Broughton, V. (2015). Essential classification (2nd ed.). London: Facet Publishing.
Jennifer May · Library and Information Research · 2017
s programme taught by the book's author, Vanda Broughton.Both theory and practice is covered and with summaries, exercises and worked examples, there is plenty to help the novice classifier through a first attempt at document analysis and navigating a classification scheme.The book is highly readable with the author's genuine interest in her subject coming across easily and is likely to appeal to any library science student wanting good background knowledge of classification.With 23 chapters, topics have been divided into bite-size pieces.The first chapters (2 through to 7) explain the theoretical background to classification, introducing the philosophy of knowledge organisation and key concepts in classification.This includes the structure of classification schemes and the different types, such as enumerative and analytico-synthetic classification.Chapters 8 and 9 cover content analysis, which prepare the reader for the following chapters on the practical application of subject indexing and classification schemes.