The Library primarily adopts the Chinese Library Classification (CLC) to organize both Chinese and foreign language materials. Due to historical reasons, books acquired in earlier years, as well as most ancient texts, were classified using alternative classification systems.

When searching the library catalog, users can select either “Classification Number” or “Call Number” as the retrieval method. The Call Number typically consists of the Classification Number plus a Cutter Number. Most ancient books and thread-bound editions are not retrievable by Classification Number or Call Number.

Classification of General Collections

All Chinese and foreign language books (excluding ancient books and newly published thread-bound editions), as well as periodicals acquired since 1974, are classified in accordance with the Chinese Library Classification (CLC), formerly known as the Chinese Library Book Classification.

Classification of Earlier Chinese and Foreign Books

The Library currently holds over one hundred thousand Chinese and foreign books classified using a decimal-based system, often referred to as the “old classification”, all of which were acquired before 1974. This collection includes the majority of publications from the Republican period (1912–1949).

Chinese and Japanese materials: classified according to ECNU Library Chinese Book Classification

Western and Russian materials: followed the old version of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), with some adjustments based on newer editions

Classification of Ancient Books

Currently, ancient books (including newly published thread-bound editions) are classified based on Liu Guojun’s A System of Book Classification for Chinese Libraries, with modifications such as using letters as the initial character, forming a revised version of Liu’s system.

The Yu Zhai Library collection¹ is classified according to the traditional Four-Part Classification System, namely: Classics, History, Philosophy and Sciences, and Literary Collections, a traditional Chinese bibliographic classification system known as “经、史、子、集”).

Ancient books from the former Shanghai Institute of Education and Shanghai Second Institute of Education² are classified using the Chinese Library Classification (CLC), consistent with the classification of general collections.

Notes:

1.Yu Zhai Library was established in the 1910s by Sheng Xuanhuai, a prominent government official and entrepreneur during the late Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Some of its collections were later held by St. John’s University, and subsequently transferred to ECNU Library after the university was closed in 1952.

2.In 1998, with the approval of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, ECNU Library officially took over the library collections of the Shanghai Institute of Education and the Shanghai Second Institute of Education following their merger into ECNU.