How Does the Library of Congress classification system Work?
The Library of Congress uses a series of letters followed by numbers and then a letter at the end to signify the author’s surname. The codes can be straight forward or quite complex, however the codes always work in the same way. Example: HF 5500/S (HF) = Subject Area) (5500) = Subject Division) (/S) = Letter of author’s surname The following codes can be added to a classmark to signify what type of material it is: Per= periodical q = quarto (large sized material) f = Folio (Very large sizes material) Example: per q HF 5500/ J ff = Folio (Extremely large material) Material with these codes assigned are shelved separately from the normal sequence e.g.
