Bliss Bibliographie Classification (BC) began with
Philosophy, the disciplinary field concerning the essence
of knowledge, and went on with Physics and
Biology, toward increasing complexity of sciences
concerning the human beings: Anthropology, Psychology,
Social sciences. Literature, Art and, finally.
Bibliology and Documentation.
Under the leadership of Jack Mills, since 1977 BC
has been deeply revised according to studies of facet
analysis elaborated by the British Classification Research Group, and the revision is still In progress. The
Classification Research Group-founded in 1952 and
in which participated, among others. Jack Mills, Derek
Austin, Ingetraut Dahlberg, Douglas J. Foskett and
Eric J Coates, who was also a member of Broad System
of Ordering (B.S.O.)-suggested that knowledge
could be organized using only two broad categories:
Entities and Attributes, without establishing disciplines
based classes. Entities were put into order according
to the "Theory of integrative levels," elaborated
by J.K. Feibleman, which assumes that reality
presents a structure of levels, each developing from
the previous level, toward more complex entities. The
sequence of Entities was as below: A-General systems;
B-Phenomena and energy; C-Matter; D-Mineral systems;
E-Life support systems; G-Astronomical universe;
H-Eiirth as environment; J/L-Atmosphere; MGeocentred
living systems; N/R-Viruses, plants, animals;
S-Man (Mills 1970, 137-138; Foskett 1978).
The BC second edition has adopted the main class
order of the original BC to a great extent, however it
has assumed also the "Theory of integrative levels"
and the sequence of CRG's Entities as basis for
achieving a consistent order of main classes. Each
class has been restructured and the revision led to a
fully analytic-synthetic structure, based on division
into facets and sub-facets (arrays), and uses an established
citation order of facets with the aim of achieving
predictability. The main device for a fully synthetic
notation in BC2 is the retroactive notation.
Notwithstanding BC2 has received significant attention
in the world, and actually constitutes the most
detailed faceted general classification system, its use
is limited to Great Britain.