Pembroke College Library history collection

As with many other library classification schema, the in-house scheme at Pembroke College Library was designed to reflect the way subjects were taught. As the institution dates back centuries, this resulted in a number of legacy sections across the Library that would now be considered outdated or just plain wrong. The history section was a prime example and had been flagged as a priority for updating for some time.

Our recent overhaul of the classification was prompted by two sections in particular:

113 History of the British Empire and Commonwealth

114 Expansion of Europe [i.e. the history of the other European colonial powers]

At the same time, we realized that there were no sections at all for the history of Africa, South America, or Oceania: books on the history of those regions were either subsumed into the history of Britain and the European colonial powers, had been lumped in with “general historical works”, or simply had never been acquired.