Print

Introduction 9 Cutter’s Outline19 Hanson’s First Outline (1899)20 R Useful arts in general, Metric arts, Extractive and Productive arts, Chemical and Electrical arts, Domestic economy R Useful arts Agriculture S Engineering & Building S Manufactures T Manufactures and Handicrafts T Engineering U Defensive and Preservative arts U Military, Naval science light houses life saving fire extinction V Recreative arts: Sports, Theatre, Music V–Y Special collections W Fine Arts X Language Y Literature YF Fiction Z Book arts Z Bibliography (Book arts) Cutter’s outline demonstrates that the order of his main classes shows no direct relationship to the systems of Bacon or d’Alembert, but instead it embodies the “evolutionary” order stated by Romain Merlin and J. Peter Lesley.21 Of special interest in Cutter’s ordering of classes is that he fully expanded Science to a main class, separating it from both Philosophy and History, and that he also brought Technology into close proximity to Science and Medicine. The outline also reveals that Cutter’s notation was not consistently hierarchical for example, Religion begins with the double letters BR, and the single letters C and D are used as divi- sions of BR. However, he did provide for subject subdivisions, and he also used numbers in a consistent pattern for form and place divisions. To a large extent, Hanson followed Cutter’s outline of classes in his own out- line his major change in Cutter’s order was to place the arts—fine arts, music, and literature—between the social sciences and the pure and applied sciences. One can see, however, that his innovations in notation were extensive and significant. Hanson further perfected this outline in 1903, and he brought it to a nearly final form the following year. One point of interest is the final expansion of Classes A and B. In Hanson’s first outline, A1–200 was designated for Polygraphic works, A201–3000 for Philosophy, and A3001–B9999 for Religion. In the 1903 outline,22 Philosophy lost 300 numbers, starting with A501 instead of A201. In the 1904 outline, Polygraphy was allotted the entire Class A and Philosophy and Religion were combined in Class B. Also in this outline, double letters were used for the first time: B–BJ for Philosophy, BL–BX for Religion and Theology, H–HA for Social Sciences in general and for Statistics, HB–HJ for Economics, HM–HX for Sociology.