Add Local and Edit Local address two different circumstances that could theoretically go awry in the number building tool (in reality, most of the circumstances that go awry involve internal add tables):
- When you have added notation, you may have found that the number of zeros introducing standard subdivision notation is incorrect, or that too many or two few of the digits in the notation that is being added from show up in the number. If this happens, click the Edit Local button, which appears just below the Add button.
- You might not be allowed to add notation that you need to add. In this case, you will have gotten an error message saying “No add instruction found to add this number; consider using Add Local.” If this happens, click the Add Local button, which will appear just below the Add button (the Edit Local button will have been transformed into an Add Local button).
This post shows you how to use Edit local to correct the number of zeros used for a standard subdivision. (We may post a demonstration on the use of Add local at a later date, but frankly, the likelihood of your ever needing to use it with current DDC 23 data is slim.)
Let’s use the number-building tool to build 368.11009 for a history of fire insurance. We start by retrieving our base number 368.11 *Fire insurance and then clicking Start. Since 368.11 has an add instruction, “Add as instructed under 368.1–368.8,” that span and its immediate subordinates are displayed in the hierarchy box, and the internal add table under 368.1–368.8 is displayed in the Notes box.
One of the entries in the add table is for 368.1-368.8:007-009 Standard subdivisions. The FAQ notes:
Right now, the number building tool can only interpret add instructions under spans that feature a specific number to which something is to be added, e.g., “Add to base number 338.47 notation 001-999.” In the case of standard subdivision spans listed as entries in the schedules and Tables 1-6, you will need to start with the base schedule or table number, and then add the notation from Table 1.
Since there is no add instruction here and moreover it’s a span, we’ll need to make note of the number of zeros, and then navigate to T1—09 History, and click Add. We see that the Add operation doesn’t take into account the information conveyed by the standard subdivision entries in the add table under 368.1–368.8, i.e., that standard subdivisions are on two zeros here:
Can we fix our number? Yes, by clicking Edit Local. When we do so, we are immediately confronted by a warning reflecting that the use of Edit Local (and of Add Local) produces numbers that cannot be contributed for review by the Dewey editorial team (and possible inclusion in WebDewey for worldwide use).
Clicking on OK to proceed with Edit Local leads us to this display:
Note first that the history of how our number has been built now shows that T1—09 is being added locally (because it needs to be edited locally, even though it was added initially in the usual way); also a question mark appears by our built number to indicate that the number-building process has used Add Local and/or Edit Local at some point. Below the components going into our number we find three lines that permit us to alter the notation being added in different ways. The first, which allows the user to adjust the number of zeros appearing at the beginning of the added notation, is the one we expect to see used most often. In this case, we need to add one additional zero before the (T1--)09 component. (Note that this line and the last line refer to the number of zeros that need to be added, not to the number of zeros that need to be present.) When we click the 1-zero radio button, the notation is adjusted (indeed, the user will see immediately the results of any Edit Local operation):
Since this is the only adjustment we need to make, we can then click OK
(or if we wanted to get out of Edit Local without taking any action, we would
click the Cancel button next to the OK button):
We are now ready to Save our number.
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