Universal Decimal Classification at the ETH-Bibliothek Zürich - a Swiss perspective

Abstract

The paper describes the use of Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) in the library of the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH-Zürich). The author explains characteristics of a subject authority index, the NEBIS Subject Index (NSI), through which the UDC is implemented for indexing and searching. The ETH library has been using the UDC for the past twenty-five years and most users hardly ever noticed the classification. A query in today's NEBIS-OPAC (formerly called ETHICS) is based on a verbal search with descriptors in German, English and French, and corresponding related search-terms. A single UDC number, linked to these descriptors, connects them to the related document-titles, regardless of the language. Thus the user actually works with the UDC, without realizing it. This paper describes the experience with this OPAC and the work behind it.