The Public Library as an (Almost) Open-Source Institution

An Open-Source Institution...

Excellence at Organizing Materials

But what if you want to create your very own library? Well, if you want to organize your library by various subjects, like the Library of Congress's Subject Headings, you can do that. They're available for free.

The Library of Congress Classification System is currently freely available, so that you can organize your shelves according to an established and complete classification scheme. The Library of Congress even provide some useful rules and interpretations on how to resolve conflicts and where to put things.

And you can use an Integrated Library System (ILS) that can handle many of the functions related to materials, and people, using standards like MARC, Dublin Core, or ONIX for Books to create records that computers and servers can handle.