Since the publication of 1975, China Library Classification has had a far-reaching impact on modern library cause. In recent years, mainstream book classification has replaced other classification methods, leading the trend and approaching "popularization". Stimulated by culture, workplace policy and publishing market, the amount of literature information has increased rapidly. As a logical method, the principle of scientific classification of books is unchanged, and "practicality" is the highest principle. However, to what extent does Chinese Library Classification embody this principle, and is it a scientific method? The author has made an in-depth observation on its use in the front line of service, and the conclusion is that the China Library Classification is congenitally deficient and has serious defects, and its scientific nature and practicality are disappointing! Because China Library Classification was brewed in the Cultural Revolution and published on the eve of the end of the Cultural Revolution, the ideological limitations of its era were very obvious, and there was still no substantive breakthrough in revision and revision, and its compilation style was unscientific or even wrong. In addition, the era of library classification in China is the era of closed shelves. Although it has been revised many times, it has not taken into account the great change of the main body translocation of open lending, and its inherent disadvantages have restricted the communication of libraries. The author summarizes the problems existing in book classification in China as follows.

First of all, the limitations of cultural revolution thinking led to the abandonment of western advanced thinking theory.

Einstein thought: "The development of western science is based on two great achievements, namely, the Greek philosopher invented the formal logic system (in Euclidean geometry) and made it possible to find out the causal relationship through systematic experimental discovery (in the Renaissance)". Classification is a category of formal logic. In the era of cultural control, China library classification must take Quotations from Chairman Mao as the guiding ideology, "based on Marxism–Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, dialectical materialism and historical materialism, establish categories and arrange them in order ... and consider their ideological and political contents". In order to highlight the political nature, the editor first listed Marxist-Leninist works as a basic category; Put the books whose contents are not exclusive and cannot be classified according to the nature of the subject content at the end. In that special historical era, the editor claimed to highlight politics, which was understandable by the older generation. However, too general reference to "theoretical basis" can not keep pace with the times, and accepting the scientific achievements of western thinking theory is equivalent to the lack of theory. Whether China Library Classification is scientific or not can also be measured and judged by formal logic theory. Classification must follow the following rules.

1. There can only be one standard at each level between the concepts of genus and species.

2. The sum of the extensions of the children is equal to the extension of the parent, otherwise the division is incomplete or there are many children.

3. The divided concepts are incompatible, and the concepts of genus and species cannot be juxtaposed.

According to Chairman Mao's quotation, "What is knowledge? Since the emergence of class society, there have been only two kinds of knowledge in the world, one is called production struggle and the other is called class struggle. Natural science and social science are the crystallization of these two kinds of knowledge, while philosophy is the generalization and summary of knowledge of nature's and social knowledge as the theoretical basis for determining the basic structure of classification. Accordingly, China Library Classification divides knowledge into three categories: philosophy, social science and natural science. Then in the first and second parts, Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong's works and comprehensive books are listed, forming five basic categories, and then divided into 22 categories. In fact, these divisions are independent of each other, not genera and species, and there is no logical connection.

Books are the carrier of knowledge, and classification is the extension of dividing books, not necessarily by content. Knowledge is only one of the bases of division, which is mainly reflected in the division of disciplines. Knowledge classification and book classification are related, but they cannot be confused. Chairman Mao clearly believes that there are only two kinds of knowledge, and philosophy and social science are concepts of genus relationship, which cannot be juxtaposed! Because the classification of knowledge and books is chaotic, the form and content are complex, and the classification standards are chaotic, so that "comprehensive books" have more sub-items and are compatible with the other four categories. This is an obvious logical error. 22 categories are mainly divided by subject categories, but not all of them, and there is no certain standard. For example, comprehensive books can't be regarded as a discipline, and industrial technology is a concept of industry technology, which is different from the concept of discipline. Class O (Mathematical Science and Chemistry) is a combination of different disciplines. Another example is Class G (culture, science, education, sports), which is actually a different concept of species relationship. How can they be lumped together?

Obviously, China Library Classification is not a scientific logical classification. It is called multi-category method, category alternation method, reference category method, category reclassification method, imitation method, direct combination method of main category numbers and so on. In fact, these methods are only technical remedies or expedient measures, not scientific classification rules. Scientific logical classification rules are unique. Law is an unchangeable scientific law that must be followed, and rules can be artificial methods, not in the same breath.

Secondly, Chinese Library Classification is an extension of the ancient mainstream book classification in China, which is neither fish nor fowl.

Compared with foreign taxonomy, China's ancient taxonomy is advanced, but it also has congenital deficiencies. The so-called four categories are actually not a logical classification. Jing, Shi, Zi and Ji are not the concepts of species relationship, but are expressed in sub-language and listed according to different standards. Therefore, since the Millennium, there has been confusion and controversy about the return of books. This congenital genetic defect has also been passed on to contemporary librarians. Try to compare.

Five basic categories of ancient library classification in China.

Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong's Classic Works

Historical philosophy

Subsocial science

Setting up natural science

Books (non-classic, non-history, non-collection) comprehensive books

Note: The four ancient books contain knowledge of philosophy, society and nature. (author)

Dividing books into five categories is actually a copy of the "four categories" (five additional books)! It is influenced by the classic works of Ma, Lie and Mao. The so-called "class" covers two different ways of thinking. Regression is to limit and summarize the concept extension by increasing or decreasing the connotation of the concept; Classification is the division of conceptual extension. The word "department" cannot be established. In China Library Classification, some of the 22 categories, such as G (culture, science, education, education), are called "category groups". By definition, the so-called class group is to classify different graphs. There is no theoretical basis.

Thirdly, the compilation structure of China Library Classification is complex, which can't reflect the inheritance relationship of documents.

From the whole to the division, from the general to the concrete is not the logical method of concept division, but the deductive induction, which is a demonstration method. Chinese Library Classification regards it as a classification method or structure, and the definition of "total" is not exact, which does not conform to the actual situation of document generation and inheritance. The argument of things can be from total to total, or from total to total. Even if the argument method of total score can be applied to book classification, and the general connotation is defined as theory and its depth, however, documents are produced from total score, from total to total, from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge, while Chinese Library Classification, on the contrary, adopts the arrangement method from total score to score. Constrained by this frame, it has been stretched, and the wrong pitch is. Here's an example: Q Summary of Biological Sciences, from general biology to anthropology, are all theoretical theories, and then the general biology is classified, from "10 the origin of life" to "19 organisms are divided into L categories", which is exactly from the point to the total.

"China Library Classification" learns from the international decimal classification, and sets up six kinds of multiple classification tables. For categories that have * * * or may have multiple classification problems, try to imitate multiple classifications to reduce the length of classification tables. In fact, the problem of * * * can be solved with common sense markers, and the constant should be changed. If each unit book content concept is given a carry code, it will limit the "expansibility" and damage the auxiliary function.

Fourth, the principle of order is vague, with no hint and regularity.

The arrangement of books should be based on revealing the inheritance relationship of documents and strict scientific logical division. Due to unclear classification, the D-type (political and legal) laws finally ranked D9 in the shortlist. After the law books are decomposed, they are divided into law books again under the label of DF, which is called the "second classification system", which makes people puzzled.

The Library Classification of China uses 22 capital letters as the codes of major categories, and some "affiliated disciplines" are marked with th, TN and other double letters. In order to flaunt its localization, the compilation instructions are represented by Chinese phonetic alphabet instead of W, so as not to be confused with U recognition. However, in fact, English letters are used for recognition and reading.

Influenced by Dewey's decimal classification, China Library adopted decimal. Decimal is an advanced calculation rule invented by China in ancient times. The application of decimal system in book labeling must be based on the correct division of concepts. If the genus and species are unknown, the division is incomplete, the subordinate relationship is reversed, there are many sub-items, and the relationship is compatible, the decimal is not only meaningless, but also chaotic. Division cannot be accurate to decimal, and some may exceed it. In fact, the classification of Chinese Library Classification includes irregular carry, binary, ternary and pentad. Sometimes octal (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 1, 92) or binary (1,12 ... 99) is used. Therefore, its arrangement vision is easily confused with natural serial numbers, thus destroying the principle of order. Some people mistake the carry system for classification, but it is actually a standard conversion representation. In order to expand the literature, Chinese Library Classification keeps the carry group number, the essence of which should be reserved space, and the real standard carry system is natural ordinal number. Sequence relation is the core of the definition of ordinal number of natural numbers, and it is also the key to book classification and shelving. Any symbol used to represent a sequence is an ordinal expression, such as A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D, and even Liu Jia's No.8 is an ordinal number, and its bit value is expressed by special symbols "shelf" and "number", instead of directly expressing carry with the positional relationship of the basic symbols themselves. When orderly carry cannot be realized, it is best to use special carry and natural ordinal number to express it!

In Chinese Library Classification, there are many books that can enter this category or that category, or the ambiguous phenomenon of "it is appropriate to enter here". When we enter a topic keyword search, there will be three or four or five categories. Tags are not associated with topic categories, and there is no hint. Classification number, claim number and overlapping use, complicated labels, complicated retrieval and vague definition standard of species number make it impossible to realize the integration of retrieval, cataloging and indexing and open self-service classification and cataloging, which makes the China Library Classification lose its popularization function.

Five, China library classification is imported.

There is no substantial difference between China Library Classification and Dewey Decimal Classification in terms of structure and expression principle. It is similar to the Library of Congress Classification and the improved International Decimal Classification, and is intended to incorporate all or even future knowledge into it. Numeric labeling is too abstract, and its revision system can only temporarily solve some technical and knowledge division errors, and it is difficult to solve the problems of theory, basic labeling and division structure. Its revision system itself, the coexistence of new and old book classification numbers and various classification methods left in the revised stacks show that the book classification in China and even the world is in trouble, just like the female monster in The Journey to the West, who immediately ages without drinking human blood.

Knowledge is dynamically integrated, intersected and developed, and the classification rules are unchanged. Knowledge classification and traditional book classification will inevitably conflict! Librarians should downplay the exploration of knowledge classification, free themselves from the quagmire of knowledge classification and return to book classification. We can refer to and integrate the application of national discipline standards, but we should not quote them all, nor deviate or even go their separate ways. The word order method of topic phrases can effectively solve the problem of orderly extraction of knowledge. Any knowledge and its new disciplines are developed on the basis of the original disciplines. As long as we insist on reflecting its time series relationship and inheritance relationship, insisting on taking readers as the center, explaining it in simple terms, and applying scientific labels and scientific classification theory, we can draw the process of knowledge development.

It should be pointed out that Chinese and foreign book classification, including Chinese ancient book classification, is an enumeration classification, not a scientific logical classification; Its compilation style and thinking orientation are similar, or the essence is the same, but the appearance is different, which is the professional skill of librarians, not the common sense tool mastered by readers. In fact, readers are not looking for books by calling numbers, but by experience, and they are still in a perceptual state. We can't ignore its shortcomings. When mankind enters the 2 1 century, when general logic becomes universal knowledge, when open lending becomes the normal mode of library operation, and when knowledge grows rapidly, it is our professional, moral and historical responsibility to re-compile the worldwide scientific book classification and return it to readers.

The idea of compiling the International Book Integration Classification lies in Einstein's view that the past, present and future are "a stubborn illusion". Librarians should give up stubbornness, because our collection work is a knowledge carrier linking ancient and modern China and foreign countries, mapping the long history of knowledge and making human civilization have a long history.

Laozi said: "Man is the law of the earth, the earth is the law of heaven, and the law of heaven is the law of nature", and man and nature are a complete system. The knowledge between heaven and earth is nothing more than the knowledge between man and nature. This classification takes China's grand idea of "the integration of ancient and modern books" as its ideal and "the integration of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign books" as its goal. Classified collection is specialized, large-scale and global, and it is self-contained whether it is collected separately by specialty or comprehensively by various majors. It is our sacred mission to let book classification return to readers and guide readers to explore the truth like Beidou!

The highest ideal of this classification is scientific, concise and popular, and modernization is the direction of our efforts.