no
urging that it should be used for a comprehensive classified index
to all published information. Early in the course of this work the
inadequacy of this scheme became clear, and permission was ob
tained for a certain amount of reorganisation and extension. This
development has produced the Universal Decimal Classification or
UDC, now being issued in the UK as British Standard iooo. The
first edition of UDC was published in 1907 in French. This was
followed by an enlarged edition in 1927-29 also in French, and
an index and auxiliary tables in 1933. A third edition in German
was published in sections from 1935-1948 and revisions and ad
ditions have since been issued. Work on a second edition began in
1958. A fourth edition in English started publication in 1943 and
although several sections have been issued, including 69 building,
many other sections are still in preparation. Full editions in other
languages are in preparation and sections have been published in
Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish. The only complete
edition is the German edition published between 1948 and 1965.
3.2.2 Since 1963 it has been obligatory for all technical publishers,
information centres, and specialising libraries in the USSR, to
use UDC for classifying information. Full schedules to a large
proportion of UDC have been produced in Russian and these are
being broken down into special subject editions to simplify the
classification process. A special edition of UDC giving all classi
fication schedules pertinent to geodetic, photogrammetric, car
tographic and mapping subjects has been published. This edition
is designed to be the standard classification manual for the docu
mentation networks of AIG, FIG and the 'International Biblio
graphy of Photogrammetry' and for future cartographic documenta
tion activities (Russian edition: FID, No. 400). There is also a
German 'professional edition' Fachausgabealready referred to in
paragraph 2.10.2 and published under FID No. 369. It is one of
the strong desires of Commission 3 of the FIG, that this 'Fachaus-
gabe' should be made at least trilingual (German, French, English),
or that parallel editions in French and English should be prepared.
3.2.3 The absence of complete schedules does not constitute
a serious bar to the use of the system for two reasons. Firstly,
the FID, which controls the scheme and is responsible for the
authorisation of new schedules and classification numbers, has
published cumulative lists of extensions and corrections which
are brought up to date at six-monthly intervals. Secondly, in
1958 FID published a trilingual edition of an abridged UDC in
French, German and English and corresponding one language
editions in these three languages. Abridged editions have been
published, or are in preparation, in eight other languages. The
British abridged edition was first published in 1949 as BS 1000 A.
Abridged editions list about 20 per cent of the full schedules but
include all the principal numbersthese serve as a guide to classifiers
and are sufficiently detailed for general application.
