025.431: The Dewey blog

Forty Years and Counting

We had the chance to celebrate one of our own today at Dewey Manor—Winton was honored at a Library of Congress ceremony for his forty years of federal service. Winton began his federal service in June 1967 at the Library of Congress, and joined the Decimal Classification Division in August 1968 as a decimal classification specialist. In April 1985, he was promoted to assistant editor of the DDC.

Winton has made several significant contributions to the development of the DDC. He collaborated with two consultants (Russell Sweeney and John Clews) on the complete revision of 780 Music that was published in draft form in 1980 and in final form as the entirely new 780 Music schedule in DDC 20 in 1989. Winton coordinates the biweekly mappings of new Library of Congress Subject Headings to DDC numbers, and also coordinates the indexing of new synthesized numbers that result from those mappings.  Among his editorial colleagues, Winton is the acknowledged expert in Dewey editorial rules and formatting matters. He has advised numerous DDC translation teams on the development of interoperable expansions, particularly in geography and history. (I think DDC translators would agree with the following observation: “Translation teams around the world know Winton Matthews by name and always breathe a sigh of relief when their work gets his approval.”) Winton serves as the Dewey liaison to two American Library Association committees, Cataloging Needs of Public Libraries and Cataloging of Children’s Materials. He is well respected by his colleagues at LC and OCLC, and is often consulted for his expertise in a myriad of subject areas and Dewey technical issues.  Congratulations, Winton!

We also send congratulations to our LC colleague Beacher Wiggins, director of Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access (and the LC representative to EPC).  Beacher was recognized for his thirty-five years of federal service at the same ceremony.

Magda Heiner-Freiling

We all feel incredibly sad today. We just learned that our dear friend and colleague Magda Heiner-Freiling, head of subject cataloguing at Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB), died last Sunday in an accident while on vacation. It was Magda who first brought up the idea of a German translation of the DDC. During a vacation in the United States during the mid-1990s, Magda noticed that the same system (the Dewey Decimal Classification) was used to organize the collections in a large metropolitan library and in a small reservation library (for those of you who read last Friday’s Wall Street Journal article on Dewey, you’ll recognize this anecdote and now know the name of the “German librarian”).  In October 1998, Magda organized a workshop in Frankfurt to explore a possible German translation of Dewey—after years of discussion and planning, her dream was realized in 2005 with the publication of the German translation of DDC 22 in print and web versions.

We’ve written several times in this blog about interesting Dewey questions and suggestions from Magda and her team. Magda was also one of the contributors to last year’s special issue of Cataloging & Classification Quarterly on Dewey, and was an invited participant in the Dewey Planning Retreat held at OCLC in March 2004. Most recently, we’ve worked with Magda and her colleagues at DNB to improve the representation of the DDC in the MARC 21 formats.  Magda was a former member of the IFLA Section on Classification and Indexing, and co-founded the European DDC Users’ Group with Patrice Landry. We send our deepest condolences to Magda’s husband Harald and their two sons, and to Magda’s colleagues at DNB and in Konsortium DDC Deutsch.  Our profession has lost an inventive thinker and leader much too soon.  My OCLC colleague (and former member of the German translation team) Michael Panzer captured the essence of Magda’s drive and creativity best this morning: “She was on fire!” Dearest Magda, we will miss you.

Metadata registries

The 10^th International Forum on Metadata Registries met in New York City, July 9-11, 2007. The conference was based on relationships among four phenomena applicable to metadata: interoperability, standards, registration, and terminology. In order for organizations to use data that have been shared with them, the data must first be described. The data become interoperable through those descriptions, which constitute the metadata. Interoperability is facilitated by the existence of standards the metadata conform to. For example, integrated library systems (ILS) typically use proprietary storage formats; their compatibility with and conversion to the MARC formats enable the sharing of bibliographic data worldwide. Data sharing is also facilitated by the development of registries—catalogs—that help others discover the existence of relevant data elsewhere, as well as by terminology control over the metadata.

Using the library and information science (LIS) world to exemplify interoperability and standards is somewhat misleading. In the world at large, data are commonly maintained in locally designed databases. Indeed, it is not uncommon for an organization to maintain conceptually the same data in multiple databases, using different (and perhaps incompatible) structures and different terminology. Standards designed to achieve interoperability usually are not imposed on the underlying databases, but only on how the databases are described. Contrast this with the sharing of bibliographic data between two institutions, even where only one uses MARC-encoded data:  The functionality supported by the two bibliographic databases would probably still be very similar, such that a mapping between the two database structures could probably be readily developed. (A crosswalk between Dublin Core and MARC is a salient example.)

The underlying difference between the bibliographic and non-bibliographic data contexts explains why non-bibliographic metadata are not classed with bibliographic metadata in 025.3 Bibliographic analysis and control. Moreover, the Forum on Metadata Registries considers databases from the “narrowly technical” perspective of 005.74 Data files and databases (see Manual at 025.04, 025.06 vs. 005.74). Interoperability is mentioned in a class-here note at 004.6 Interfacing and data communications, which, although not directly applicable to data interoperability, shows that interoperability should be classed with the technology that enables it. That’s where the metadata registry comes in, classed in 005.742 Data dictionaries and directories (where data interoperability is also classed). Metadata standards for non-bibliographic data are classed in 005.740218 (built with 005.74 Data files and databases plus T1—0218 Standards), while terminology (which in this context refers to all of terminology science) is classed in 401.4 Language and communication, the number for interdisciplinary works on terminology.

Updates to the DDC

We often get asked how frequently we update the DDC. The short answer is, we update the DDC continuously. We have a short-term and long-term editorial work plan; we roll out updates from the short-term plan regularly, and the long-term plan as they become available. Of course, lots of new topics come up that don’t appear on any plan and need to be addressed as they emerge. We distribute updated web versions quarterly, and produce snapshots of the underlying databases in print editions about every seven years. Our web versions (WebDewey and Abridged WebDewey, respectively) are available by subscription; we also make XML versions of the underlying databases available to translators, research projects, and other licensees.

You can get a sense of changes to categories by visiting the New and Changed Entries on the Dewey web site. We announce selected updates on the web site; users have to consult the web versions of the DDC to see all changes to the underlying databases. Recent changes have ranged from updates to the treatment of GIS/GPS to an extended version of the area table for ancient and modern Italy that we just completed with the advice of our Italian translators. You can get a flavor of the mapped terminology we announce on a biweekly basis by looking at the LCSH-DDC mappings on the same web site.

Here are some ballpark statistics on additions to the full edition since we published a new print snapshot of the database (DDC 22) in late 2003:

• New categories: ~120/year (new table and schedule numbers, e.g., the new expansion for terrorism at 363.325 introduced in November 2005)
• Additional synthesized numbers: ~450/year (numbers built using the number building instructions to represent concepts explicitly as the need arises, e.g., the synthesized numbers we added for Hurricane Katrina; we added them last year, but you can see an explanation of how the numbers are constructed in the recent blog on hurricanes)
• New mapped terminology from Library of Congress Subject Headings: ~1800/year (e.g., Semantic Web 025.04, Crunk (Music) 782.421649, Wheelchair rugby 796.333)

Droughts and Water Management

Prospects for long-term droughts and the need for improved water management to cope with them have been major themes of the International Forum on Drought, held in Seville, Spain, in June, and of the report released last week by the Natural Resources Defense Council In Hot Water: Water Management Strategies to Weather the Effects of Global Warming.

Meteorological aspects of droughts, including effect of global warming on precipitation levels, are classed in 551.5773 Variations in precipitation over time, where droughts are mentioned in the including note. 

Water conservation is classed in 333.9116 Water conservation (built with 333.911 General topics of water plus 6 from notation 16 Conservation and protection from add table under 333.7-333.9 Natural resources and energy, following instructions at 333.9111-333.9117 Subdivisions for topics of water).

Works on water supply as a public utility and on water-related public works are classed in 363.61 Water supply. 

Water supply technology is classed in 628.1 Water supply, e.g., 628.13 Storage and conservation.

Dewey in MARC 21 -- report back

Back on June 6, I posted a blog item on "Dewey in MARC 21."

Since then, the MARBI meeting has taken place, and we have a better idea of what should be proposed as changes to the MARC format to meet our needs.  We found MARBI very helpful and supportive of our needs.  However, in the discussion we found a couple of areas where we need to do more work in developing our proposals.

The first is with the 765 field in the Classification format.  We hadn't actually proposed any changes here, but the discussion about using the same format as this field in the proposed 085 field in the Bibliographic format revealed there may be some small issues in how the 765 field is defined.  Since the 765 field was defined principally with Dewey in mind, and since it's not used by the Library of Congress Classification, we really need to test the 765 field against a variety of numbers in the DDC database, and propose changes to MARBI where we find problems in it.

The second is an issue with the Bibliographic format.  Together with the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, we had proposed various changes to the 082 field, including expanding the use of that field to show Dewey numbers (including internal and external table numbers), for subject access as well as for classified arrangement.  We also proposed a new 085 field to show the component parts of built numbers: this would be both to explain how the numbers were constructed, and to provide additional subject access through those component parts.

There was some concern expressed before the MARBI meeting that this might make the use of the 082 field more difficult for libraries using it as a source of Dewey numbers for call numbers.  We need to take on board those concerns -- after all, the 082 field is indeed one of the more popular fields, and we do want to encourage its use -- and re-examine our proposals to see how those concerns can be dealt with.  In doing this, we need to bear in mind how the 082 field is being used now, and how the 082 and 085 fields might be used in the future, both for classified arrangement of library materials and for subject access to materials.

Balloon travel

Last weekend, Kent Couch traveled 193 miles sitting in his lawn chair. What was unique about the trip was that he was airborne. His chair was attached to 105 helium balloons. The technology of traveling by balloon, either attached to a single hot air balloon or in a lawn chair attached to 105 helium balloons, is classed in 629.13322 Aeronautics of free and captive balloons. Ballooning as a sport is classed in 797.51 Balloon flying.

UFOs: Roswell and Elsewhere

The Roswell UFO Festival was held July 5-8 in Roswell, New Mexico, on the 60th anniversary of the Roswell incident. According to the festival web site:

In early July, 1947, a mysterious object crashed on a ranch 30 miles north of Roswell. The Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) issued a statement claiming to have recovered a crashed "flying disk." An article ran on the front page of the Roswell Daily Record and the next day, RAAF changed its statement to say that the object was a weather balloon, not a flying disk as they previously reported. This revised statement sparked immediate controversy and has continued to be a topic of debate 60 years later.

UFOs are classed in 001.942 Unidentified flying objects (UFOs), a subdivision of 001.94 Mysteries, which has the scope note: "Reported phenomena not explained, not fully verified."  The general category is 001.9 Controversial knowledge.  In WebDewey, the LCSH "Roswell Incident, Roswell, N.M., 1947" is mapped to 001.9420978943 Roswell Incident, Roswell, N.M., 1947 (built with 001.942 Unidentified flying objects [UFOs] plus T1--09 Historical treatment plus T2--78943 Chaves County, New Mexico).  Examples of works classed in 001.9420978943 are Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the 60-year Cover-up and Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe.  Works about the festival are classed in the same number as the incident that the festival commemorates, e.g., Six days in Roswell.

There have been UFO sightings in many places over the years, including France.  For example, Mystères en Pays d'Oc: Catalogue Général des Observations d'O.V.N.I. dans le Département de l'Hérault is classed in 001.942094484 Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in Hérault department (built with T2--4484 Hérault department). (O.V.N.I. stands for "Objet Volant Non Identifié" or UFO in French.)  The French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) set up a group to study UFO sightings in France, the Groupe d'Etudes et d'Information sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non identifiés (GEIPAN).  Information from the archives of GEIPAN has been made available to the public.  According to GEIPAN:

OVNI, UFO, PAN?
UFO stands for unidentified flying object.
Analysis of eyewitness accounts and the results of investigations show that this term is usually inappropriate. In most cases, observers describe a known or unknown phenomenon, typically involving lights in the sky, but with no evidence pointing to an actual physical object.
The generic term UAP (for unidentified aerospace phenomenon) is therefore more accurate.

Will GEIPAN succeed in demystifying UFOs, at least in France?

European DDC Users' Group (EDUG)

The first meeting of the European DDC Users’ Group (EDUG) was held June 11-12 at the Swiss National Library (SNL) in Bern. Participants hailed from ten European countries; I also attended. The first day was a one-day open workshop, “The Use of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) in Europe: Recent Developments and Future Perspectives.” The second day was devoted to the organization of EDUG.

In her opening remarks, Elena Balzardi (SNL) noted that Switzerland was an ideal location for the meeting—it is a multilingual country, and the national library has a strong interest in using international standards. The national bibliography (“Swiss Book”) is organized by Dewey, and the open access collection is arranged by Dewey.

Patrice Landry (SNL) outlined the ways in which the Swiss National Library has contributed to the use and development of the DDC. Classifiers at the library regularly use editions of the DDC in four languages (English, French, German, and Italian). SNL staff worked closely with Konsortium DDC Deutsch on the German translation of DDC 22, and made proposals for developments (mostly geographic) to the Dewey editorial team. SNL also assists libraries throughout Switzerland in use of the system.

Representatives of three national libraries discussed the use of the DDC in Italy, Germany, and France, respectively. In “DDC in Italy,” Federica Paradisi (Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze [BNCF]) traced the history of DDC translation activities in Italy from 1958 to the present day. She described the areas in which BNCF and the Dewey editorial team worked closely on expansions: ancient and modern Italy, Italian history (including a new expansion for the history of Sardinia), and Italian political parties.  She also identified civil law, common names of plants and animals, and levels of education as areas of challenge for the Italian team, and places where European collaboration might be fruitful.

In “Dewey en France,” Anne-Céline Lambotte (Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF]) described the organization and use of Dewey at BnF. Dewey is used in the French national bibliography and to organize the open shelf collection. A Dewey authority file is maintained for all new numbers assigned. There are currently 150,000 records in the file—70,000 complete records with numbers, captions, and usage notes, and another 80,000 partial records. Ms. Lambotte discussed the pros and cons of use of the DDC in a European context, and mentioned some of the same topics as Ms. Paradisi concerning areas of the DDC in which European collaboration on proposals could improve the system.

Heidrun Alex (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek [DNB]) outlined the history of the German translation and use of the DDC in “Dewey in Germany.” She also described the growing use of the DDC in the German national bibliography from broad subject categorization in 2004 to the current practice (beginning in November of 2006) of application of full Dewey numbers to the main series (~100,000 titles/year). Dr. Alex reviewed recent collaborative efforts in representation and mappings, and noted that such efforts are the “backbone of many endeavours connected with retrieval,” and “bring together classification and subject indexing.”

In “Locality and Universality in the DDC,” I discussed how international collaboration has shaped the DDC, and the potential such collaboration offers for the future of the system. In the mid-1990s, we began to move from an approach rooted primarily in local needs to one in which local needs and interoperability were of equal importance in translations and other editions of the DDC. We are now in the midst of another transition—one in which local needs and interoperability need to be viewed in a broader context than simply within the relationship between the English-language standard edition and another edition.  International collaboration on matters related to content, viewpoint, representation, relationships, and structure will be critical to the continued development and use of the DDC in a global context.

The afternoon session was devoted to technical issues. Peter Werling (Pansoft) demonstrated the translation support software used by the French, German, Italian, and Vietnamese translations (and currently under testing at Bibliotheca Alexandrina for the Arabic translation). In “Integrating Browsing over DDC Notations in Library Portals,” Lars G. Svensson (DNB) discussed DDC-based browsers and DNB’s MelvilSearch. He outlined several technical and structural challenges in implementing DDC-based browsers in electronic environments. Ulrike Reiner (Verbundzentrale des Gemeinsamen Bibliotheksverbundes) described her methodology for decomposing Dewey numbers in “Automatic Analysis of DDC Notations.” She focused on the first of her two research questions: “Is it possible to automatically decompose molecular DDC notations into atomic DDC notations?” She plans to address a second question in future research: “Is it possible to improve automatic classification and retrieval by means of atomic DDC notations?”

In the closing address, Magda Heiner-Freiling (DNB) summed up the themes addressed by the earlier speakers in “Cooperation, Compatibility, Localization, Transparency: Issues for EDUG.” She made a number of interesting suggestions for future projects for European collaboration and broader international involvement, including bringing a European perspective to the education schedule, cooperating on technical tools, and studying approaches to transparency in DDC notation (“speaking numbers”).

The second day of the EDUG meeting was devoted to organizational matters. Attendees reviewed draft bylaws for EDUG, but postponed action on adoption. The group also organized three working groups: 340 Law (to focus on the treatment of legal systems based on civil law); 370 Education (to review content, viewpoint, and structure for European educational systems); and technical issues (to focus on Dewey research projects and web services). The 340 Law Working Group, chaired by Yvonne Jahns (DNB), will hold its first meeting in conjunction with the World Library and Information Congress (IFLA 2007) in Durban in August 2007.

The next meeting of EDUG is tentatively planned for April 2008 in Frankfurt.

Employee Recognition

We were asked recently where to class works on employee recognition.  The LCSH is "Incentive awards," with a see reference from "Employee recognition." "Incentives in industry" is a broader term.  The DDC number is 658.3142 Incentives, with the Relative Index entry "Incentives—personnel management" and the upward hierarchy:
658.3 Personnel management (Human resource management)
658.31 Elements of personnel management
658.314 Motivation, morale, discipline
Examples of works on employee recognition classed in 658.3142 are The 1001 Rewards & Recognition Fieldbook: The Complete Guide, The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance, and Make their Day! : Employee Recognition that Works.

We plan to add "Employee recognition—personnel management" as a Relative Index term and to map the LCSH "Incentive awards" to 658.3142.