Annals of Library and Information Studies Vol. 62, December 2015, pp. 226-230 Universal Decimal Classification and Colon Classification: Their mutual impact Amitabha Chatterjee Retired Professor & Head, Department of Library & Information Science, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032, Email:
[email protected] Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), being a predecessor of Colon Classification (CC), had impacts on CC in various ways – directly as well as indirectly. But surprisingly CC too made an impact on UDC in various ways during its revision process. The paper discusses how these two classification schemes have influenced each other in different spheres. Keywords: Universal Decimal Classification; Colon Classification; Faceted Classification; Generalia Class; Indicator digit; Notation; Common isolate; Phase relation; Agglomerate Introduction Ranganathan, however, made continuous efforts over Ranganathan traced the development of several decades to remove rigidities of different kinds bibliographic classification schemes in three that the scheme was suffering from and finally it major periods, viz., Pre-Facet Period (1876-1896), became a freely faceted classification scheme. Transition-to-Facet Period (1897-1932) and Facet Evidently, UDC being a predecessor of CC, had Period (1933-1975). The main achievements of the impacts on CC – both directly as well as indirectly. Transition-to-Facet Period, according to him were: But surprisingly, CC too made an impact on UDC in (1) Venture into the work of arranging in a helpful various ways during its revision process. Mcllwaine sequence the main entries in periodicals – micro has observed that “the scheme (i.e. UDC) exerted a documents embodying micro thought as we call strong influence ….. upon the Colon Classification” them; and that “for some years Ranganathan worked on the (2) Venture into pulling out of some of the subjects UDC while he was living in Switzerland after the certain facets such as Time Facet and Space Second World War, so it was a two-way process”2.