As in the rest of the world, there are several library classification systems used in different types of Russian Libraries. Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) became a classification standard in Russia after it was presented internationally at the 1895 International Congress in Brussels. UDC was supported by N.K Krupskaya, a leader in early Soviet librarianship (and Lenin's wife). Soviet librarians adapted UDC classification to their needs. It was (and is) used mostly in scholarly and technical libraries. Comparisons of the Soviet versions with the international version of UDC in the mid 1960's revealed many shortcomings of the Soviet variant. Librarians had been working in isolation in their local libraries and had created many different versions of the subject tables. (This duplication of work in libraries continues to be a failing of a supposedly centralized system.) Efforts were made to create a single standard translation of UDC subject tables. These need to be updated again because, under the Soviets, some "non-Marxist" classes were excluded from the standard editions (Sukiasyan 189-191).

The most commonly used classification in Russia is Library-Bibliographic Classification (LBC -- ББК in Russian). It is used in the country's three largest research libraries: the Russian State Library, the Russian National Library, and the Russian Academy of Sciences Library. LBC is a Soviet classification system. As a result, its subject headings have a strong Marxist-Leninist slant. The humanities and social sciences especially were not adequately represented in this Soviet system. Cataloguers at the above-mentioned libraries have collaborated on projects to reform LBC, so that it can represent the actual diversity of their collections (Lazurkina and Maslovets 98-99).

So, cataloguers in Russia currently face two challenges: the ideological reformation of their classification systems and the integration of these reformed systems into an electronic environment.

Two Russian library scientists, Tamara Goltvinskaya and Eduard Sukiasyan wrote an  article in which they give an overview of LBC. As has already been mentioned,  its ideological orientation does not meet today's needs. However, despite its deficiencies in content, it is a very flexible system that is worth improving and updating. Continued use of the existing system is also important because the authors report that it is the main classification system not only for most of the libraries in Russia, but also for the surrounding countries that came under the Soviet sphere of influence. LBC is used exclusively in public libraries, and is also used in many special and scholarly humanities libraries. Studies have shown that LBC transfers effectively to automated environments. The authors are optimistic about the sweeping changes that are being proposed. Religion can now be properly represented, divisions by social systems are being eliminated, and a whole section covering economics is being developed. The use of computers is making the transition faster and easier than was expected. Though financial factors still hold back the implementation of the system, the authors are confident that these are merely temporary setbacks (77-79). In his own article, Sukiasyan writes: "Today the LBC is going through a state of truly historical transformation, connected with the overcoming of ideological distortions in its structure and content" (191).
 

Related Links:
Riesthuis, Gerhard J.A. "Sociological Aspects of Classification" in 60th IFLA General Conference - Conference Proceedings. August 21-27, 1994.

Tsvetkova, Irina and Vladimir Skvortsov. "Adaptation of UNIMARC as Russian Exchange Format" in  64th IFLA General Conference. August 16 - August 21, 1998.