Library Classification Systems: Enumerative vs. Faceted Explained

How do you organize the entire universe of knowledge? In this video, we dive into the fascinating (and often invisible) world of library classification. We explore the two fundamental ways humans have tried to categorize information: the "Enumerative" approach of listing everything in advance, and the "Faceted" approach of building descriptions on the fly.

What you’ll learn in this video:

The Enumerative System: Learn about the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) and why it takes 45 massive volumes to list out human knowledge.

The Faceted System: Discover S.R. Ranganathan’s revolutionary "building block" approach to classification.

The Species of Classification: Follow the evolutionary spectrum from Dewey Decimal to Colon Classification.

Modern Impact: See how these library theories actually power your favorite websites, databases, and even the filters you use when shopping online!

Key Concepts Covered:

Enumerative vs. Faceted Systems

Library of Congress Classification (LCC)

S.R. Ranganathan’s Five Facets: Personality, Matter, Energy, Space, and Time

The transition from library shelves to digital database searching

Timestamps: 0:00 Intro: The Challenge of Organizing Knowledge 0:53 Enumerative Systems: The Pre-Written List 2:03 Faceted Systems: Building with Knowledge Blocks 3:31 An Evolutionary Spectrum: Ranganathan’s Species 4:46 Comparing the Philosophies 5:33 Why This Matters Now: From Libraries to the Web