A SHORT COURSE IN PRACTICAL CLASSF ICA- I. THE Preliminary. WITH HE following papers do not make the smallest pretence of being a complete course of instruction in bibliographical classification. They are severely practical hints on the methods of approaching a classification scheme, the difficulties most frequently encountered in applying it and how to overcome them, and carefully selected book-titles which illustrate these things. They were designed for students who had pursued a course of reading in the subject such as is provided by the usual Correspondence Course of the Library Association, but whose circumstances made the daily application of classification difficult, and who therefore required some such systematic discipline as these papers provide before facing the ordeal of the Library Association Examination. The plan has been to give one lesson to each of the main classes of the Decimal Scheme, except Literature and Philology which are combined in one, and History and Geography which are divided into two; to study its scope and difficulties seriatim, and to make a similar and simultaneous study of the corresponding sections of the Subject Scheme. To obtain any real benefit from the lessons at least a fortnight should be devoted to each. This course was conducted under the auspices of the Library Association last year, but as the pressure upon my time makes it impossible for me to continue it, I have published it here for the use of such students as may desire this help. These remarks ex |