Comparison With Library of Congress Classification
For more details on this topic, see Comparison of Dewey and Library of Congress subject classification.Besides its frequent revision, DDC's main advantage over its chief American rival, the Library of Congress Classification system developed shortly afterward, is its simplicity. DDC and UDC are more flexible than Library of Congress Classification because of greater use of facets (via auxiliary tables) while Library of Congress Classification is almost totally enumerative.
DDC's decimal system means that it is less hospitable to the addition of new subjects, as opposed to Library of Congress Classification, which has 21 classes at the top level. DDC notations can be much longer compared to other classification systems.
Another disadvantage of DDC is that it was developed in the 19th century essentially by one man and was built on a top-down approach to classify all human knowledge, which makes it difficult to adapt to changing fields of knowledge. The Library of Congress Classification system was developed based mainly on the idea of literary warrant; classes were added (by individual experts in each area) only when needed for works owned by the Library of Congress. As a result, while the Library of Congress Classification system was able to incorporate changes and additions of new branches of knowledge, particularly in the fields of engineering and computer science (the greater hospitability of the Library of Congress Classification was also a factor), DDC has been criticized for being inadequate in covering those areas. It is asserted that, as a result, most major academic libraries in the US do not use the DDC because the classification of works in those areas is not specific enough, although there are other reasons that may truly be more weighty, such as the much lower expense of using a unique "pre-packaged" catalog number instead of having highly skilled staff members engaging in the time-consuming development of catalog numbers.
The Library of Congress Classification system is not without problems. For example, it is highly US-centric because of the nature of the system, and it has been translated into far fewer languages than DDC and UDC.
Read more about this topic: Dewey Decimal Classification
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