Exploring the Potential of a Virtual Undergraduate Library Collection Based on the Hierarchical Interface to LC Classification (HILCC)

Abstract

The Hierarchical Interface to Library of Congress Classification (HILCC) is a system developed by the Columbia University Library to leverage call number data from the MARC holdings records in Columbia's online catalog to create a structured, hierarchical menuing system to provide subject access to the library's electronic resources. In this paper, the authors describe a research initiative at the Cornell University Library to discover if the Columbia HILCC scheme can be used as developed by Columbia, or in modified form, to create a virtual undergraduate print collection outside the context of the traditional online catalog. Their results indicate that, with certain adjustments, a HILCC model can indeed be used to represent the holdings of a large research library's undergraduate collection of approximately 150,000 titles, but that such a model is not infinitely scalable and may require a new approach to browsing such a large information space.