Korean Decimal Classification (KDC): Its History, Development, Characteristics, and Future Prospect

The Korean Decimal Classification (KDC) is a national standard classification system of the Korean library community published and maintained by the Classification Committee of the Korean Library Association (KLA). It is a basic bibliographic tool in Korea, because almost all public and school libraries, as well as some academic libraries in Korea have used it to classify their collections since its publication in 1964.  This article examines KDC in various aspects, focusing on its historical background, general characteristics, main schedules and tables, with a special regard to its latest sixth edition published in 2013. It will recommend suggestions both for KDC and for other national classification systems to develop and/or maintain national classification systems.