Julie Pettee's address delivered June 16, 1955
at the Ninth Annual Conference of the
American Theological Library Association

I really must thank Mr. Morris for giving you a rest before my speech.  You perhaps can endure it better.  When I spoke at Dr. Rockwell's dinner, Dr. Coffin introduced me as the author of the driest book he had ever set his eyes on.  So it is really very gratifying to me to see so many of you here who are familiar with that dry book and have steeled yourselves voluntarily to listen to the author.

When I was invited to come and talk to you, I was delighted.   When I tried to think what on earth to talk about, I got pretty cold feet.   You see, it is fifteen years since I have used that classification that I made, and for the last four years I have been immured up on my hill farm, remote from both theological and library interests.  So it seemed to me the only thing I could really talk about was to tell you younger people something of what theological librarians faced over half a century ago.  Now, in 1894 I was a student in the Pratt Institute Library School, a brand new school just preceded by a few years by Albany.  At that date, the library world was much smaller than it is now, and we underlings had a much better opportunity of being personally acquainted with the highlights in the profession.   For several years I was on the Dewey Committee and so became personally acquainted with Mr. Dewey.  Mr. Dewey was a large man with black hair, piercing black eyes, and a very dominating personality.  You gave Mr. Dewey the information that he asked for and did not discuss things with him.  He told you what was what, and that was the end of it.  Now Mr. Cutter was a very different type of man.  He had just then finished his dictionary catalog for the Athenaeum Library and had published his Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue.  Mr. Dewey, at that date and in that century, was at the height of his fame as the author of a relative classification system.

    I suppose classifications of knowledge are as old as civilization.   But, when libraries came to use them, they applied the classification not to books but to the spaces in which books were contained.  The old monastic libraries had cupboards along the walls with history and theology in them, and when the books were removed to rooms, the alcoves were allocated to certain topics.  This custom of allocating spaces to books continued on down through the ages to the modern steel stack.   The modern steel stack was given a roman numeral, the section in the stack was given an Arabic numeral, and the shelves numbered from the bottom up.

    Mr. Dewey was interested in making a classed subject catalog, and he devised his decimal classification for this purpose, for applying it to a classified catalog on cards.  Then the brilliant idea occurred to him: if this system can be applied to cards, why can't it be applied directly to the books?  This idea revolutionized the practice of a thousand years.  In the last quarter of the last century, libraries were simply tumbling over each other to put in this new relative classification system.

    But theological libraries lagged several decades behind.  As far as I know, no theological library was classified by a relative system until the present century.

    Fifty years ago I was a classifier in the Vassar College Library when the librarian of Rochester Theological Seminary wandered in and told me incidentally that the trustees had authorized the reorganization of that library the following summer.   Naturally we began to talk about classification systems and methods of cataloging.   The upshot of that was that I was invited to spend the next summer reorganizing the Rochester Theological Seminary Library, a library of some fifty thousand volumes.

    That winter I visited every theological library within a convenient distance, but found very little, except that at Hartford they had an incipient classification scheme which we used in making an original scheme for Rochester.  So, that summer vacation I went to Rochester to take charge of the reorganization of that library.  We gathered a fine staff, and I turned over the non-theological books to an Albany graduate, giving her complete charge of putting them in the Dewey.  I confined myself to the theological books.  Well, the work out there just hummed, and the only fly in the ointment was labels.

    Every library is accustomed to plastering on the backs of their books those great white labels to expedite their shelving.  I laid in a bountiful supply, and when several hundred volumes were put through and duly decorated with these white labels, I gazed with pride upon these symbols of a new dispensation.  Then the president walked in.  Now, if Dr. Strong had been half blind, he couldn't have failed to see those gleaming white labels ... "Who," he said, "has been defacing our books? These labels must come off. This must be stopped!"  Dr. Strong was willing for us to put on gold leaf, but that was too technical a process.  We finally found a draughtsman among the students, and I went to the president and said that if he would allow this draughtsman to put on the white ink, he would do it so skillfully that he would really beautify the books instead of defacing them.  The president was still a little skeptical, so to gain my point, I said, "Well, Dr. Strong, you know it would expedite the work, and I promise you that if you let this draughtsman put on the white ink, I won't varnish them, and when I'm gone, it can all be rubbed off and the books will look just as they did before."  Dr. strong consented to that, and before I left, the books were being permanently varnished, with Dr. Strong's full approval.

    I completed that library in two summer vacations and a half-year leave of absence.  When I got back to Vassar, I found an invitation to come down here to New York and take charge of the reorganization of this great library at Union Seminary.   When I reached here, of course, I found the old fixed shelf notation, where Dr. Briggs, a former librarian, had gone through the stacks and very carefully assigned certain shelves to certain books, labeling the shelves and labeling the section which they were in.  I suppose from some system he had in his head, because I never was able to get possession of it.

    When I arrived, this was the practice at Union Seminary:  The cataloger made one author card and placed it in the book.  The books were assembled on a truck.  The librarian, Dr. Rockwell, rolled the truck down to the stacks, and then, with the book in his hand, he would look around for the place where similar books were placed.  When he found it, he would put the number of the stack and section in the book and on the card.  Then he placed the book on the shelf and the card was returned to be filed in the catalog.  Books were not classed in those days, books were located.  We talked about "locating" books, and the catalogers had no responsibility either for classing books or for making the subject catalog.  In the earlier period of library development, the chief librarian himself retained those functions.

    Now, there is nothing static about a classification scheme.   The way we sort our ideas is constantly changing, so it is not very strange that there should be found in the stacks of some fifty years ago an arrangement that would seem odd to us today.  Union already at that date had quite a large collection on charities and social welfare, and these books were in the section that bore the label: "Home Missions".  Then, there was quite a remarkable section in the stacks which we discovered.  It bore the label: "Minor Morals."

    Men have never known what to do with women.  These theologians had an idea.  They considered women a moral problem.  And, as women were not a very great consequence anyway, they fitted very well under the caption "Minor Morals."  And actually on the shelves here at Union under "Minor Morals" were these topics, in this order: first came Profanity; then came Drunkenness; Drunkenness was followed by Lotteries; Lotteries was followed by Women, and after Women came Duelling.  The whole series of Minor Morals was climaxed by:   War.

    Classifying a great library like Union was quite a different matter from a smaller library such as Rochester.  But at Rochester, thanks to Dr. Beveridge, I had learned a great deal.  In the first place, I had a pretty comprehensive knowledge of the whole field of theology, and I had also handled a great many books in it.   I was very much dissatisfied at Rochester with the dual system which we had introduced: one classification for non-theological literature and another classification entirely different for religious books.

    When I was a student at Vassar, the president addressed the senior class, telling us that there were three distinct breaks in creation, with an impassible gulf between them.  The first was between organic and inorganic matter.    The second was between the animals and man endowed with the human soul.   These were two absolutely distinct creations with no relationship what ever between them.  The third absolute break was between the natural world and the spiritual world directly revealed by God in the Bible.

    Now, even at that date, I could not accept this.  It seemed to me that the universe was an integrated whole, composed of an infinite number of correlated parts.  And I wanted one single classification that would represent this unity.   Then, too, for practical reasons theological students are not encased in a glass cage separate from the world.  Also, in their instruction both religious and secular books are brought together.  So it seemed to me that a single unified classification based upon the uses and needs of the theologian would be the type of classification that would be most useful. 

    In my opinion a special library is better served by a special classification than by a general classification system.  A general classification views the whole field of knowledge and each portion has equal value with every other portion.  But a specialist views the field of knowledge from his own particular angle, and selects from this field of knowledge the portions that are useful to him and develops those portions.  So I wanted a single, integrated classification scheme adapted to the purposes of theologians.

    In order to make a classification it is absolutely necessary to have some framework upon which you can hang your topics.  Where could we find such a framework?  The Dewey didn't seem to answer our purpose, but one of our professors found a classification of knowledge that had just recently been put forth by a German, Dr Munsterberg.  Now I have no particular thesis for this Munsterberg classification of knowledge, but it did seem to serve our purpose by cutting down through the whole field of knowledge along lines that would bring the theological and non-theological material together in a useful juxtaposition with a minimum of over-lapping topics.  So we decided to adapt that classification in building our scheme for Union.

    In making our classification scheme in those early days, we came upon some very controversial topics.  In the first place, Mr. Dewey had been astute enough in the early days of Biblical criticism to seize upon the then very new idea that the separate books of the Bible were literary documents composed at various different periods and finally brought together in one book.  Upon that theory, Mr. Dewey set up the books of the Bible as separate entities, gathering under each book all the literature about that book.  Now, curiously enough, Dr. Briggs, one of the Union professors and one of the founders of modern Biblical criticism who fought valiantly for it, was very hostile to this idea.  He much preferred the older system of approaching the Bible as a unit by different methods.  The first method of approach was the study of the text, and textual criticism was one line of division.  Then came the introductory approach, literary and historical criticism; then the study of the canon; and finally the exegesis and the commentary.  In that older system, if you wanted to collect all the literature on the Psalms, you would have to collect it from these half dozen different classification lines.

    Another very popular method of approach in all the older classification systems is the historical approach.  If you will study the older systems, you will see that the history of even minute topics is separated from the text of the topic.  The history of the Bible was miles away from other literature on the Bible.  It was considered as introductory to Church History, and the Bible stories of the Old Testament and the New Testament were followed by the history of the Christian Church right on down to date.  At Hartford, actually set upon the shelves was the series from the Creation of Adam right through Church History down to the Congregational Church in Connecticut, bearing the label:  "history of the Kingdom."

    I am greatly indebted in making this classification system to a subject catalog made by a former librarian, Dr. Gillett.  He had worked out a really fine subject catalog on cards, classified, of course, according to the older theological encyclopedia.  Although Union's system is not based upon the older theological encyclopedia, having these cards arranged by this older system gave me a very thorough comprehension of the older system, and when I broke away from it, I knew what I was doing. Then, too, since the cards were arranged by subjects, I could send the cards down to the stack and collect all the literature on a subject when I was reclassing.  In making a classification system, especially, it is very useful to have a large body of literature on hand upon which to work.  So the Union scheme is not only a theoretical scheme , but it is based on the actual handling of very many books.

    Now, as I said, a classification is never static.  Our ideas change constantly.  As an illustration of this, one of the first classes that I reclassed at Union was the class of Irenics or Church Union.  At that date, some forty or fifty years ago, all the books on Church Union dealt with doctrinal differences and attempts to reconcile these different doctrines; so, of course, it was set up in doctrinal theology.  But before the classification was published, the churches were getting together on an entirely different basis, organizing to promote the practical interests of the church.  The Federal Council of Churches and other organizations of that time were set up.  Of course, these practical measures could by no means be classed in doctrinal theology; we had to set them up in the practical theology class.   So, unfortunately, in the Union scheme, the whole movement of Church Union is divided into two very different sections.

    I cannot conclude this very brief and inadequate sketch of a few of the problems we met in making the Union Classification scheme without expressing my indebtedness to the Union faculty.  As each section was  worked through, it was submitted to some member of the faculty who was interested in that section for his revision and suggestions, which were very freely given.  And, also, I am most indebted to my former chief, Dr. Rockwell.  Much of the work of the classification was due to him.  He was practically responsible for the Church History and Church Law sections.   And too, in that earlier period, there was quite a good deal of criticism against the new scheme for breaking away from the older theological encyclopedia.  I don't know how much Dr. Rockwell suffered, but he protected me, and I am very grateful to the administration for leaving me alone and allowing me unhampered to work out my own ideas.

    I think the unique feature of the Union scheme is its Christian Literature class.  When I was a student at Vassar, we studied literature by authors.   The college library, disregarding the Dewey form divisions, collected all the works by or about an author in single author groups.  When I came to Union, I found that some libraries were treating the Church Fathers in that way.  I saw no reason why, as this was such an excellent way of treating literature, all the Christian writers from the Church Fathers right on down to date should not be treated in this way, and a great Christian Literature class set up to form a source class for both history and doctrine.

    We set up the Church Fathers and followed them with the medieval writers.  Saint Thomas Aquinas was followed by the Catholic writers right down to date.  Them came the Reformation, and after it the Protestant divines by country and period divisions.  This worked without a hitch through the Reformation, and I included the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with the earlier periods.  It is my ideal of a Christian Literature class that it be followed directly right down to date.   But, when we come to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this Christian Literature class comes into a head-on collision with a basic rule of classifying by subject, which applies to theological as well as to secular wirters.  A British divine writes a book on Greek archaeology.  Dr Frame writes a book on China Missions.   The interest in the present periodic is in the subject matter of the book on archaeology or China missions, and not particularly in the author who writes the book.

    You may ask why, if we class nineteenth and twentieth century books by subject, why do we fail to class them in the earlier periods?  Well, there are several very good reasons for this.  In the first place, a book written in the earlier period is not of particular practical value; its interest is historical.   Then, too, we are talking about a special theological classification made for theologians.  In the special literature class for theologians the interest centers about the man in the earlier periods, and not in some one particular book that he has written.  For example, Servetus wrote several books on the circulation of the blood.   Theologians are not especially interested in the circulation of the blood, but they are tremendously interested in Servetus.  For usefulness to theologians, these books on the circulation of the blood are more conveniently kept under Servetus than scattered off in Medicine.

    Perhaps you will wonder, with this basic rule of classifying by subject, what Christian writers of the modern period stand any chance of getting   into this Christian Literature class.  Well, if any of you are Christian writers, and live long enough to have your collected works published, and you are not the founder of some sect, and you do not become internationally distinquished in some specialty, then too, if somebody writes your biography, and that biography isn't wanted anywhere else, you stand a slim chance of getting in.

    This brings me to Biography.  Now biography in a public library is a very popular class.  I confess I love to browse among it and pick out one that intriques me and take it home for recreational reading - just reading for pure pleasure.   But I have my doubt that there is any justification for setting up in a theological classification a class for reading for pure pleasure.  You see, we theological people are pretty serious minded.  When joy and duty clash, "tis joy must go to smash.   And, so, there is no place in the Union scheme for reading for pure pleasure unless it is the class: Sermons!

    I have a firm conviction as to what to do with biography.  It seems to me that the biography of a man is most usefully classed with the subject to which he contributed his major life work.  A biography of a scientist with science; the biography of a theologian with theology.  We class John Wesley with the Methodist Church in England.  We class Joseph Smith with the Mormons.  A minister who spends his whole life in some single parish contributes to the history of that parish.   Where else would he be more usefully classed?  The minister who serves several parishes under one denomination contributes to the history of the denomination.  If it were classed elsewhere the value to the denomination would be lost.

    Well, in classing biography we come upon a very perplexing question:   what to do with some of our leading Christian writers who transcend the bounds of denominational lines and whose interests are too broad to be compressed into one single subject group?  For example, take such an outstanding man as our Dr. Fosdick.   He is a Baptist clergyman, a one-time preacher in a Presbyterian church, a long-time professor at Union, and the pastor of a great inter-denominational church.   Or, take another of our Union professors, Dr. Niebuhr.  He is widely interested in social problems, and, as I understand, is a member of a minor denomination, but a man with an international reputation as a theologian.  Now, if I were classing, which I'm not, I would unhesitatingly set up such outstanding men as these in the Christian Literature class when a biography or critical work came to hand, because they are interesting as personalities, and interesting for all that they stand for.

    Then there is a group of profound thinkers, of theologians who have really evolved a special type of theological thinking which amounts to a school of thought.  One of these moderns, Karl Barth, came along while I was still at Union, and I set him up in the Christian Literature class.  I understand that Miss Markley and Miss Eisenhart have followed that  example and have set other men of that character in that class.  To my way of thinking, that is the best way of disposing of them.

    In my theory, the Christian Literature class is open to any worthy Christian writer who is not more usefully classed somewhere else.  And Christian Literature is not entirely composed of the great, but includes very many minor writers.   There are many minor worthy Christian writers who have written several books of value, but who have gained no great distinction in any one field, or who are not denominationally known, and it is sometimes a great puzzle what to do with them.  I think the Christian Literature class is just the place for them.  Though the books that they have written may be classed in other places, their biography goes here very well, because these men are known as writers and only a writers.

    I understand that a perennial question rises as to the relationship of the Christian Literature class to the Doctrinal class.  The Christian Literature class is a source class for doctrine.  It is through the personalities and the writings of these great Christian leaders that we trace the sweep of Christian thinking down through the ages, as it is interpreted and accepted by our churches.  The Dogmatics class takes up these dotrines, doctrine by doctrine, and discusses them separately.

    Now, if a man is set up in the contemporary Christian Literature class, is it ever legitimate to class one of his books on some specific dogmatic topic - say, Justification, or Sin - with the man in the Christian Literature class?  There is one valid objection:  it does impoverish the Dogmatics class by removing from it a book by an outstanding author.  But, that book can be found through the subject catalog.  Then, too, in the stack, arranged under the period divisions of the Christian Literature class, is the total thinking of the period.  This total thinking of the period is something which we cannot collect from the catalog and which can only be collected from bibliographies by consulting a number of differenct ones.

    What each library chooses to do with the modern Christian Literature class, I think rests with the particular library.  That decision may be based upon a number of very different factors.  It may be just space.  It may be the type of library.  It may depend on the special collections which it has.  And, of course, it must be what the faculty and students wish.  If the library prefers to develop and emphasize the Dogmatics class, it is perfectly possible for users of the Union Classification to transfer the total modern period of Christian Literature to the Dogmatics class.  I think that the Union scheme is perfectly adapted to this, because there is space for it, and the notations can be readily adjusted.  I was very much pleased to see Dr. Ehlert's remaking of the class of Dogmatic Theology and I think he has done a very good job of it.  I am very pleased to think that the Union Classification can be adapted to libraries of very different types with very different collections.

    It goes without saying that a classifier can make a wise decision only if he has a very comprehensive and thorough knowledge of the field of literature with which he is dealing.  He must know the classification system that he is using, and he must adapt the system to the library which he is serving.  But this is not quite all, I think, that will give a classification a slight degree of permanence.  I think that it is necessary to think back over the past ages and to note the changes in theological thinking: how it has developed from century to century, and then to try to evaluate the general trend of thinking in our present period, so that we can prognosticate just a little bit into the future to guess how the next generation will be wanting to use our library.  And in my opinion, the young people of today are immensely interested in our current Christian leaders, in their personalities, and in their interpretation of our common Christian faith as a way of life.  They have not so much the past century's interest in the intellectual and logical interpretation of the single dogmas.

Pette, Julia.  Address.  In Summary of Proceedings, Ninth Annual Conference, American Theological Library Association, 1955. 33-39.