Almost every publication on classification generally refers to Ranganathan and his Colon Classification, which was developed for the University of Madras and used by many other academic libraries, particularly in India. His theories of faceted classification are, although complex, useful for those who would attempt to organize every foreseeable subject of academic inquiry, and adaptable to the classification of other things. This particular work is a textbook on applying the Colon Classification, and displays both Ranganathan's primary theories and the sheer complexity of his system, which, in its theoretical rigor and depth of coverage, is largely unsuited for browsing use by the general public. Ranganathan does argue, at length, that all libraries should classify their works intensively, and that the abbreviated classification common in Dewey libraries is “a sop” and a disservice (p. 414). He claims that “opposition to the adoption of an infinitely hospitable scheme of classification boils down to the inability of the smaller public libraries to afford the provision of reference assistants to act as 'translators' or intermediaries between the public and the books” (p. 415). It is not only the cost of reference, however, but that of classifiers, not to mention the cost to public opinion if the location of subjects and books cannot be determined without recourse to a librarian or catalog. If we want to be “infinitely hospitable” to our users, we should endeavor to understand how they understand and search for subjects, and arrange the books so that they can quickly be found. A small quantity of detail may be lost in this attempt, but it may not matter if the area it is lost in is also kept small.