Investigating Lonclass
Slides from NoTube project meeting,
10 June 2009, Gargonza, Italy.
Dan Brickley

“Lonclass”?
• “The London Classification”
• BBC’s subject classification system
• uses/extends Universal Decimal Classification
• 19th Century Library & Info science
• common origins (1895) with Dewey Decimal
Classification (1876)

What’s in it?
• UDC-based subjects
• BBC-oriented aspects
• Composite codes built from primitives

LETTER TO MRS THATCHER FROM SIR AUSTIN
PEARCE, TELLING MOMENTS INVOLVING MARGARET
THATCHER (PRIME MINISTER), THATCHER IN THE
TARDIS (ALEXEI SAYLE'S STUFF COMEDY SKETCH)
THATCHER FOUNDATION, RESIGNATION OF
MARGARET THATCHER AS PRIME MINISTER,
RESIGNATION OF MARGARET THATCHER AS MP,
THATCHER MEETING WITH LECH WALESA (GDANSK)
(NOVEMBER 1988), THATCHER'S REJOICE STATEMENT
AFTER THE BRITISH REC APTURE OF SOUTH
GEORGIA, DAVID OWEN IS MRS THATCHER IN A
TROUSER SUIT (CATCHPHRASE), DEATH OF DENIS
T H AT C H E R , W H O L E R E G I M E N T O F C L I C H E S
M A R CHING INTO THE S U N S E T ( M A R G A R E T
THATCHER QUOTE)

Examples
• R672:32.007(47)YELTSIN:342.518.1THATCHER
“TWO SHOTS OF MARGARET THATCHER
AND BORIS YELTSIN”
• [BRITISH AEROSPACE].007.11PEARCE:
656.881:342.518.1THATCHER “LETTER TO MRS
THATCHER FROM SIR AUSTIN PEARCE”
• 656.881:301.162.721:32.007THATCHER:
654.192.731TV-AM “MARGARET THATCHER'S
LETTER OF APOLOGY TO TV AM”

Compositional
Semantics
• 656.881:301.162.721 “LETTERS OF APOLOGY”
• 656.881 “LETTERS (POSTAL SERVICES)”
• 656.881:06.022.6 “RESIGNATION LETTERS”
• 654.192.731TV-AM “TV AM (TELEVISION AM)”

Then & Now
• 1865 origins: before modern linguistics,
computers, the Internet or the Web ...
• 2009 - software engineers want to know
how to parse these codes and store/query
them
• how to modularise, and link to other data
(eg. about TV-AM, Margaret Thatcher,
artists, topics...)

Investigations
• Representing in SKOS
• use for describing user interests, expertise
• timelines and events
• cross-referencing with DBPedia