User:AdamBMorgan/LCC Proposal

This is a breakdown of the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) system as it could apply to Wikisource's Portal: namespace.

Applying the LCC to the portals will make the namespace easier to browse and navigate. Using LCC rather than a custom system gives Wikisource an established and respectable classification system. Using LCC rather than the Dewey Decimal System will be easier as Dewey is more complex.

The LCC system does need to be adapted a little to fit Wikisource but I've tried to explain that in the notes below. A method (or methods) of navigation will need to be decided as well.

Why?
The subject came up in the Scriptorium, under the heading More about Author: namespace vs Portal: namespace. Specifically, this point...

"We provide searchable content, if we need a subject index to that we should adopt a published and authoritative one. cygnis insignis 06:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)"

...and this one...

"What about Library of Congress Classification? No copyright issues there. Also, I don't think we should create 900 unused portals, nor limit ourselves to integer-level portals (if DD is used): there will always be some portals with far more material than others, so creating and dividing should be done as needed. —Spangineerwp (háblame)  15:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)"

Finally leading to my proposal (including Dewey and others) under the heading Structure Portals by Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress Classification. Hopefully, this page explains in more detail how this could work.

General Notes

 * The LCC system uses three letters followed by a number (which can then be followed by a further Cutter Number)
 * The first letter is the Class.
 * The second letter is the Subclass.
 * I don't know the correct term for the third letter so I'm calling it "Subclass 2" on this page. (Formerly "Sub-sub-class")
 * The number may not be necessary for Wikisource so I am ignoring it for the moment.
 * The Cutter Number is too much detail for Wikisource so it will be left out.
 * An additional portal (Portal:Index, Portal:Contents, Portal:Portals or similar) should sit above this system - just linking to the 21 Class portals.
 * One of the unused examples could list all of the portals, broken down by class and subclass.
 * Portal:Index (or whatever) can just be a table of links.
 * Each Class portal (eg. Portal:General Works) can either be a normal Wikisource portal or a table of links to Subclass portals.
 * The full list of red links below need not be used. Apart from the Index and the Classes, the rest can remain as red links until they are needed.
 * It would only take about thirty new portals to organise the Portal: namespace as it stands at the moment. More can be added later as and when required.
 * As this is the English Wikisource, we probably won't really need all of the language and literature portals for a start.
 * Existing or future portals can either,
 * Sit beneath the subclass portals (eg. Portal:Journals is an existing portal which should be a child of Portal:English Literature, based on Subclass PR - English literature).
 * Count as the subclass portals (eg. Portal:Collective works is an existing portal and subclass of Class A).
 * I've used title capitalisation (eg. "Portal:Law of the Sea") in this list but sentence capitalisation might be prefered (eg. "Portal:Law of the sea").
 * There is little or no difference between subclasses 1 and subclasses 2 but I have separated them into different columns for the table to make differentiating them easier. They are not necessarily in a parent-child relationship; the official LCC system has "Subclass DA - Great Britain" and "Subclass DAW - Central Europe."

Notes on adapting to Wikisource
Initially I attempted to just use the existing classification name as a portal. However, the LCC names do not match well to names used in Wikisource. Some names could be easily adapted, for example "Subclass GV - Recreation. Leisure" easily becomes "Portal:Recreation and Leisure." However, other LCC names are more of a list, the most extreme of which is "Subclass PT - German literature - Dutch literature - Flemish literature since 1830 - Afrikaans literature -Scandinavian literature - Old Norse literature: Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian - Modern Icelandic literature - Faroese literature - Danish literature - Norwegian literature - Swedish literature." In these cases I have added subclasses (in the Subclass 2 coumn) to the orignal subclass to accomodate each item in the list. All subclasses that I have added myself are shown in green in the list.

This is justified as an existing practice when adapting the LCC system to local or specific use. Wikipedia notes that "The National Library of Medicine classification system (NLM) uses the classification scheme's unused letters W and QS–QZ. Some libraries use NLM in conjunction with LCC, eschewing LCC's R (Medicine). Others prefer to use the LCC scheme's QP-QR schedules and include Medicine R."

NB: I have taken the first element (which would be "German literature" in the example above) as the existing subclass (PT above) and created subclasses for everything else (for example, "Dutch literature" becomes PTA, "Flemish literature" becomes PTB, and so forth). This seems to be the method used by LCC where secondary subclasses (the third letter) already exist and it prevents having unnecessary 'junction' portals that just link to the others. On the other hand, it does give the impression that the additional subclasses are child-portals of the first subclass (ie. the "Dutch literature" is a child of "German literature"). They can all become "child" subclasses of a junction portal if this is a problem.

Notes on Class K - Law
The subclasses of Class K (Law) have been omitted from the following list for the time being. Class K is very detailed and makes more use of the third classification letter than any other class (under the pre-existing system). Largely, there is a classification for each individual country's legal system as well as some extras.

For reference, the full classificaton can be read elsewhere on Wikisource, on Wikipedia and by following a link on the official Library of Congress Classification Outline webpage.

As an example, here is the list for Canadian Law and a few other bits:-

Notes on Wikisource-specific Portals
Some portals, such as Portal:Salvation of Israel Project and Portal:Influential Books (both of which relate to WikiProjects), do not easily fit into this system. This can be solved by created a new class to contain Wikisource-specific portals. The classes I, O, W, X and Y are not used in the LCC system. Again, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) classification system uses W and some unused parts of Q for their own purposes.

Notes on representation in the header template
''Addition: I have created all the templates needed to implement this. They can be found in Category:Portal classification templates, the most important of which are Portal Class and Portal Parent.''

The method of navigating the portal structure (as detailed in the list at the end of this page) will need to be chosen. It would help if this is standardised. This will also serve to announce to the reader the classification of the current portal. Additional "sideways" navigation could also help, linking to similar portals without the need to navigate up and then down again. Examples follow:

Main navigation
My personal favourite is the third example below (the first template) - or the fifth with both links and a template.

Example with classification links in parent field. Each letter links to a separate parent portal:

Example with full classification names linked in the parent field (see Portal Parent):

Example with a potential template in the notes section, with a sister link to show that the two templates do not conflict (see Portal Class):

Example with a very slightly different potential template in the notes section (including an example of using the third letter):

Example of a combination of the above systems for added redundancy:

Example of header tabs. This probably won't fit Wikisource very well but I thought I'd include something as an example anyway:

Additional navigation
A simple bullet-pointed list of sister portals in a "See Also" section is the simplest way to handle sideways navigation. However, some further templates might help.

If Template:Navbox worked it would be useful here, but it doesn't (I've fiddled with it a bit with no luck so far). Still a navbox, or similar template, for each Class, containing links to all the portals in that class, would be an example of a useful navigation aid.

Navigation between class without having to use the index is also useful.

This is stolen from Wikipedia's Template:Browsebar, although listing all of the LCC classes may be too much. The links are still Wikipedia links at the moment; note that they all link to anchors on one page rather than separate portals: Wikisource portals: Culture· Geography· Health· History· Mathematics· Natural sciences· People· Philosophy· Religion· Society· Technology

Example of a possible adaptation (using just the letters helps to fit everything on one line but it doesn't make it clear what the letters actually mean to anyone not already familiar with the system): Wikisource portals: A· B· C· D· E· F· G· H· J· K· L· M· N· P· Q· R· S· T· U· V· Z

List
This is a full list, apart from Class K (see above), of the classes and subclasses of the LCC system along with their potential equivalent Wikisource portals.

Useful links

 * Library of Congress Classification on Wikisource
 * Library of Congress Classification on Wikipedia
 * Offical Library of Congress Classification Page