"The beginning of the subject-classification system - books arranged by subject according to a classification schedule - is dated, rather too precisely, as 1890, because in that year the second library building (Chittenden Hall) was opened. The first library building, originally containing about 20,000 volumes, had reached its capacity of some 200,000 volumes in less than fifty years. The necessity of expanding into a second building made the year 1890 a natural time for making a radical change, which had undoubtedly been contemplated for several years. Although it may be obvious that all 200,000 books were not reclassified at once, it is difficult to realize that twenty-five years elapsed before the bulk of the books had been dealt with, and even today there are a few of the numbered-shelves books which still await reclassification. It is this very length of time occupied in the transition that accounts for much of the indigenous heterogeneity of the Yale Library's classification system. One element that caused delay was the choice of classification schedules. Although many more libraries were using subject classification schemes in 1890 than in 1701, especially in America, the Library of Congress schedules had not yet been published. Dewey's Decimal Classification had reached its third edition, but its rigidly topical structure had no great appeal for members of the Yale faculty, who preferred either a geographical or chronological approach to their material. Other available schemes were also rejected, and Addison Van Name, then Librarian, began work on a new system for Yale, based to a large extent on the classification recently devised by Hartwig for the University of Halle."
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Address
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- New Haven
- CT
- 06520
- United States
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22 Classes (2016-12).
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