History of the Scheme
History
of the Scheme
In the 1950’s,
when Elizabeth Moys was starting her career, there was no adequate
classification
system for law libraries. There
were several classification schemes in use,
including Bliss, the
Dewey 340 division, the Los Angeles County Law Library Classification
and many in-house schemes which tended to be too focused on the
individual needs of the
originating institution to be widely implemented.(2) The Library
of Congress Class K-Law was not
available or anticipated in the near future; in fact it was not
published until
1969.(3) In
the Subject Cataloguing
Division of the
Library of Congress, Dr Ellinger was developing the class K schedules,
but the
librarians at the Library of Congress Law Library did not want to
classify the
collection. Bliss was popular, but by
the 1950’s it was outdated. Dewey Class
340 was available in basic form, but compilers apparently believed
Dewey to be
an American classification system and American libraries to be
uninterested in
foreign law.(4)
The
classification of law is problematic because subjects overlap; many law
libraries used no classification scheme at the time,(5)
including the Library of Congress Law Library(6)
and the University of British Columbia Law Library.(7) Instead, law collections were organized
broadly
by
subject and as a second order of arrangement by alphabetical listing by
author,
or they were simply arranged alphabetically by author.
In contrast, Moys believed subject
classification improves the accessibility of the collection, through
increased ease of browsing, to such an
extent that such problems were worth
solving and
the requisite compromises worth making. Subject
classification allows a library user to find
materials on a
subject, even if the item they originally sought is unavailable; it
also
improves the ability of librarians to develop the collection, by making
the
number and age of works on a given subject more readily apparent.(8)
Moys had
the opportunity to explore her ideas on the subject classification of
legal
materials when she went to Nigeria and catalogued the new library at
the
University of Lagos.(9)
As she said, she
had an “almost perfect
situation, having a virtual laboratory next door to my office.”(10) According
to Moys, her method was to take home
books on a given topic over the weekend and try to find subject
divisions. From these divisions she
would work out a rough outline and try to apply it to the collection,
if it
worked: good, if it did not she would redo the process.
She said that sometimes numbers were not
available when they were needed, but overall the method worked well.(11)
When she
went back to the United Kingdom she took some copies of her scheme. There were many new law libraries being
founded at that time and many of the libraries consulted Howard Drake
for
advice about which classification scheme to use, and he recommended
Moys’ new
scheme.(12) Soon
the number of copies brought from Africa
was gone, and an appointment was made with a representative of the
publishing
house Butterworths. The required
modifications were made and the
introduction written. However, just before publication someone
wrote
wanting to
implement the scheme in a library that classified with the Dewey
Decimal
Classification system for the rest of their collection and wanted to
use Moys
in their legal section, so an outline
for the decimal classification of legal materials was made and the
scheme went
to print.(13)
After several years the schedules were out of print and in need of updating, so plans to publish a new edition were made. Requests were sent out for suggestions and requirements for the new edition, but not many were forthcoming. Nonetheless, the schedules were expanded and the edition was published.(14) When the time came to publish a third edition, outside input was more necessary than ever, furthermore Moys had recently retired from librarianship, so three volunteers were found to form an editorial team: Sarah Carter, Diana Lewis and Keith Tree.
When it was decided to
publish a fourth edition, a new editorial board was recruited. This new board included Catherine Miller, Sue
Pettit, Verena Price and K. Charles Rudd. Moys
was worried about the future of the classification
scheme, particularly
in the Commonwealth. For this reason she came to Canada to
recruit contributors
to make sure Canadian interests were met. She also obtained
contributions from
Australia. The additional corresponding
members were Jacqueline Elliott, David R. Hart, Valerie A. Grace and
Glenna
Lunde.
In her will Elizabeth Moys left
the copyright and interests in the scheme to BIALL.(16)