Like many others who work in cities, I live in the suburbs
and commute to work. In my case the
major part of the commute takes place on the Washington Metro. Despite the presence of a Metro station adjacent
to the Library of Congress, on nice days I get off the Metro at Union Station and walk. The walk is good for me in
several ways, both saving time and money and providing moderate exercise. But the walk also delights the visual senses,
because after taking me through a couple of park blocks, it passes by a series
of impressive buildings—the Russell and Dirksen Senate Office
Buildings, the Minuteman Memorial Building of the Reserve Officers Association
of the United States, the United Methodist Building, the Supreme Court, and the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress—before bringing
me to LC’s Madison Building, where the DDC editorial offices are located.
Union Station is classed in 725.3109753 (built with 725.31
Railroad and rapid transit stations
plus notation T1—09 Geographic treatment
plus T2—753 Washington, DC); note
that Union Station receives the same treatment whether considered as a train
station (its primary function) or as a rapid transit station (how I use it). (Of course, if we were considering Union Station from other than an architectural perspective, it would be classed in a different number, as would all the other buildings being discussed here. But that's a blog for some other day.)
The Russell and Dirksen Senate Office Buildings are classed in 725.1109753 (built with 725.11 Legislative buildings plus
notation T1—09 Geographic treatment
plus T2—753 Washington, DC). Since 725.11 covers all government buildings
for non-local legislative bodies, this class also encompasses the several House
Office Buildings, as well as the Capitol, which is mentioned generically in a
class-here note at 725.11 (“Class here capitols”).
The Minuteman Memorial Building presents us with an interesting question: Should it be classed as a military building (the building belongs to an
association that represents the uniformed services of the U.S.) or as an
office building (the primary function of the association is to lobby Congress)? There is no note at 725–728 Specific types of structures instructing the classifier how
to handle works with aspects in two or more of its subdivisions. Instead we find see references at 725 Public
structures (which includes both military and office buildings) that direct
us to class structures “used primarily for [other] purposes” with the
purpose. From this we can conclude that
we should class buildings with their use and not with the general nature of
their occupants. Thus, instead of
classing the Minuteman Memorial Building at 725.1809753 (built with 725.18
Military and police buildings plus notation T1—09 Geographic treatment plus T2—753 Washington, DC; a note sanctions the addition of standard
subdivisions for either topic in the heading), the building is classed at 725.2309753 (built with 725.23 Office and communications buildings
plus notation T1—09 Geographic treatment
plus T2—753 Washington, DC; again a
note sanctions the addition of standard subdivisions for either topic in the
heading).
The United Methodist Building presents us with a similar question: Should it be classed as a religious building (the building belongs to a
specific religious denomination) or as an office building (again, its location
on Capitol Hill is intentional)? We
might think we had settled that question in our examination of the parallel
situation above, but we might just be wrong! The caption at 726 Buildings for
religious and related purposes indicates that a broader interpretation of
this number is in order. But what counts
as a “related purpose”? The scope of religiously-related
purposes is suggested by the including note at 726.9 Other buildings for religious and related purposes: “Including episcopal palaces, missions,
parsonages, buildings of religious associations, buildings housing roadside
shrines.” The inclusion there of
buildings of religious associations suggests that the United Methodist Building, whose
“business” is tied directly to the promulgation of the church’s religious
values, should also be classed in 726.9
Other buildings for religious and related purposes. Because regional headquarters for religious
bodies is in standing room at 726.9, geographic subdivision is not permitted.
With the Supreme Court, we return to more familiar ground,
back to government buildings at 725.1. The Court is classed in 725.1509753
(built with 725.15 Court buildings plus
notation T1—09 Geographic treatment
plus T2—753 Washington, DC).
Finally at the end of the walk we come to the Library of
Congress, classed at 727.82573 U.S.
government library buildings (built with 727.82 Buildings of general libraries plus [following the build
instructions at 727.821-727.828] notation 5
from 027.5 Government libraries plus
[following the build instructions at 027.53–027.59
Specific government libraries] T2—73
United States for the area served; the Library of Congress is used as a
specific example under 027.53–027.59, so we are assured that the area served should
be the entire country and not just the District of Columbia).
I'm really envious of Rebecca's commute to work: the best that I can manage to go past is a concrete Field of Corn http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/OHDUBcorn.html
(And I confess that I have no idea where to classify that: perhaps 633.150228 Models and miniatures of corn, though these models are much larger than life-size replicas).
Posted by: Giles Martin | 07 September 2007 at 09:37 AM