A Bibliographic Classification

B., R.

doi:10.1038/161705b0

Books Received
Published: 08 May 1948

A Bibliographic Classification

R. B.

Nature volume 161, page 705 (1948)Cite this article

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Abstract

THIS volume sets forth the specifications and schedules in Bliss‘s classification for anthropology and the medical sciences, psychology (including psychiatry), education and sociology, including ethnology, folk-lore, ethnography and human geography. The expansions for the medical sciences have been compiled with the assistance of Mr. C. C. Barnard, and those for physiology, medicine and surgery have more recently been revised by Dr. R. B. Singer. The classification for psychology has been compiled in collaboration with Dr. C. M. Louttit, while the schedules for sociology, social ethnology and folk-lore have been revised by Miss Beverly Stamm. Although Bliss‘s classification is little known outside the ranks of librarians and bibliographers, the scholarly introduction to this volume will be read with appreciation by many who are interested in the more comprehensive human sciences. Its interest is not so much in the explanation of the principles of the classification itself as in the discussion of the various complications involved, including questions of terminology, where an admirable and forceful plea for greater precision is advanced. Particularly in what he has to say on sociology, Dr. Bliss makes a valuable contribution to greater precision in the use of terms and in the relation of concepts and ideas which should be welcomed by all serious students in this field, independent of whether or not they adopt his classification as a convenient working tool.

A Bibliographic Classification

Extended by Systematic Auxiliary Schedules for Composite Specification and Notation. By Henry Evelyn Bliss. Vol. 2 : Classes H—K ; the Human Sciences. Pp. vii + 344. (New York : H. W. Wilson Company, 1947.) 7.50 dollars.