From a Guest Post on the In Custodia Legis Blog by Betty Lupinacci:
Note: The post is based on a presentation she gave to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress.
While the Library of Congress’ subject-driven classification system was developed in the late 19th, early 20th centuries, Law’s Class K portion of that schedule was not started until the mid-1960s. It was not implemented until 1967 for US material, and did not start until 1970 for foreign jurisdictions. A final draft of the latest “K” schedule, “KI” for Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, was just completed earlier this year.
At the time the K class was implemented, the Law Library already had over one million volumes in its collection. Due to budgetary constraints the decision was made to focus on classifying newly acquired titles; we would slowly chip away at previously acquired titles as funding became available. Some 40 years later, we are still chipping.
Read the Complete Informative Blog Post

