UDC in India: use and problems

Abstract

Dewey’s Decimal Classification was introduced in India in 1915 by Asa Don Dickinson (1876-1960), a student of Melvil Dewey, on his appointment as Librarian in Punjab University, Lahore. Soon after, India became its largest user of the system in Asia. It is, however, unknown when and how UDC was first used in India. The earliest reference to UDC can be found in Ranganathan’s classic Prolegomena to library classification (1937), wherein he made a comparative study of the then existing classification systems in order to derive some normative principles of classification,but more so to demonstrate the supremacy of his own system, Colon Classification (CC). Nevertheless, it is known that some libraries were using UDC by the early 1950s.