RBU_JR_LIS_V23_2021-FULL_TEXT-E-Copy

Majumdar: 110 years influence of …
should be avoided as far as possible in the selection of
descriptors” (National Information Standards
Organization, 1993, p.2; National Information Standards
Organization, 2005, p.20). Literary warrant for spelling of
words and compound terms have also been suggested.
Data Analysis
Dewey passed away in 1931 and although there is no
documentary evidence that Dewey had taken any note of
the concept of Literary Warrant or had exchanged his
views with Hulme, it may be argued that Dewey had a
certain intuition about the value of existing literature on a
topic for the justification of its inclusion in schedule
fuelled by his experience during Amherst College days. As
the DC Editorial Committee took over the responsibility of
revision of DC and its eventual relocation to LC, the
exposure to colossal collection of LC has definitely been 63
the most influencing factor for allowing literary warrant to
take the centre stage for revision of DC both print as well
as web version as reflected in the recent editions. Most
interestingly the concept of “topics of standing room”
from DDC 20 th edition has its counterpart in the form of
“provisional/candidate terms” in Z39.19 as in both the
cases concepts or concept representing terms with
insufficient literature are kept separate as terms with
special symbols or other mechanism until sufficient
literature warrant their inclusion into vocabulary. Literary
warrant partially helped to prepare larger context and
applicability of Z39.19 which is evident from the change
in the title of the standard that included monolingual
controlled vocabularies instead of monolingual thesauri so
as to make the standard suitable for different controlled
vocabularies such as classification schemes, taxonomies,
ontologies, thesaurus, etc. Coming back to LCSH, the
overwhelming influence of literary warrant on LCSH
seems to have its negative effects as “literary warrant
introduces a decidedly US bias to LCSH simply because of
the collection developed through legal deposit—
understandable, but unfortunate and with far reaching
consequences” (Olson, 2000, p.57). On the other hand,
“marginal presses are not always represented in the
Library of Congress’s collection, especially if they are
published outside of the United States without even legal
deposit to assist in their collection” (Olson, 2000).
elementary method like counting as a terminology
selection procedure for incorporating a term into a
classification schedule. In-spite-of all the difficulties,
literary warrant has proved its mettle time and again and
its applications are being reengineered not only in
traditional knowledge organisation practices but also in
semantic web and related ontologies for domain analysis
and domain delimitation.
References
Barité M. (2016) Literary Warrant revisited: Theoretical
and methodological approach. Retrieved from
https://www.ergonverlag.de/isko_ko/downloads/aiko_vol_15_
2016_
19_barite.pdf (Accessed on 15 May 2021).
Beghtol C. (1995). Domain analysis, literary warrant, and
consensus: The case of fiction studies, Journal of the
American Society for Information Science, 46(1), 30-44.
Chan, L. M. (1986). Library of Congress Subject
headings: Principles and application (2 nd ed.). Littleton:
libraries unlimited, 8p.
Chan, L. M. (1986). Library of Congress Subject
headings: Principles and application (2 nd ed.). Littleton:
libraries unlimited, 10p.
Chan, LM, Richmond PA and Svenonius E. (1985).
Preface. In: Theory of Subject Analysis, Edited by LM
Chan, PA Richmond and E Svenonius. Libraries
Unlimited, Littleton, Colorado, 1985, xiii-xv.
Comaromi, JP. (1989). Introduction. In: Dewey Decimal
Classification and Relative Index, Edited by JP Comaromi.
v.1, 20 th edn, Forest Press, New York, 1989, xxxvii.
Comaromi, JP and Satija MP. (1985). History of the
Indianization of the Dewey Decimal Classification. Libri.
35(1): 1-20.
Crawford, W. (1991) Technical standards: An
introduction for librarians. 2 nd ed. G.K. Hall & Co.:
Boston, Massachusetts, 220-222p.
Custer, BA. (1958). Editor’s introduction. In: Dewey
Decimal Classification and Relative Index, Edited by BA
Custer, v.1, 16 th edn, Forest Press, New York, 1958, 5.
Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index, Edited
by BA Custer, v.1, 19 th edn, Forest Press, New York,
1979, lxxx.
Dewey, M. (1876). A classification and subject index for
cataloguing and arranging the books and pamphlets of a
library, Amherst College Library, Amherst, Massachusetts,
1876, 9.
Conclusions
Through 110 years journey, Hulme’s literary warrant has
seen inconsistent acceptance among scholars and
classificationists. Literary warrant could arguably be seen
to be too futuristic and advance principle for its time and
as Hulme established it as a basic notion without explicit
detailed explanation, so the principle was left to scholars
to interpret in their own ways. As a result, there exist
instances where original meaning has seen expansion,
restriction, and many a time has been misunderstood
(Barite, 2016). Critiques of literary warrant were sceptical
about it as a principle and questioned the validity of
60
https://lisrbu.wixsite.com/dlis/rbu-journal-of-lis
Dewey, M. (1876). A classification and subject index for
cataloguing and arranging the books and pamphlets of a
library, Amherst College Library, Amherst, Massachusetts,
1876, 6.
Dewey, M. (1876). A classification and subject index for
cataloguing and arranging the books and pamphlets of a
library, Amherst College Library, Amherst, Massachusetts,
1876, 5.
Dewey, M. (1922). Decimal Classification and Relativ
Index for libraries and personal use in arranjing for
immediate reference books, pamphlets, clippings, pictures,
manuscript notes and other material, 11 th edn, Forest Press:
New York, 1922, 14.