denote the two schemes
for classification for a definite reason. In these early years, which belonged to the British
Period, there was inherent preference to anything of foreign origin and an equally
inherent prejudice to anything of Indian origin. Further, the few librarians in the country