Currently, our country doesn't have standard children's library classification whose development reflects characteristics of children's library and children's books, and for this, not only the children's library working staffs but also users have to d...
Currently, our country doesn't have standard children's library classification whose development reflects characteristics of children's library and children's books, and for this, not only the children's library working staffs but also users have to deal with a lot of discomforts and difficulties. Needless to say, despite the fact that most of the children's libraries apply KDC or use classification scheme for children's libraries developed by their institutions, much shortcomings and limitations exist.
This study was to take into account these facts of reality and attempted to develop Children's Library Classification (CLC) that is widely applicable to children's libraries. For this, the paper examined the use of classification schemes in domestic and foreign children's libraries and the classification contents; after analyzing in-depth the 3 kinds of representative classification schemes among the existing institution-developed classifications of children's libraries, the paper analyzed classification conditions of children's library. Based on this examination and analysis, the paper developed CLC and to summarize detailed development rules and contents, they're as follows.
First, the paper prioritized the goal of increasing classification scheme's practicality of application rather than classification system's logicality. For this, the paper used KDC, which was widely used in many children's libraries nationwide, as a base and developed classification system by reflecting characteristics of children's libraries and children's books as much as possible. Like KDC, the overall organizational system followed decimal system, and used pure notation that uses only Arabian numbers.
Second, main class category was developed by synthetically analyzing domestic and foreign children's libraries' classification schemes and domestic children's library's book collection conditions per classification. In the analysis of children's library's book collection amount per subjects, the paper excluded books of lower proportion, such as philosophy, religion, and language study, and selected liberal arts which was shown to be frequently selected during interviews; for literature, the paper formed 2 main class categories segregating Korean literature and foreign literature. These main class categories formed were referenced by KDC and institution-developed classification scheme for children's libraries, and were assigned to 000(Various knowledge), 100(Exploring culture of mankind), 200(History), 300(Exploring social phenomena), 400(Exploring natural phenomena), 500(Life and science), 600(Arts), 700(Korean literature), and 800(Foreign literature). The paper left the last 900 as blank mark in order for it to be used according to characteristics of the institution.
Third, for progression of lower categories, the paper reflected the recommendations and the applicable level of classification symbols analyzed during interview as mentioned in the 「Interpretation of Korean Decimal System Classification (4th revision)」 so that they were to base progression up to the section level and up to first digit after the decimal point, if needed.
Fourth, formations of detailed categories, progression level per subject--that is, division and section--and sub sections were based on results of the analysis of children's library's classification material conditions, and reference to categories of some institution-developed classification schemes for children's library was also made. On classification material conditions, the paper assigned division-level subjects as division if collection of books indicated more than 1 book was found to that effect; and for the more than 50 subjects in particular, the paper added directions that indicated developing or subdividing more than at least 1 section in the lower category. The total numbers of divisions, sections, and sub sections formed in classification scheme for children's library following this rule were 78, 166, and 18, respectively. Further, by establishing total of 30 notes, such as including notes, class-here notes, and add notes, the paper contrived convenience in the application of classification scheme.
Fifth, the paper developed and suggested tables and location mark as well. First, for tables, the paper selected only 3 tables among 8 tables adopted by KDC which were thought to be necessary in the classification of children's materials, such as Table 1(Geographic areas), Table 2(Languages), and Table 3(Literary forms), and revised them. Moreover, by taking into account the specificities of materials' form, characteristics of content, user's age, and usage method, the paper suggested total of 10 location marks.
Sixth, for classification terms, the paper didn't use that of the KDC as much as possible, but used terms whose level allowed children to understand. For this, in addition to referring to previous studies related to KDC classification terms, the paper drew out terms mainly from elementary school textbooks or encyclopedia for elementary school students and compared with classification nouns of the existing classification schemes for children's library and KDC to ultimately replace the terms to those that could be easily understood by children.
This study finds its meaning in that the CLC developed by this study was based on KDC, was newly reformed for children's library, and was developed by reflecting the characteristics of children's library and children's books as much as possible in the formation of classification category and progression level per subject; the author expects that it could actually be applied to classification of children's books regardless of the size and type of children's libraries.