Social History and Industrial Classification (SHIC) is a classification system used by many British museums for social history and industrial collections.
[1] SHIC classifies materials (books, objects, recordings etc.)
For example, a carpenter's hammer is classified with other tools of the carpenter, and not with a blacksmith's hammer.
The specialist subject network, Social History Curator's Group (SHCG), obtained funding in 2012 to develop an on-line version, now on their website http://www.shcg.org.uk/[3] Materials are classified under four major category numbers: Further classification within a category is by the use of further numbers after the decimal point.
[4] It is permissible to assign more than one classification in cases where the object had more than one use.