The African Studies Centre (ASC) Leiden is an independent foundation associated with Leiden University. Its aims are to undertake research on Africa in the social sciences, to maintain a specialist library and documentation department, and to facilitate the dissemination of information on Africa. The library houses a broad-based collection in the field of the social sciences and the humanities, the only collection in the Netherlands focusing entirely on Africa. Current holdings include some 75,000 books, 2,000 periodicals, of which almost 600 are current subscriptions, about 1,000 documentaries and feature films, and a growing digital collection. Approximately half the holdings are English, about a third French, and the remainder is divided between German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Portuguese and Spanish. Between 2000 and 2006, the library carried out a project to improve subject access to the ASC collection by building an African Studies Thesaurus and converting all subject codes used until then into thesaurus descriptors.

The paper outlines the standardization function of the Czech Subject Authority File and explores the role of UDC as a switching language, i.e. as an intermediary between various indexing systems at institutional, national and international level. Subject indexing and classification systems used at the institutional and national level may differ from one another in their levels of specificity, syntactic features (e.g. word order of terms, subject headings versus descriptors), and in the usage of terminology. These differences raise compatibility problems and make any mapping efforts more difficult. The paper explains how such difficulties may be partially overcome by means of the UDC system. The author illustrates the potential application of UDC as a linking element between different subject organization tools used by memory institutions. In this context the author discusses subject indexing systems used in libraries, museums, galleries and archives.

The paper explores two possible solutions for integrating a thesaurus and a classification scheme, specifically UDC, in order to develop a common platform for subject information retrieval through both systems. The author reports and compares experiences from two Hungarian projects aimed at creating a complex system for combining UDC and thesauri under a homogeneous theoretical framework: MÁTrIkSz (Hungarian Comprehensive Information Retrieval Language Dictionary) and the project of thesaurus construction and implementation in the Hungarian National Library (Széchényi). The role of UDC in these two projects is analyzed with respect to the features supported, classification-based retrieval functionalities, and the perceived advantages in subject access and knowledge organization. The author explains the methodology of her research based on an examination of structured and well-documented examples and literature research into the theory of UDC and its use. The paper underlines the importance of cognition as the basis for concept-building and points out some possibilities and expedients for the integration of thesauri and the UDC.

The paper addresses issues in establishing a user-friendly systematic collection arrangement following a merger of two high school and college library collections classified according to UDC. In the way it was used, this scheme presented some weaknesses with respect to collection usage. Due to the disciplinary nature of UDC, subjects and phenomena are dispersed in the scheme according to the disciplines in which they are the subject of study. At the same time students in a school library often seek interdisciplinary subjects and need access to clusters of documents which according to UDC may be classed in several different knowledge areas. The author illustrates how this problem was resolved by re-arranging the collection according to phenomena. This was achieved by interpreting UDC numbers as if they represented specific phenomena. Thus, by superimposing some local indexing rules onto a disciplinary knowledge organization system it was possible to collocate interdisciplinary subjects under a single class number. Furthermore, by reversing subject numbers and form auxiliaries (atlases, dictionaries, textbooks etc.) which is an option envisaged in the design of UDC, documents were collocated in the way they are most frequently used by students. The author suggests that, in practice, one often needs to overcome the constraints of disciplinary classification and he discusses the approach used in his school library collection.

Aida Slavic aus London berichtete über den derzeitigen Stand bei der Universalen Dezimalklassifikation UDK. Wobei sie einerseits auf die erreichte Qualität und Moder­nität des alten Systems eingeht und andererseits die erreichte Organisationsstruktur im Rahmen des UDC-Konsortiums schildert. Insbesondere zu beklagen ist nach wie vor, dass im deutschsprachigen Raum seit dem Ausscheiden der beiden Normungs­institute DIN und ÖNORM aus der UDK-Gestaltung sich keine Nachfolgestruktur zur Weiterführung der UDK gefunden hat.

This paper discusses the development of the Polar UDC. It examines some elements of the UDC specific to the Polar context, in particular the geographical auxiliary schedule. Some future plans for the implementation of UDC in a library and also in a museum context are outlined.

The Round Table UDC Editorial Perspectives was a one-day meeting for members of the UDC Editorial Team and the UDC Advisory Board organized in The Hague on 28 October 2009 in conjunction with the UDC Seminar 2009 “Classification at a Crossroads: Multiple Directions to Usability”. The meeting was instigated as part of the UDC Consortium efforts to build closer cooperation with UDC specialists and editors of national editions worldwide and to encourage more active involvement and communication between members of the wider UDC editorial team. This was the first face-to-face meeting of the UDC collaborators to which all members of the Advisory Board, the Editorial Team and interested observers were invited to participate.

The International UDC Seminar 2009 “Classification at a Crossroads - multiple directions to usability” took place in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague on 29-30 October 2009. It was a truly international event as it attracted 135 delegates from 32 countries comprising librarians, LIS lecturers, researchers, information consultants, Web technologists and indexing specialists.

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to determine which of the three general classification schemes, DDC, SAB, and UDC is the most appropriate for classifying music documents. This is done by analysing and classifying 60 music documents such as recordings, scores and books about music. The codes resulting from the classification are analysed according to a number of evaluation criteria based on classification theory. The criteria focus on the systems specificity, exhaustivity, exclusivity, helpful sequence, hospitality, notation and that related classes are kept together. The study showed that the systems specificity in classification was of great importance in classifying music documents because of the diversity of music genres. SAB showed the best results in this respect, but the study also showed that DDC might become the best system for music classification in the future. The reasons for this are that DDC keeps related classes together, has a hospitable and easily readable notation, good exhaustivity and a helpful sequence. UDC and SAB have some of these benefits but do not match DDC. However, DDC needs a revision and an extension of the pop- and rock music section for better specificity. / Uppsatsnivå: D

Aida Slavic aus London berichtete über den derzeitigen Stand bei der Universalen Dezimalklassifikation UDK. Wobei sie einerseits auf die erreichte Qualität und Moder­nität des alten Systems eingeht und andererseits die erreichte Organisationsstruktur im Rahmen des UDC-Konsortiums schildert. Insbesondere zu beklagen ist nach wie vor, dass im deutschsprachigen Raum seit dem Ausscheiden der beiden Normungs­institute DIN und ÖNORM aus der UDK-Gestaltung sich keine Nachfolgestruktur zur Weiterführung der UDK gefunden hat.