This is the second post in a series of reflections on What’s in a classmark? These posts will give you an insight into our fairly bespoke classification scheme used at the Heythrop Library.
It might be news or “olds” to you, but here it is. One of the principles in academic libraries is that one separates texts by philosophers from those written by theologians. This might sound odd, or even unnecessary, but I don’t believe that this is a black-and-white view. Like in: all philosophers are atheists and all theology academics are believers. Especially, when it comes to ethics, this makes very much sense to me. I believe it is important whether the author approaches ethics and moral concepts in one way or another. Essentially, is there a place for a God or not? At the most sensationalist level it could boil down to: why does God let evil things happen? Do not expect an answer from me to this question. I can point you in directions of the right books. Alternatively, I will just ask you to talk to Dr Stuart Jesson.
To get back to BJ1249 – as in the title of of this post! In the Library of Congress Classification (short LCC) BJ1249 is used for classmarking books on Ethics. In particular such books are “Catholic Works”, published after 1801. BJ is part of the section of ethics within the wider classmark of “B”, philosophy.
In our reading room we have a fairly large area of “Moral theology” (Christian ethics, from BT1703 to BT2073!), but we also have works written by philosophers on ethics. Since I started working here, this anomaly has been a bugbear of mine. Every time when I have given at tour of the reading room, since September 2021, this cropped up. Whilst pointing to books in BJ1249, I used to say that these should really be in BT (=”Theology”), not here.
We recently needed more expansion space in B and BJ, so I finally managed to tackle the reclassmarking project! Our local, Catholic adaption of the LCC scheme (Lynn-Petersen) is much, much more granular. Yes, a fair number of books in BJ1249 just will go BT1716 (General works on “Moral theology” / “Christian ethics”, after 1918, but the following three examples of books I reclassmarked, might illustrate how this change also brings other improvements:
| Author | Harrington, Daniel J., author. |
| Title | Jesus and virtue ethics : building bridges between New Testament studies and moral theology / Daniel J. Harrington, James F. Keenan. |
| Imprint | Lanham, Md. : Sheed & Ward, 2002. |
| Copyright date | ©2002 |
| Description | xv, 216 pages ; 24 cm |
(see [2026 edit] https://hey.koha.openfifth.net/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=90182)
If you have clicked on the link to the catalogue record, you can see that a copy in our off-site store is “still” BJ1249 HAR, but the copy in the reading room at Mount Street is now BT1778 HAR 2002:
| LOCATION | CLASSMARK | STATUS |
|---|---|---|
| Heythrop Mount Street | BT1778 HAR 2002 | AVAILABLE |
| Heythrop Deepstore [up to 2 working days] | BJ1249 HAR | AVAILABLE |
BT 1778 focuses on “Virtues, General special”. Picking this classmark accounts more for this book on virtues relating to the New Testament.
Another example:
| Author | Kelly, Kevin T., 1933-2018. |
| Title | 50 years receiving Vatican II : a personal odyssey / Kevin T. Kelly. |
| Imprint | Blackrock, Co. Dublin : Columba Press, 2012. |
| Description | 346 pages ; 24 cm |
Heythrop Mount Street : BT1722 KEL 2012
(see [2026 edit] https://hey.koha.openfifth.net/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=90182)
This book could easily also have gone into the classmark for Vatican II (BX1134 at the Heythrop Library). Yet, this would not take account of the fact that this book covers also a personal journey. In this case it is a journey of a retired Catholic priest. Also, the book has several chapters on moral theology, and ethical questions for Catholics. Picking the classmark BT1722 (“Articles, essays on various moral subjects”) brings across two things better than BJ1249 did:
1. some chapters of this book could easily have been published as separate texts on specific issues of ethics, and
2. this is not an academic treatise, or discourse! Rather, the various texts of this book dip into specific questions of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Finally, at BT2011 we have a classmark of Christian ethics on medical issues! This is far more useful than the very broad BJ1269 was. An example of a book I reclassmarked is:
| Author | Bristow, Peter E., 1943- author. |
| Title | The moral dignity of man : an exposition of Catholic moral doctrine with particular reference to family and medical ethics in the light of contemporary developments / Peter E. Bristow. |
| Imprint | Dublin, Ireland ; Portland, OR : Four Courts Press, 1997. |
| Description | 206 pages ; 24 cm |
Heythrop Mount Street: BT2011 BRI 1997
(see [2026 edit: https://hey.koha.openfifth.net/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=91850)
Okay, I admit: bioethics is only one part of this book. One has to bear in mind, though that a lot of modern books have multiple angles. Our classification system has only one element for describing the topic of the book. This does not lend itself to classmark in a more nuanced way. So, it is: BT2011! Then the BRI is the three first letters of the author, and then the year of publication of this book.
What is the advantage of moving books from BJ1269 to BT in the reading room? I think it allows the books to be next to others on Christian ethics. Surely that books can be browsed on the shelf is a key advantage, right?
CG
What are your thoughts about the above?