Central Catholic Library

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The Central Catholic Library is a library located in Dublin founded by Fr. Stephen Brown SJ on June 25th, 1922 with the goal of helping the laity educate themselves.

The library now has over 100,000 books covering a broad range of subjects from the role of women in the church to the natural environment.

The Central Catholic Library also has an Art Section containing books from the Academy of Christian Art and a Carnegie Collection permanently on loan from the Library Council of Ireland.

[edit] Unique classification system

The library is notable for the categorisation system[1], invented by its founder, which it uses for its collection. This arose out of the need to cover Catholic theological topics far more comprehensively than a general-use system such as Dewey Decimal Classification.

The system has been expanded in recent years to include contemporary issues such as the environment (33B), and refugees and asylum seekers (33C).