Sweet segment solution

The vicar has spoken. He’ll have just the one segmentation with his cuppa, thanks. After consulting with a variety of Dewey stakeholders, the Decimal Classification Division (DCD) of the Library of Congress has decided to discontinue the practice of assigning segmentation marks (also referred to as prime marks or slash marks) to indicate the beginning of standard subdivisions in DDC numbers. The assignment of segmentation marks to indicate the end of abridged numbers, however, will continue. This means that any given DDC number will contain a maximum of one segmentation mark, and every segmentation mark can safely be interpreted as indicating the end of an abridged number. DCD’s decision, which will take effect as of September 1, 2005, was made in order to simplify assignment of DDC numbers and perhaps reduce the cost of DDC assignment at the Library of Congress.