An
ontology for
classification of works in a
library. Developed by the
Library of Congress for the purposes of
classifying it's collections and for producing a linear ordering (i.e. a sequence in which the books could be put on the shelves).
The classification system is fundamentally biased towards the mores of the period in which it was created, notice for example that Christianity has 5 times the space of Judaism, despite Judaism having an older and (arguably) richer history.
Notice also that many things are Sciences but that Science is distinct in some unspecified way.
The Library of Congress website explaining the Library of Congress Classification System is at:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html
legbagede: the
Library of Congress Classification System was devised at the turn of the century by the
Library of Congress to classify it's documents. It avoids some of the mistakes of the earlier
Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index is scaling up better in unexpected dimensions.
More info at:http://lcweb.loc.gov/loc/legacy/loc.html
The way the Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index was devised was by taking a snapshot of the courses taught at a random university (Melvil Dewey's Amherst College)