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I hope you all had the opportunity to sign onto (http://classweb.loc.gov/) – the Library of Congress Classification Web. It calculates call numbers and seems to do a good job with the KF federal numbers where only the form tables are involved. It is a little tricker with the country tables and their accompanying form tables – 2 sets of tables to apply. It is something that we should encourage the Library of Congress to develop and make available. The project ended March 30. All of the K schedules were in Classification Web, including the ones not yet available on Classification Plus. Yes, even KBM Jewish law, KBP Islamic law, KBR history of canon law and KBU Catholic Church law were in the web version.

Issue 1, 2001, of Classification Plus should include the law schedule for Germany. Hopefully KBR and KBU will also be in the next issue. Again let me recommend both Classification Plus and Catalogers' Desktop to all catalogers.

Looseleafs are still with us. I think mainly because our libraries all have the time to file those pages. Seriously, I do want to remind catalogers about the Subject Cataloging Manual: Shelflisting memo on dates in call numbers for looseleafs. It is memo G140, no. 3d and it states:

d. Loose-leaf materials. Do not add a date to call numbers for the following types of publications:

·Loose-leaf services that are cataloged as such and continuously kept up to date.

Note: Although this rule applies to all classes, the vast majority of such publications are in Class K.

Note: In the rare cases where it is necessary to distinguish between different editions of these types of publications, use successive Cutter numbers.

When this was first proposed at the Santa Clara Institute in 1992, some thought it would only apply to looseleaf services such as those published by Commerce Clearing House. However, the Library of Congress shelflisters applied it to all looseleafs that were updated including the Matthew Bender looseleafs. When another edition comes along, the cutter is expanded by adding either a "2" or "12" to the cutter for the earlier edition. I have seen both. The reason the date was dropped for the looseleafs is that catalogers felt it was misleading to have a date in the call number when the title was being updated by filing pages. When a looseleaf publication is cataloged in the Cataloging in Publication program, they sometimes receive dates in call number. I would presume that the publisher did not tell LC that the publication is going to be a looseleaf. Since this is a deviation from normal call number practice for monographs, it is hard to remember.

Also, Jolande Goldberg has sent us the latest news on the implementation of KB:

"After implementation of the 2 new schedules KBR (History of Canon law) and KBU (Law of the Roman Catholic Church. The Holy See) in Early Winter, the LC Law Team and the Rare Book Team in conjunction with the Law Classification Specialist and staff of the LC Law Library began reclassification of some of the most important collections in the field of Canon law, not only to give the schedules a "trial run" but also to bring eminent source materials under bibliographic control. Targeted were early sources, including a broad range of incunabula (including Decretum Gratiani and decretal collections forming the Corpus iuris canonici), Rota Romana decisions, Bullaria and other principal sources of the law, followed by decretists, decretalists and the later canonists. Since most of these works were in the pre-MARC file, all access points of a reclass record have been updated. "

As always, if you have any classification questions that you want answered in a column, email me.

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