#classification systems

the secret brilliance of the fanfiction tag system

Artists’ Book Collection for the week of September 17th, 2018

Artists' work classification by Alison Gerber- Innsbruck, Austria : Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen, c2006

Deadlines by Eileen Arnow- 1992

Measured in desire by Sarah Schwartz, New York : S. Schwartz, 1993

The Cosmetic Case by Elizabeth Lenell- Los Angeles, CA : Public Access Press, SCI-ARC, 1995

On Skill Development and Attention – Using All Your Processing

(Epistemic Status: Endorsed – this is why I like starting things for like a month and then drop them when I have to get actually good at them.) Imagine, for a moment, that you’re trying to learn something new. Whether you’ve signed up for a class or are practicing something you’ve just read about, what is going through your head? Are you thinking about what you’ll have for dinner, or how cute…

La periodificación es un estratégico punto de intersección entre la propuesta teórica y la investigación empírica. Su historia resume bien los debates por los que ha atravesado la arqueología peruana. La variedad de periodificaciones postuladas y/o practicadas en el área central andina, las convierte en un privilegiado campo de estudio. Asumida la necesaria reciprocidad entre el avance de toda…

[:en]Designation of workers by collar color[:]

[:en]Groups of working individuals are typically classified based on the colors of their collars worn at work; these can commonly reflect one’s occupation or sometimes gender. White-collar workers are named for the white-collared shirts that were fashionable among office workers in the early and mid-20th century. Blue-collar workers are referred to as such because in the early 20th century, they…

Happy 154th Birthday, Herbert Putnam!

Most of the books and other materials in the Hennepin County Library system are classified in the Library of Congress Classification (implemented by the Minneapolis Public Library system in 1969), but some remain classed in Dewey Decimal (implemented in the 1910s), and yet more are classed in the Putnam classification. What’s Putnam, you ask? The Putnam classification scheme, also known as the Minneapolis system, was developed in 1889 by Herbert Putnam, the first librarian of the Minneapolis Public Library.

Putnam’s system, written out in longhand by Putnam himself, was based on a similar system developed by a librarian named John Edmands for the Philadelphia Mercantile Library. Putnam’s simple system broke everything down into 23 alphabetical classes with corresponding sub-classes. What’s interesting about this system is the “zig zag” pattern in which the call number is read--you read the top line first, then zig to the letter in the middle of the second line, then zag back to the number at the beginning of the second line.

Confused? Learn more about the intricacies of the Putnam System from Andy Sturdevant’s MinnPost Stroll.

Putnam, born on September 20, 1861, served as head of the Minneapolis Public Library from 1888 to 1891. He became librarian of the Boston Public Library in 1895 and was appointed Librarian of Congress in 1899, a position he held until 1939 (he was the longest serving Librarian of Congress). In his role as Librarian of Congress, Putnam helped develop the Library of Congress classification system still in use around the world today.