The Dewey Decimal Classification and the International Catalogue of Science / by William E. Hoyle.

  • Hoyle, William Evans, 1855-1926.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Dewey Decimal Classification and the International Catalogue of Science / by William E. Hoyle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    [ -49 1 of London, on July 14 and following days, will probably spend much of its time in discussing what system of numerical indexing can be applied to the multifarious subjects of modern science, and since, so far as our experience goes, the majority of practical scientific men are not likewise practical bibliographers, we venture to think that Mr. Hoyle is doing a public service in furnishing this concise exposition of the Dewey system, and in showing how the substitutes hitherto proposed are found wanting from the practical point of view. In justice, however., to the compilers of the various schemes issued under the auspices of the Royal Society, it should be pointed out that these were merely intended to serve as a basis for discussion ; and perhaps nothing worse should be said of them than that their com- pilation was a waste of time, since the basis of discussion ought properly to have been the Dewey classification itself. Moreover, the conflict between our contributor and the members of the Royal Society Committee is a very unequal one; for Mr. Hoyle has had more practical experience of the Dewey system than perhaps any- body in England, whereas the very distinguished gentlemen whose names are attached to the schemes which the Royal Society has submitted for criticism are the last people in the world to claim for themselves an acquaintance with practical bibliography in general, or with the Dewey system in particular. It would be easy for us to add to the criticisms which Mr. Hoyle has already made, and to show many more points of inconsistency which the schemes offer, both with one another and with the Dewey system itself; but our space is too valuable to discuss propositions which it would never be possible to uphold seriously against some of the competent librarians and bibliographers who have been appointed by their respective governments to attend the Conference at Burlington House. Instead of criticising the details, we prefer to contrast this characteristically English mode of proceeding with the methods adopted by an eminent foreign bibliographer. For it is—is it not ?— a thoroughly English custom to appoint a man who has spent his life in one branch of study to conduct skilled operations in an entirely different field. There is no doubt that, from the point of view of the newspaper public, the man who has got his first in the school of Uteres humaiiiores at Oxford, will write a better leading article on, say, the potato disease than your mere biologist; but the journalistic method of getting up a subject in an hour or two, with the help of a few books of ready reference, is not the one that commends itself to the professed scientific worker. A better method is that followed by Mr. Marcel Baudouin, of the Institut International de Bibliographic Scientifique de Paris, the editor of La Bibliographic Scientifique, Lcs A rchives pr. it Chirurgit, and the Revue des Instruments de Chirurgie. In the Revue Scientifique for May 30 he publishes various additions to, and further subdivisions of, the Dewey classification, so far as it relates to medical science. The following are the principles which have
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