Revisiting Principles of Library Classification and Their Relevance in 21st Century: Looking Back at Great Contributions to Library Classification

This paper broadly discusses the tenets and theories of library classification which has been developed by various theorists, such as, H E Bliss, E W Hulme, W C Berwick Sayers and S R Ranganathan with the main objective of establishing their relevance and importance in the present digital environment. It brings to the fore that owing to the sharp decline of printed resources and the domination of electronic resources, library classification is fast losing its indispensability. Library classification during the time when it used to play a substantial role till the shelf type of arrangement was prevalent in libraries. Ever since ebooks and other e-resources do not have a physical presence on the shelves, thence the role of classification is not considered to more important as it functioned in the past in a major role. The paper unravels the involvement of the above theorists, who placed library classification on all-encompassing sustaining doctrines. The paper also discusses at length the impact of Sayers and Bliss on Ranganathan’s writings particularly in developing canons of classification and the dynamic theory of classification. It also suggests a rethinking on the consequence of classification and its assumptions and the curriculum that should be taught in LIS professional education in the present digital age. It also concludes that the process of creation, analysis, grouping, tagging, synthesis and linking of similar and related ideas of organization of knowledge may change in methods and tools, even then may need some or the other system of classification based upon certain principles.