The Bahá'í World Centre Library in Haifa, Israel, holds the best collection of published materials on the Bahá'í religion in the world. Bahá'í publishing has burgeoned, with over 30 publishing trusts, other private publishing firms, and large numbers of institutions issuing publications. In addition, non-Bahá'í commercial and academic publishers provide scholarly, introductory and polemical literature.

Until 1977, the library resources of the Bahá'í World Centre consisted of books sent as deposits from Bahá'í publishers, for which a single hand-written card was made to show the accession numbers assigned to each volume. With the recruitment of professional librarians to organize the library, it became essential that a proper cataloguing system be developed, part of which would be a classification scheme that would handle the increasing range of topics covered by the rising volume of Bahá'í publications. The planning also required the choice of a general library classification scheme capable of handling a large amount of general reference and background materials used to support the Bahá'í collection and the work of the international institutions of the Bahá'í community.

The Bahá'í Library staff developed preliminary classifications based upon the Library of Congress classification and the Dewey Decimal classification. As is clear from the following, the Library of Congress classification treatment of the Bahá'í Faith was very inadequate:

BP300 PERIODICALS

BP310 SOCIETIES

COLLECTIONS. COLLECTED WORKS
BP320 Several authors
BP325 Individual authors

BP327 DICTIONARIES. ENCYCLOPEDIAS

HISTORY
BP330 General works
BP340 Babism

HISTORY By region or country
BP350 United States
BP352 By state, A-W
BP355 Other regions or countries, A-Z

BP360 WRITINGS OF THE BAB, BAHA'U'LLAH AND 'ABDU'L-BAHA

BP365 GENERAL WORKS

BP370 GENERAL SPECIAL

BP375 ADDRESSES, ESSAYS, LECTURES

BP377 MISCELLANEOUS

BP380 DEVOTIONS. DIRECTIONS, etc.

BIOGRAPHY
BP390 Collective

INDIVIDUAL
BP391 The Báb
BP392 Bahá'u'lláh
BP393 'Abdu'l-Bahá
BP395 Other individual, A-Z

As can clearly be seen, all Bahá'í scriptures had been placed in a single number by the Library of Congress; there was no collocation of authorized interpretation by Shoghi Effendi, nor of legislation and elucidation by the Universal House of Justice; there was no place for biography of Shoghi Effendi; and completely lacking was any indication of Bahá'í theology, law, social teachings and administration.

The World Centre Library therefore developed an expansion, keeping, insofar as possible, the rough outline of the Library of Congress's original arrangement. Because the Bahá'í Library determined that it would use the Library of Congress general classification for non-Bahá'í publications, it seemed logical to adopt the Library-of-Congress-based expansion for the Bahá'í Faith as the standard in use at the World Centre.

Treatment of Bahá'í sacred texts and interpretations was simplified and made uniform through creation of separate numbers for works of the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. This change has also been adopted at the Library of Congress, where it was instituted in 1994. For Bahá'í libraries, this schema has the added advantage of bringing together items that would be scattered throughout the shelves of libraries that use the general Library of Congress Classification, such as publications on architecture of Bahá'í buildings, Bahá'í music, and Bahá'í law.

For those familiar with the Library of Congress Classification, the system should be self-explanatory. Every book cataloged must include the number in this classification schedule, and any other numbers as instructed. These other numbers may include one or more "cutter" numbers, a decimalized means for alphabetically arranging books by country and topic. Also required is a final cutter number (author number) that is based upon the main entry of the cataloguing record (usually author, sometimes title, according to established cataloguing codes). The cutter number/author number is the first letter of the main entry followed by a number that collocates the book alphabetically among the other books on the same subject. Cutter numbers in the Library of Congress Classification are not fixed letters and numbers, but are created on the basis of a table (Table V) that assigns a location relative to other books. Bahá'í library staff unfamiliar with these concepts should seek assistance from experienced people who can explain the concepts involved.