025.431: The Dewey blog

U. S. Subprime Mortgage Crisis

The U.S. crisis in subprime home mortgages has been and still is in the news, for example:

Subprime Mortgages: A Primer
Subprime Mortgages: Of the Wretched and the Reckless
Home Foreclosures Doubled in August on Loan Rates (Update5)

There has also been news about the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis on many parts of the economy, e.g., on banks:

Banking: Brrrrrrrrr

Comprehensive works on (and the economics of) subprime home mortgages are classed in 332.722 Home finance (Residential finance), e.g., Subprime Mortgages: America's Latest Boom and Bust.  Since subprime mortgages do not approximate the whole of the number, no standard subdivision is added. 

Comprehensive works on many kinds of home mortgages in the United States are classed in 332.7220973 Home finance in the United States (built with 332.722 plus notation T1—09 Geographic treatment plus T2—73 United States), e.g., The Mortgage Answer Book: Choosing the Right Loan for You.  Mortgages are treated as approximating the whole of real estate finance, as notes under 332.72 Real estate finance and mortgages make clear:

Standard subdivisions are added for either or both topics in heading
Class here discrimination in mortgage loans; mortgage delinquencies and defaults

Works on mortgage lending from the viewpoint of banks offering loan services are classed in 332.1753 Loans, e.g., Introduction to Mortgage Lending.  Notes at 332.7 Credit make clear that credit functions of specific kinds of financial institutions are classed with the institution:

Class credit functions of banks in 332.1; class credit functions of specialized banking institutions in 332.2; class credit functions of credit and loan institutions in 332.3

Comprehensive works on (and the economics of) mortgage-backed securities are classed in 332.6323 Bonds ("Including mortgage bonds and certificates"), e.g., The Handbook of Mortgage-Backed Securities.

Works about the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis on specific parts of the economy are classed with the part, e.g., banks and banking 332.1 Banks.

Droughts and Disasters

Droughts and drought relief have been in the news recently, especially in Australia, but also in the United States and Bulgaria.  Drought maps show the areas hardest hit in Australia and the U.S.  In July when I wrote about droughts, I mentioned meteorological aspects and long-term water management issues, but did not discuss the DDC numbers for economic or social programs to deal with drought.

Government drought relief for farmers is classed in 338.18 Government farm policies ("Class here drought relief"), e.g., Federal Disaster Lending for Crop Loss due to Drought, classed in 338.1873 U.S. government farm policies, built with 338.18 plus T2—73 United States as instructed under 338.183–338.189 Treatment by specific continents, countries, localities.

Social services for droughts as a specific kind of disaster caused by weather conditions are classed in 363.34929 Droughts, e.g., From Disaster Response to Risk Management: Australia's National Drought Policy, classed in 363.349290994 Social programs for droughts in Australia, built with 363.34929 plus T1—09 Geographic treatment plus T2—94 Australia (the add table under 362–363 Specific social problems and services gives no special instructions for use of T1—09).  Notation can be added for specific kinds of services, e.g., Monitoring and Predicting Agricultural Drought: a Global Study, classed in 363.3492963 Monitoring droughts, built with 363.34929 plus 63  Monitoring, surveillance, reporting from add table under 362–363 Specific social problems and services.

Another Day Has Come: Capitol Hill Commute, Part 2

Last week I wrote, from an architectural perspective, about the buildings I walk past in the last segment of my commute. I noted that they would be classed in different numbers if considered from another perspective—but that was a blog for another day. Well, another day has come. The perspective used here is a functional one. From a functional perspective, a building is classed in the number that represents the activities that take place in the building.

The Library of Congress is classed in 027.573 (built with 027.5 Government libraries plus notation T2—73 United States, as instructed under 027.53–027.59 Specific institutions, where the Library of Congress is given as the example in the add instruction), e.g., America’s Library: The Story of the Library of Congress, 1800-2000. 

The United Methodist Building is classed in 287.6753 (built with 287.6 United Methodist Church plus notation T2—753 Washington, DC, as instructed under 287.64–287.69 Geographic treatment), e.g., Methodism in Washington.

As the home of Congress, the legislative branch of the United States, the Capitol is classed at 328.73 (built with 328 The legislative process plus notation T2—73 United States, as instructed under 328.4–328.9 The legislative process in specific countries in modern world), e.g., The Congress of the United States. A note at 328 instructs us to class there the legislative branch and legislative bodies.  The Dirksen and Russell Senate Office Buildings are classed with other works on the U.S. Senate at 328.73071 (built with 328 The legislative process plus notation T2—73 United States, as instructed under 328.4–328.9 The legislative process in specific countries in modern world, plus notation 07 Specific topics of legislative bodies from the add table at 328.4–328.9, plus 1 from 328.31 Upper houses, following instructions at 07 in the add table), e.g., The Senate, 1789-1989. The Supreme Court is classed in 347.7326 Supreme Court, part of a special development for the United States under 347 Civil procedure and courts (a note at 347 instructs us to class there the judicial branch of government), e.g., The Supreme Court. Note that the legislative branch is found under 320 Political science (Politics and government), while the judicial branch is found under 340 Law; the executive branch is found under 351 Public administration. 

The Minuteman Memorial Building of the Reserve Officers Association of the United States is classed at 355.3706073 (built with 355.37 Military reserves plus notation T1—06 Organizations plus 0 plus notation T2—73 United States, as instructed under T1—0603–T1—0609, e.g., The ROA Story: A Chronicle of the First 60 Years of the Reserve Officers Association of the United States.

Union Station is classed in 385.31409753 (built with 385.314 Railroad terminals and stations plus notation T1—09 Geographic treatment plus T2—753 Washington, DC), e.g., Future of Union Station.

  

Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996

One of the fruits of the long struggle for freedom in South Africa was the 1996 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, with its impressive Bill of Rights.  Inspired by Justice Albie Sachs in the opening session of IFLA 2007, I began to explore the web site of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and found a wealth of information about constitutional law in South Africa, e.g., the text of the constitution in all eleven official languages of South Africa (English here), the history of the constitution, the role of the Constitutional Court, landmark cases, and the Bill of Rights.

Works on the political struggle for civil rights in South Africa are classed in 323.0968 Civil rights in South Africa (built with 323 Civil and political rights plus T1—09 Historical and geographic treatment plus T2—68 Republic of South Africa), e.g., Legacy of Freedom: The ANC's Human Rights Tradition: Africans' Claims in South Africa, the Freedom Charter, the Women's Charter, and Other Human Rights Landmarks of the African National Congress.

The text of the Constitution is classed in 342.68023 Text of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (built with 342 Constitutional and administrative law plus T2—68 Republic of South Africa plus 023 from 342.023 Texts of constitutions, following instructions under 342–347 Branches of law). 

The history of the Constitution is classed in 342.68029 Constitutional history of South Africa (built with 342 plus T2—68 plus 029 from 342.029 Constitutional history, following instructions under 342–347), e.g., Decisions on Democracy: The Politics of Constitution-Making in South Africa, 1990-1996.

The Constitutional Court of South Africa, a specialized court with jurisdiction over only constitutional issues, is classed in 342.68020269 Constitutional court of South Africa (built with 342 plus T2—68 plus 02 from 342.02 Basic instruments of government ["Class here constitutions"] plus 0269 Courts and procedure from the add table under 342-347, following instructions under 342-347), e.g., The Constitutional Court of South Africa: The First Ten Years.

Works on the Bill of Rights (e.g., Fundamental Rights in the Constitution: Commentary and Cases: A Commentary on Chapter 3 on Fundamental Rights of the 1993 Constitution and Chapter 2 of the 1996 Constitution) are classed in 342.68085 Rights of individuals in South Africa (built with 342 plus T2—68 plus 085 from 342.085 Rights and activities of individuals ["Class here civil rights"], following instructions under 342–347).  Under 342.02 Basic instruments of government is the note: "For constitutional provisions dealing with a specific subject, see the subject in 342–347, e.g., individual rights 342.085."

IFLA 2007 Highlights

Joan and I attended the World Library and Information Congress (73rd IFLA General Conference and Council), Durban, South Africa, 17-24 August 2007.  In addition to individual meetings with DDC translation teams and other DDC users, we attended a number of committee meetings and conference sessions.  The first two days of the conference were devoted to board and committee meetings; the conference program itself started on Sunday, 26 August, with an opening session that explored South African culture through several lenses.  The highlight of the opening session was the talk by Justice Albie Sachs of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.  We were both in awe of being in the presence of someone who risked so much for the cause of human rights—in addition to being imprisoned in South Africa, Justice Sachs also lost an arm and eye to a bomb planted by South African agents when he was living in exile in Mozambique.  Joan was struck by a side comment he made concerning the treatment of customary (traditional) law in libraries.  She will have more to say about this when she returns from vacation next week.

There were hundreds of presentations during the conference—we’ve selected a few that might be of interest to readers of this blog.  The Web 2.0 / Library 2.0 movement was definitely a hot topic.  Patrick Danowski (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) characterized the movement as linking people and information with interactive and open services that promote user contributions and feedback.  He described the linking of personal names in the German Wikipedia with the German name authority file, and challenged the usefulness of existing library classification schemes for Web 2.0 applications (we didn’t agree with him!). He has also started a new special interest group within IFLA to discuss Web 2.0 / Library 2.0 concerns.  In "Don’t Turn Off the Lights, Yet!" Caroline Brazier (British Library) discussed the opportunities for libraries in Web 2.0, and gave some examples of how the British Library is taking library services to the users, and harnessing user knowledge and experience to shape library services. 

In the session sponsored by the Section on Classification and Indexing, two of the papers were also relevant to the Library 2.0 discussion in that they focused on tagging.  Jonathan Furner (UCLA and our former colleague proposed a taxonomy of user tagging systems and a framework for evaluating the impact of tagging.  Sarah Hayman (education.au) reviewed experiences with tagging and controlled vocabularies within Education Network Australia (edna.edu.au).  She noted that "tags may over-represent the dominant view." 

The two other talks in the same session might also be of interest to blog readers.  James Turner (Université de Montréal) discussed the use of audio description text for indexing films.  L. Sulistyo-Basuki (Universitas Indonesia) made a plea for better representation of Indonesia’s geographic areas, historical periods, and languages in the DDC.  He had missed our new development for Indonesia in August 2006; he has agreed to work with us on future improvements.

At the program sponsored by the Division of Bibliographic Control, Ina Fourie (University of Pretoria) discussed bibliographic control in South Africa from an interesting perspective—instead of detailing the current status of use of various standards in South Africa (see here for a review from two years ago by Welna van Eeden on that topic), Dr. Fourie noted the drop off in the journal literature on the topic and wondered if discussions were happening outside of the professional literature and therefore might be undocumented and lost to future researchers.

There were two excellent sessions on national bibliographies.  In the one sponsored by the Section on Bibliography, Amadou Békaye Sidibé (Bibliothèque nationale du Mali) outlined the status of national bibliographies across Africa. According to his study, four use the Universal Decimal Classification; the rest are organized using the DDC (see comment below about South Africa).  Some issues affecting the production of national bibliographies in Africa include the status as ISBN/ISSN agency, absence or insufficient application of legal deposit laws, acquisitions budgets, equipment, and recruitment and training of staff.  Susan Battison (National Library of South Africa) reviewed the history of the South Africa National Bibliography (SANB) from 1993 to the present day.  Dewey was used to organize SANB from 1958 through mid-2006, at which time a decision was made to scale back on subject access and discontinue assignment of DDC to records (in a private conversation with Joan, Susan noted that this decision may be reconsidered at a later date).  Paul Zulu (National Library of Namibia) described the history of the national bibliography in Namibia and current challenges.  He echoed the earlier speakers in noting issues related to qualified staff, legal deposit, and ISBN/ISSN status (the national library is an ISBN agency but not an ISSN agency).

Another program on national bibliographies was sponsored by three IFLA sections: Bibliography, National Libraries, and Classification and Indexing.  Ingrid Parent (Library and Archives Canada) discussed the importance of and challenges to national bibliographies in the digital age—the continuing importance of national bibliographies as a permanent record of the publishing output of a country and the challenges of providing authoritative descriptions for the large quantities of digital materials being acquired.  Should national bibliographies seek partners in the spirit of Web 2.0?  Maja Žumer (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) spoke of the "Guidelines for National Bibliographies in the Digital Age" (new name) being developed by the Working Group on Guidelines for (Electronic) National Bibliographies (previous name).  The working group hopes to have a document available for world-wide review by the end of 2007.  Patrice Landry (Swiss National Library) described the complementary Working Group on Guidelines for Subject Access by National Bibliographic Agencies, which is currently considering the elements that should be included in a comprehensive indexing policy and which hopes to have recommendations in 2008.

An Architecturally-Enhanced Commute

Like many others who work in cities, I live in the suburbs and commute to work. In my case the major part of the commute takes place on the Washington Metro. Despite the presence of a Metro station adjacent to the Library of Congress, on nice days I get off the Metro at Union Station and walk. The walk is good for me in several ways, both saving time and money and providing moderate exercise. But the walk also delights the visual senses, because after taking me through a couple of park blocks, it passes by a series of impressive buildings—the Russell and Dirksen Senate Office Buildings, the Minuteman Memorial Building of the Reserve Officers Association of the United States, the United Methodist Building, the Supreme Court, and the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress—before bringing me to LC’s Madison Building, where the DDC editorial offices are located.

Union Station is classed in 725.3109753 (built with 725.31 Railroad and rapid transit stations plus notation T1—09 Geographic treatment plus T2—753 Washington, DC); note that Union Station receives the same treatment whether considered as a train station (its primary function) or as a rapid transit station (how I use it).  (Of course, if we were considering Union Station from other than an architectural perspective, it would be classed in a different number, as would all the other buildings being discussed here.  But that's a blog for some other day.)

The Russell and Dirksen Senate Office Buildings are classed in 725.1109753 (built with 725.11 Legislative buildings plus notation T1—09 Geographic treatment plus T2—753 Washington, DC). Since 725.11 covers all government buildings for non-local legislative bodies, this class also encompasses the several House Office Buildings, as well as the Capitol, which is mentioned generically in a class-here note at 725.11 (“Class here capitols”).

The Minuteman Memorial Building presents us with an interesting question: Should it be classed as a military building (the building belongs to an association that represents the uniformed services of the U.S.) or as an office building (the primary function of the association is to lobby Congress)? There is no note at 725–728 Specific types of structures instructing the classifier how to handle works with aspects in two or more of its subdivisions. Instead we find see references at 725 Public structures (which includes both military and office buildings) that direct us to class structures “used primarily for [other] purposes” with the purpose. From this we can conclude that we should class buildings with their use and not with the general nature of their occupants. Thus, instead of classing the Minuteman Memorial Building at 725.1809753 (built with 725.18 Military and police buildings plus notation T1—09 Geographic treatment plus T2—753 Washington, DC; a note sanctions the addition of standard subdivisions for either topic in the heading), the building is classed at 725.2309753 (built with 725.23 Office and communications buildings plus notation T1—09 Geographic treatment plus T2—753 Washington, DC; again a note sanctions the addition of standard subdivisions for either topic in the heading).

The United Methodist Building presents us with a similar question: Should it be classed as a religious building (the building belongs to a specific religious denomination) or as an office building (again, its location on Capitol Hill is intentional)? We might think we had settled that question in our examination of the parallel situation above, but we might just be wrong! The caption at 726 Buildings for religious and related purposes indicates that a broader interpretation of this number is in order. But what counts as a “related purpose”? The scope of religiously-related purposes is suggested by the including note at 726.9 Other buildings for religious and related purposes: “Including episcopal palaces, missions, parsonages, buildings of religious associations, buildings housing roadside shrines.”  The inclusion there of buildings of religious associations suggests that the United Methodist Building, whose “business” is tied directly to the promulgation of the church’s religious values, should also be classed in 726.9 Other buildings for religious and related purposes. Because regional headquarters for religious bodies is in standing room at 726.9, geographic subdivision is not permitted.

With the Supreme Court, we return to more familiar ground, back to government buildings at 725.1. The Court is classed in 725.1509753 (built with 725.15 Court buildings plus notation T1—09 Geographic treatment plus T2—753 Washington, DC).

Finally at the end of the walk we come to the Library of Congress, classed at 727.82573 U.S. government library buildings (built with 727.82 Buildings of general libraries plus [following the build instructions at 727.821-727.828] notation 5 from 027.5 Government libraries plus [following the build instructions at 027.53–027.59 Specific government libraries] T2—73 United States for the area served; the Library of Congress is used as a specific example under 027.53–027.59, so we are assured that the area served should be the entire country and not just the District of Columbia).

National Parks, Volcanoes, and Bird Watching

National parks where the main attraction is nature can be classed in many different Dewey numbers, depending on the focus of the work in hand.  The Manual note 333.7–333.9 vs. 508, 913–919, 930–990 National parks and monuments suggests the possibilities:

Use 333.7–333.9 for works on national parks where the main attraction is nature if the emphasis is on conservation and protection of natural resources, e.g., forest parks 333.784, game reserves 333.954916. Use 508 or other numbers in 500 if the emphasis is on description of and guides to natural phenomena, e.g., a comprehensive guide to the natural history of Yellowstone National Park 508.78752, a guide to the geology of Yellowstone 557.8752.

Use 913–919 , plus notation 04 from the table under 913–919 followed by notation for the historical period when the guidebook was written, for general guidebooks to all the national parks of an area, e.g., a 1989 general guidebook to the national parks of South America 918.0438.

Let's consider more examples.  Volcanoes in America's National Parks treats twenty U.S. national parks and monuments and is classed in 551.210973 Volcanoes of the United States (built with 551.21 Volcanoes plus T1—09 Geographic treatment plus T2—73 United States).  Each of the parks could have its own work with the base number 551.21 Volcanoes, and some do, e.g., Super Volcano: The Ticking Time Bomb beneath Yellowstone National Park (551.21097875 Volcanoes of Yellowstone National Park and Teton County) and Guide to the Volcanoes of the Western Wrangell Mountains, Alaska: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve (551.21097983 Volcanoes of South central region of Alaska).

Some of the same national parks that can be featured in works about volcanoes can also be featured in works about birding, e.g., Mount Rainier National Park and Crater Lake National Park in Birds of the Northwestern National Parks: a Birder's Perspective, which is classed in 598.07234795 Bird watching in the Pacific Northwest (built with 598.07234 Bird watching plus T2—795 Oregon ["Class here Pacific Northwest"], following the instructions under 598.072344–598.072349 Bird watching by specific continents, countries, localities in modern world).

Of course, none of this is limited to the United States, e.g., Volcanoes of the South Wind: A Field Guide to the Volcanoes and Landscape of Tongariro National Park, classed in 551.21099352 Volcanoes of Ruapehu District, New Zealand, and Birding: Jasper National Park, classed in 598.07234712332 Bird watching in Rocky Mountain parks region, Alberta, Canada.

Because the same national park can be classed in many different Dewey numbers, we index national parks where nature is a major attraction only to the area notation in Table 2, and we also map Library of Congress Subject Headings for these parks only to Table 2.

Designing identifiers for the DDC

Although the Dewey Decimal Classification is currently available on the web to subscribers as WebDewey and Abridged WebDewey in the OCLC Connexion service and in an XML version to licensees, OCLC does not provide any “web services” based on the DDC. By web services, we mean presentation of the DDC to other machines (not humans) for uses such as searching, browsing, classifying, mapping, harvesting, and alerting.

In order to build web-accessible services based on the DDC, several elements have to be considered. One of these elements is the design of an appropriate Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) structure for Dewey.

The design goals of mapping the entity model of the DDC into an identifier space can be summarized as follows:

• Common locator for Dewey concepts and associated resources for use in web services and web applications
• Use-case-driven, but not directly related to and outlasting a specific use case (persistency)
• Retraceable path to a concept rather than an abstract identification, reusing a means of identification that is already present in the DDC and available in existing metadata

We have been working closely with our colleagues in the OCLC Office of Research (especially Andy Houghton as well as Eric Childress, Diane Vizine-Goetz, and Stu Weibel) on a preliminary identifier syntax. The basic identifier format we are currently exploring is:

http://dewey.info/{aspect}/{object}/{locale}/{type}/{version}/{resource}

where

• {aspect} is the aspect associated with an {object}—the current value set of aspect contains “concept”, “scheme”, and “index”; additional ones are under exploration
• {object} is a type of {aspect}
• {locale} identifies a Dewey translation
• {type} identifies a Dewey edition type and contains, at a minimum, the values “edn” for the full edition or “abr” for the abridged edition
• {version} identifies a Dewey edition version
• {resource} identifies a resource associated with an {object} in the context of {locale}, {type}, and {version}

Some examples of identifiers for concepts follow:

<http://dewey.info/concept/338.4/en/edn/22/>

This identifier is used to retrieve or identify the 338.4 concept in the English-language version of Edition 22.

 <http://dewey.info/concept/338.4/de/edn/22/>

This identifier is used to retrieve or identify the 338.4 concept in the German-language version of Edition 22.

 <http://dewey.info/concept/333.7-333.9/>

This identifier is used to retrieve or identify the 333.7–333.9 concept across all editions and language versions.

 <http://dewey.info/concept/333.7-333.9/about.skos>

This identifier is used to retrieve a SKOS representation of the 333.7-333.9 concept (using the “resource” element).

There are several open issues at this preliminary stage of development:

Use cases: URIs need to represent the range of statements or questions that could be submitted to a Dewey web service. Therefore, it seems that some general questions have to be answered first: What information does an agent have when coming to a Dewey web service? What kind of questions will such an agent ask?

Placement of the {locale} component: It is still an open question if the {locale} component should be placed after the {version} component instead (<http://dewey.info/concept/338.4/edn/22/en>) to emphasize that the most important instantiation of a Dewey class is its edition, not its language version. From a services point of view, however, it could make more sense to keep the current arrangement, because users are more likely to come to the service with a present understanding of the language version they are seeking without knowing the specifics of a certain edition in which they are trying to find topics.

Identification of other Dewey entities: The goal is to create a locator that does not answer all, but a lot of questions that could be asked about the DDC. Which entities are missing but should be surfaced for services or user agents? How will those services or agents interact with them? Should some entities be rendered in a different way as presented? For example, (how) should the DDC Summaries be retrievable? Would it be necessary to make the DDC Manual accessible through this identifier structure?

How Can We All Work Together?

OCLC hosted the 5th Annual Dewey Translators Meeting on 21 August 2007 in conjunction with the World Library and Information Congress (73rd IFLA General Conference and Council) in Durban, South Africa.  The theme of the meeting (chosen by attendees at the 2006 meeting) was “How can we all work together?”  Thirty-one librarians, representing DDC projects in fifteen countries, participated in the meeting.  Gordon Dunsire (University of Strathclyde) reported on recent work on the High-Level Thesaurus (HILT) project.  In the HILT project, Dewey is used as a "semantic translator" for mappings from different Anglophone terminologies.  Dewey has also been used to classify the collections included in the project.  In this second role, Dewey facilitates the process of “subject landscaping” by pointing to the best collection(s) in which to search for items in a specific area of interest.  Gordon also announced the launch of the web site of the Technical Issues Working Group of the European DDC Users Group (EDUG).

Juli Beall presented an update on our work with colleagues at Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB), OCLC, and LC on extensions to the representation of the DDC in MARC 21 formats.  Pia Leth (Royal Library of Sweden), Ingebjørg Rype (National Library of Norway), and I discussed our preliminary work on mixed DDC translations combining vernacular and English-language content.  Michelle Rago (Library of Congress) talked about the use of the DDC in the World Digital Library project and showed a short conceptual video about WDL.

In the open reporting session, Patrice Landry (National Library of Switzerland) discussed the June 2007 EDUG meeting and organizational plans for the group.  Patrice also noted that the EDUG 340 Law Working Group, chaired by Yvonne Jahns (DNB), had taken advantage of the presence of several members in Durban and held its first meeting on 20 August.  The working group is focused on improvements to the representation of legal systems based on civil law.  Representatives of the Arabic, French, Italian, and Vietnamese teams also reported on their respective translations.  Dr. Sohair Wastawy (Bibliotheca Alexandrina) reported that the software for supporting the Arabic translation is 80% functional (diacritics remain a challenge), and organization of the translation work is under way.  She mentioned the challenges of accommodating the breadth of Arabic terminology—for example, there are sixty words for “lion” in Arabic!   Louis Cabral (ASTED) announced the anticipated publication of the French print edition in late September 2007, and discussed briefly the formation of a scientific advisory committee for the web version. Federica Paradisi (Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze) reported that the Italian translation of DDC 22 is expected to be published in early 2008.  She also described the collaboration between the Italian team and the Dewey editors on the expansion of canon law, plus improvements to ancient and modern Italian history and geographic developments.  Nguyen Thi Bac (General Sciences Library of Ho Chi Minh City) reported on DDC training efforts in Vietnam since the publication of the Vietnamese translation of Abridged Edition 14 last year, and plans for a translation of DDC 22.

Dr. Maria Inês Cordeiro (National Library of Portugal and editor in chief of the Universal Decimal Classification) presented a brief update on recent UDC translations and the restructuring of UDC's advisory board.  Work is under way on a new editorial support system and improved data representation scheme for UDC (Juli and I met with Inês privately later in the week to discuss our shared interests in data management and representation of knowledge organization systems).

The attendees decided to revisit the “How can we all work together?” theme at next year’s meeting in Quebec City.  Topics suggested included workflows for translations, the role of EPC, and a review of the first year of EDUG activities.  There was also some interest expressed in a separate Dewey Developers Meeting.