Mathematics in Library and Review Classification Systems: An Historical Overview

Abstract

The modern classification of mathematical subjects occurred within the larger framework of library classification, a project receiving sustained attention in the period from 1870 to the present. The early work of the library cataloguers was carried out against the background of a broad nineteenth-century interest in the classification of knowledge. We explore different views during this period concerning the position of mathematics in the overall scheme of knowledge, the scope of mathematics and the internal organization of the different parts of mathematics. We examine how mathematical books were classified, from the most general level down to the level of particular subject areas in analysis. The focus is on the Library of Congress Classification in its various iterations from 1905 to the present. The article ends with an examination of the Mathematics Subject Classification Scheme employed today by reviewing services Mathematical Reviews in the United States and Zentralblatt in Germany.