Henry E. Bliss - Bliss' Ideas and Bibliographic Classification

Bliss' Ideas and Bibliographic Classification

Bliss is most remembered for his ideas on library classification and the classification system he developed, which he called Bibliographic Classification. The full four volumes of Bibliographic Classification appeared from 1940–1953 and “marked half a century of sustained effort” by Bliss. Bliss’s reasons for developing this system were primarily because of his discontent with the Classification systems that were at use at the time. For example, Bliss says, “ The International Institute’s adoption of the Decimal Classification some 35 years ago, for the specious reason that no better system was then available.” Bliss was emphatic about the fact that “good classification, ‘dignifies the library as an embodiment of knowledge.’”

The basis behind this system is the idea of a “subject approach to knowledge,” where books are ordered in a logical systematic way that is “intertwined with the organization of knowledge in society.” Bliss stressed this relationship by saying “Organizations of Knowledge thus become organizations for thought.” In an article entitled "The System of the Sciences and the Organization of Knowledge" written by Bliss in the January issue Philosophy of Science from 1935, he outlines seven major “principles of classification for organization of knowledge and thought.” Briefly stated and explained, they are,

• Organization - This first principle, while being fairly self-explanatory, Bliss explains by saying “Free thought, like free life, without organization, may rove and rave like Bedlam in a Tower of Babel.”
• Subordination - “of the more special classes to the more general,” for example placing geometry under the more general subject of Mathematics.
• Coordination – “The third structural principle, that classes, or sub-classes, of the same order, or grade, may be arranged serially either vertically or horizontally.”
• Extension– “Serial, branched, and crossed classifications may be combined in structures of three or more extensions.”
• Collocation – or rather, arrangement “of closely related classes for functional efficiency.”
• Gradation in Speciality – Bliss says “as the several sciences become more definite in scope, each becomes more or less special in relation to others, and accordingly they may be arranged in a scalar series of gradation in speciality.”
• Maximal Efficiency – This is the seventh principle “per se.” and is a result of the first six principles when they are followed.

Another of the important features of Bliss’s work is his ideas on “Alternative Location.” This simply means that Bliss provided provisions in his system for the possible different shelf locations of certain materials. This can be described as “For certain topics… two or more places would be provided and the individual library would select the one most appropriate to its needs.” One critic described this as, “a handsome concession to rival school of thought.”