025.431: The Dewey blog

Apply to be the 2023 DDC intern

I'm very excited to announce the second DDC Editor in Residence, the program that began this year with Kelly West! This iteration of the program will be a full-time internship running May through August 2023.

You can find the full position description on the OCLC jobs page. To summarize, we're looking for a current MLIS student or recent grad who will choose a topic area of interest, review the DDC's coverage, and create one or more proposals to improve the classification. The candidate will work with me and EPC to do so.

We plan to have this position be in person, based out of the Library of Congress, with some flexibility. Note that the position description says "U.S. Work from Home" only because the Library of Congress is not an OCLC office, and that we are aiming for in-person work.

There is no set deadline for this position, so if you or anyone you know is interested, I encourage you to apply!

DDC editions: what’s in a name?

The data you see in WebDewey today is part of Edition 23. So was the data when this edition was launched in 2011. Of course, it’s changed a lot in the intervening years, hence last year’s update to MARC fields for DDC numbers to provide date information.

There is no edition 24, and no plans to designate one. Keen-eyed users may have noticed that we launched the annual print-on-demand (POD) DDC in 2018, seven years after the release of DDC 23. Seven years was the typical period between printed editions. Coincidence? Well, yes. All print-on-demand DDC still uses DDC 23 data.

Now, in bibliographic terms, each new year’s POD version is a new edition, such as you’d record in a bibliographic field 250. And sure enough, there are records in WorldCat for each POD version to date. (Good job, catalogers!) But you’ll still see me scrupulously calling them POD versions rather than editions to avoid this sort of confusion.

As a historical note, this idea of multiple bibliographic editions for the same DDC edition is not unprecedented. Edition 15, for example, was initially issued as the "Standard Edition", but after negative reception, a "Revised Edition" was published, still Edition 15 in DDC terms.

Register for January 2023 eCourse: Using WebDewey and Understanding Dewey Decimal Classification

Time flies! It's almost time for another class of Using WebDewey and Understanding Dewey Decimal Classification, brought to you by ALA Publishing in cooperation with OCLC. Dewey Senior Editor Alex Kyrios will serve as the instructor for this 4-week facilitated eCourse starting on Monday, January 2, 2023.

Participants will gain a comprehensive grounding in Dewey Decimal Classification® (DDC) principles and practices. Starting with the basics, this eCourse will teach you how to:

• Navigate within WebDewey to determine appropriate DDC numbers
• Build numbers using the WebDewey number building tool
• Apply numbers that help patrons browse your library

Plus, experienced users will benefit from guidance building more complex numbers and learn how to make more effective use of WebDewey. Lessons are asynchronous so you can review course materials and complete exercises as your schedule allows.

To learn more and register for this eCourse, please see this page. You may also consider the three-course Practical Classification and Subject Access Cataloging Bundle, which adds courses on Library of Congress Classification (LCC) and Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), with a savings of 25% compared to the three courses individually.

Updating Dewey: a contributor's journey

Guest post by Steph Hooton

Compared to other professions, there aren’t a lot of books available in communication design. So, as a communication design practitioner, whenever I come across an interesting volume, I buy it. Over the years, after visiting countless new and used book stores, antique stores, and library, estate, and yard sales, I’ve managed to accumulate quite a few volumes — over five thousand, in fact.

While I didn’t plan on owning a personal library, it’s proven to be indispensable — and a challenge to organize. So, a few years ago, I decided to copy the experts and arrange my library according to the Dewey Decimal Classification system. This worked out great at the beginning, but as I worked through my holdings, I discovered that many communication design works were assigned to numbers scattered across the entire breadth of the DDC system, that no particular area within the DDC system had the depth of numbering needed to classify them, and that a significant portion of the DDC system’s communication design nomenclature was outdated, archaic, or incomplete. 

Given the fact that communication design as we know today didn’t exist when the DDC was created, and coupled the dramatic growth and evolution the field gone through over the past several decades, these circumstances weren’t too surprising. But, what to do? Well, since information design and typographic hierarchy are inherent disciplines my field, I set aside my shelving and got to work figuring out what was needed. Then, even though I’d always thought of the DDC system as firmly established and constant, I reached out and asked OCLC if they might be open to making some updates.

Their response was immediate, professional, gracious, welcoming, and positive. I was invited to contribute my ideas and work with OCLC experts. What followed has been over five years of extraordinary collaboration: objective, wide-ranging research; careful, thoughtful analysis; and respectful, professional advancement in documenting, planning, and updating the information architecture for communication design within the DDC system. 

To anyone shelving books in a library, thinking “this book really belongs in that section over there,” I recommend sending your insights and suggestions to OCLC. Your contribution will be appreciated, and may help people all over the world have better organizational access to knowledge.

For myself, I look forward to continued collaboration with OCLC, and to resuming the shelving of my publications — this time, in their newly built homes.

Autism in the DDC

I don’t quite remember what recently brought “An Autistic Take on DDC”, a blog post on the ALSC Blog, back to my screen. It was written in 2018. It’s still a very thoughtful take on the subject, and the author knows how to flatter (“The Dewey gods”!).

The post’s main criticism of the DDC’s treatment of autism, as I understand it, is the medicalized perspective the DDC takes. Numbers about autism and autistic people are almost exclusively found in the medicine schedules, or disability elsewhere. This is also reflected in built numbers, such as 362.19685882 (valid, but not currently in WebDewey) for social services to autistic people, built with 616.85882 Autism.

This is as good a time as any to remember that any given topic might fit in plenty of places in the DDC beyond where they’re explicitly mentioned. The author of “An Autistic Take” pines for books about autistics in 323 Civil and political rights, but he need not wait: 323.374 is a suitable place already for civil and political rights of autistic people.

Now, the caveats: when classifiers overlook valid numbers, that may be a sign that we could improve some things from the editorial side. And it certainly doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. With autism not mentioned anywhere in T1—08 Groups of people, it may not be apparent that autistic people can be expressed via T1—0874 People with mental illness and disabilities. Even if it is apparent, I wouldn’t blame someone for being dissatisfied with that notation.

What’s the best solution here? That’s what I’d like to ask you. What sort of works does your institution have on autism and autistic people? Does current coverage of the topic in the DDC meet your needs? If not, I welcome your feedback, or would be happy to work on a proposal with you.

Relocations and discontinuations: Graphic design and communication design

As promised, this post has tables of relocations and discontinuations (plus one continuation) associated with the recently approved EPC Exhibit 143-S74.1. Enlarged from what was already given in the exhibit, these tables can serve as quick guides to reclassification for your institution. Where numbers have been deprecated, they are given in square brackets. Authorizations are not separately listed; all numbers in 744 are newly authorized, as are 741.647 and 741.6474.

Where a number is deprecated, you should be safe to reclassify any items without further inspection. That's the case for most changes listed below. Otherwise, consider the context of the item. For example, interdisciplinary works on typography are being relocated from 686.22 to the new 744.47, but if you have works at 686.22 that are really about the older sense of typography (i.e., strictly concerned with printing techniques), they may not need reclassification.

Also, check any built numbers you have that may be affected, especially where the old number is being deprecated. An encyclopedia of pure and applied design and decoration now classed at 745.403 will move to 744.03. Simple enough, but in some other cases, a topic has been relocated into standing room. For example, works on counterfeit stamps at 769.56 that now have standard subdivisions added will now be relegated to just 744.72. Finally, if you used abridged classification, keep in mind that these tables are geared towards full classification. WebDewey will still have full segmentation marks available to help guide you. In abridged classification, for example, page design is relocated from 686.2 to 744.5.

Relocations

From	To	Topic
686.22	744.47	Typography (interdisciplinary works)
[686.224]	744.452	Typefaces (interdisciplinary works)
[686.2252]	744.5	Page design
741.6	744	Graphic design
741.674	744.78	Posters (comprehensive works)
[745.4]	744	Pure and applied design and decoration
[745.61]	744.42	Calligraphy
[745.66]	744.62	Heraldic design
[745.67]	741.647	Illumination
745.7	741.6	Coloring books
[769.55]	744.73	Paper money
[769.559]	744.739	History, geographic treatment, biography
[769.56]	744.72	Postage stamps and related devices
[769.561]	744.72	United Nations postage stamps, postal stationery, covers
[769.562]	744.72	Counterfeit postage stamps, covers, cancellations
[769.563]	744.72	Postage stamps commemorating persons and events
[769.564]	744.724	Postage stamps depicting various specific subjects (Iconography)
[769.565]	744.72	Covers
[769.566]	744.72	Postal stationery
[769.567]	744.72	Postmarks, cancellations, cachets
[769.569]	744.729	History, geographic treatment, biography
[769.57]	744.72	Stamps other than for prepayment of postage

 

Discontinuations

From	To	Topic
[686.221]	686.22	Typefounding and typecasting—printing technology
[686.224]	686.22	Typefaces—printing technology
[686.2253]	686.225	Hand composition
[686.2256]	686.225	Imposition and lockup

 

Discontinuations without meaning in context

From	Topic
[686.2247]	Specific typefaces and kinds of typefaces for the Latin alphabet
741.6	Commercial art

 

Continuation

From	To	Topic
740	744.4	Typographical designs

Save the date: New graphic design hierarchy

Have you heard? The largest changes to the DDC schedules since the designation of Edition 23 back in 2011 are fast upon us! The changes were recently approved by the Editorial Policy Committee (EPC) in Exhibit 143-S74.1 Graphic design and communication design. Most notably, this set of changes authorizes 744, a section which has sat vacant since Edition 17 (1965). Created alongside Steph Hooton, a professional designer, this makes the DDC a leader in modeling the emerging discipline of design. The work builds on a previous discussion paper on the topic prepared for EPC by Hooton and former editor Violet Fox.

Among other changes, these updates clarify treatment of illustration and design, which have been heretofore conflated at 741.6. The full exhibit still gives a good idea of what you can expect, but keep in mind that like any exhibit on our Google Drive, it was a proposal only, which EPC is free to amend. In this case, EPC's amendments include a fuller development of the forthcoming 744.7 Graphic design products, to which paper money (769.55) and stamps (769.56) are being relocated, since they don't really belong with the art of printmaking. The mockups of print schedules that we use in exhibits also don't do as good a job of showing the deprecation of numbers, which especially affects 686.22 Typography in the printing schedules (the short version: much of this is being relocated to the new hierarchy).

In the past, changes of this magnitude once approved would be set aside for the next print edition. Since we don't have formal print editions anymore, you can just log in to WebDewey one day and see them. In this case, that day is Tuesday, August 16, just over two weeks from today. Keep your eyes on the blog for a forthcoming list of relocations and discontinuations, just like those that helped guide major changes in full print editions.

Since print-on-demand (PoD) content is pulled once a year, the new 744 will first show up in the 2023 version. This is a good time for a reminder of the recent updates to DDC MARC fields, since there will be a period of a few months where classification of these topics from WebDewey vs. even the most recent PoD will differ quite a bit.

Finally, a couple of caveats about the publication: publication will occur the day before, on Monday the 15th, and history notes in WebDewey will reflect that date, but any time we publish, the changes don't actually become visible until the next day. And while many eyes have reviewed (and are continuing to review) these changes, there will always be the occasional typo, so it's possible there will be some additional tweaks in the days after.

Table 2 updates: Kosovo and the Philippines

The changes approved at EPC 143 include two substantive updates to Table 2. We have provided new notation for Kosovo, and updated the previously incomplete coverage of Philippine provinces.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 as the Republic of Kosovo. Roughly half of the world’s countries recognize Kosovo as independent. Serbia considers the area to be the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, part of Serbia.

The new notation for Kosovo, T2—49719, has both Kosovo i Metohija and Republic of Kosovo in its class-here note, indicating that the notation can be used regardless of where one falls on this divide. It follows the DDC’s principle of organizing Table 2 by geography rather than political boundaries necessarily.

Discussion at the EPC raised the interesting question of what this change meant for the neutrality or impartiality of the DDC. Does adding such notation not implicitly take a side, and say that Kosovo is independent? The change was not motivated by a desire to take a side, but we recognized that not making a change might also be seen as implicitly taking a side (i.e., that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was illegitimate).

More informed people than me have written on whether libraries are, can be, or should be “neutral”, often with very different ideas of what that means, but the case of Kosovo in the DDC certainly feels like a case where true neutrality – think not naming any country – would greatly hamper utility.

Over in the Philippines, things are much more straightforward, at least in that it was just a matter of giving fuller coverage of the country in Table 2. With the recent changes, we’ve gone from seven Table 2 numbers under T2—599 Philippines to 102!

Unlike many countries, the Philippines has a clear basis for organization in Table 2 before political boundaries: its islands. Indeed, besides T2—59916 National Capital Region (former caption: Manila), all of the notation previously only went as far as four digits, for major islands and island groupings.

The recent changes were primarily about providing for the country’s 81 provinces, though we also accounted for the 17 organizing regions. Most of the provinces were previously in including notes. T2—5991 Luzon island and adjacent islands was particularly crowded! Here’s how it looked in the print DDC 23:

My thanks to the user in the Philippines who got the ball rolling on this some time ago. What’s next for Table 2? Expect some expansions in South Asia and Central Asia, along with some updates for countries that have reorganized, like Morocco and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

 

Outdated terms in the DDC: Aliens

Now that EPC 143 has concluded, you should already be seeing changes published to WebDewey. Last week, we rolled out the first batch of changes analyzed by our editor-in-residence, Kelly West. There’s more to come, but this batch specifically focused on the use of “aliens” for people resident in a country in which they aren’t citizens. (Not extraterrestrials, but the confusion there is one reason “alien” is becoming deprecated in the field more broadly.)

The saga of the LCSH “Illegal aliens” has been told frequently, to the point where it is presumably the only LCSH with its own Wikipedia article. The short version: it was most notably critiqued by a group of student activists at Dartmouth College in 2014, and over 7+ years, it was eventually replaced. The LCSH had been mapped in WebDewey, and was replaced there after the Library of Congress made the change.

While the DDC never used the exact phrase “illegal aliens”, we still had several places where we used “aliens”. The case against “illegal aliens” was more than that exact phrase. Alone, “aliens” tends to conjure up images of extraterrestrials – notably, non-human beings – and in general, it’s never good if you’re alienated, or experiencing alienation. Kelly’s EPC exhibit included further research on this, along with other potentially problematic terms.

We have now greatly reduced the use of “aliens” in the DDC. In most cases, it was replaced with “Noncitizens”, similar to what the Library of Congress did. We attempted to avoid unique coinages though, so we preferred existing terms such as “Foreign labor” to the novel “Noncitizen labor”.

The only place you’ll still see “aliens” (in this sense) is in the Relative Index. The see-also reference there to Noncitizens tells you that this is a nonpreferred term. There is a strong argument for completely removing potentially offensive terms like these in user-facing systems; the term’s use in the Relative Index doesn’t change that. But it’s still a term classifiers are likely to run into, whether in older works or in legal contexts where the exact word is used.

The index entry continues to provide access for classifiers, while pointing to the correct, current term. We also reduced the appearance of “aliens” in the index to just the interdisciplinary number (305.90691) and the standard subdivision (T1—08691), so we replaced terms with subheadings like “Aliens—literature” with “Noncitizens—literature”, etc.

Expect to see similar changes in the future, both in the shorter term from Kelly’s work and in the longer term as we continue to ensure the DDC’s terms for people are accurate, current, and respectful.

Dewey Decimal Classification – 10 years in Sweden!

Guest post by Harriet Aagaard

We celebrated the anniversary with a delicious chocolate cake at a Dewey reference group meeting last year.

The National Library of Sweden started using Dewey in 2011. 10 years of use is something to celebrate, but due to the pandemic we have postponed the celebration until November 10 2022. We plan to host a seminar celebrating the anniversary.

The Swedish translation and the transition from SAB, a Swedish classification system, to DDC was done during 2009-2011. The Swedish translation is not a full translation into Swedish, but a mixed translation. In 2011 about 40% was translated into Swedish, while 60% remained in the original English. Today about 67% of the Swedish WebDewey is translated to Swedish. The goal is to translate all.

Most Swedish cataloguers have a good knowledge of English, but it turned out to be complicated to search for subjects with both Swedish and English index terms in the Swedish WebDewey. In 2014, I gave a presentation about the pros and cons with the Swedish mixed translation at the annual European DDC Users Group (EDUG) meeting.

The National Library and university libraries started using DDC instead of SAB in 2011, but most of the public libraries and school libraries stuck to the SAB system. Still today only about 20 public libraries use DDC. Among them are some public libraries in the larger cities – such as Malmö, Gothenburg and Umeå – but not the largest public library, in Stockholm.

Public libraries and school libraries have smaller collections as well as a larger proportion of Swedish books in their libraries, which reduces the need of a very detailed classification system. They have continued to use SAB – even after 2014, when the SAB classification system was no longer updated. Sweden is a small country, and both the Swedish Library Association and the National Library decided that it would not be possible to keep updating two national classification systems.

How is it possible to use a classification system which is no longer updated? SAB differs from DDC in several ways:

• Instead of very specific codes, the SAB system uses several codes to describe the topic or topics.
• New subjects are often easy to fit into broader subject categories.
• Since the SAB system was developed in Sweden it is easy to fit in specific Swedish subjects.

However, without national coordination, classification practice regarding new subjects can vary at different libraries. This is in some way counteracted by using the same catalogue and sharing records. Since 2018 public libraries in Sweden are a part of Libris, which makes it easier to co-operate on SAB classification in an informal way. On the other hand, it would also be easy to co-operate on DDC classification.

Another problem is that it is difficult to find new cataloguers with a good knowledge of classification with SAB.

Most Swedish libraries use the national union catalogue Libris, for cataloguing and importing records to their local catalogues. University libraries import a lot of records from other countries to Libris and most of these records are already classified with DDC. The transition from SAB to DDC took a lot of effort, but it has paid off well. Classification is a time-consuming task and sharing classification codes with other libraries in Libris nationally as well as internationally is efficient.

Harriet Aagaard is an administrator/librarian at the National Library of Sweden and the current Secretary of EDUG.

Results of EPC 143

The Editorial Policy Committee (EPC) met virtually in June to consider the slate of exhibits finalized back in May. Most were approved, and you’ll be seeing them rolling out into WebDewey in the coming weeks. (One is already there! More on that soon.)

Two exhibits were sent back for further work:

• EPC 143-S29.1c - 297.48 Sufi orders
• EPC 143-S30.1 - 304.8 Movement of people

For EPC 143-S29.1c, there was consensus among the committee that more specific Sufi orders should be provided for, beyond those proposed in the exhibit. We welcome feedback from users around the world, or anyone with interest or expertise in the topic, even if they aren’t users, to help represent Sufi orders that are frequently the subject of published literature.

On EPC 143-S30.1, the topic is just complicated! Where do you class a work on immigration to a specific country, emigration from a country, or works that cover both? When does a work on immigration belong with community sociology or political science instead of the interdisciplinary number? We’ll revisit the issue at the next electronic EPC meeting, towards the end of this year.

Keep checking the blog for posts highlighting specific changes from EPC 143 as they’re added to WebDewey, but keep your eye on the WebDewey updates feed too, as not every exhibit will necessarily lead to a blog post.

Last but certainly not least, there are a few new (and returning!) faces joining EPC, and that will lead to a blog post!

Standard subdivisions and the WebDewey number building tool

Since so much number building in the DDC involves standard subdivisions, understanding how they work with WebDewey’s number building tool is important for any classifier.

First, remember a couple of basics about using standard subdivisions:

• You can use them anywhere unless instructed otherwise
• You should not add one standard subdivision to another
• Where a zero is already used for subdivisions of a number in a schedule, use double zeros for standard subdivisions

As always, the number builder can be very powerful, but it’s not at all hard to create invalid numbers with it. Whenever you’re building a number that doesn’t have other instructions, WebDewey will take you to Table 1. When you’re just starting out, that’s good. But just because WebDewey takes you there doesn’t mean you can necessarily add standard subdivisions.

Try this: go to any potential base number in the schedules without its own add instructions. There are many possible numbers you could use—if you need a suggestion, 636.01 works. Click START in the number builder, and sure enough, you’re taken to Table 1. Now add a single standard subdivision (again without instructions of its own), say T1—05. Click ADD and you’re taken back to Table 1.

The rules of the DDC prevent you from adding further standard subdivisions, but the number builder allows it. Why is that? My #1 reason is that the number builder will never be perfect, and we’d rather let you build some invalid numbers than not build some valid ones. As a local adaptation, you might also choose to ignore the prohibition against adding multiple standard subdivisions, though the EDIT LOCAL button is a better way to handle such practices.

The way the number builder improves is constant iteration. If it prevents you from building a valid number, I want to hear about it so we can look into fixing it! But I hope the above example shows you that building invalid numbers isn’t too hard to do. Beyond standard subdivisions, you can still report cases like that, but we’ll keep erring on the side of letting you build.

If you’re interested in more on this topic, check the blog’s tag for the WebDewey number building tool.

Virtual AskQC Office Hours session on WebDewey

If you've never heard of Virtual AskQC Office Hours, it's a regular, free webinar series from my OCLC colleagues in Metadata Quality. Each monthly topic has two different sessions to accommodate time zone differences. Recordings and slides are made available from previous sessions too.

This month's session is an introduction to classifying with WebDewey. You'll hear from database specialists Robin Six and Bryan Baldus. I'm not presenting, but will be around to field questions, as will a few of our other colleagues.

The first one... just happened! That's on me for not thinking to post about it sooner. But you can still join next week's session, Thursday, June 23, at 4pm US Eastern time. Find registration information here.

EPC 143 exhibits ready for review

The Editorial Policy Committee (EPC) will meet virtually in early June for their Meeting 143. Dates and times will vary based on members' availability. You can view the following revision proposals at oc.lc/deweyexhibits:

• EPC 143-S29.1a - Introduction, Islam and secular disciplines
• EPC 143-S29.1b - 297.38 Rites, ceremonies, prayer, meditation
• EPC 143-S29.1c - 297.48 Sufi orders
• EPC 143-S29.1d - 297.54 Zakat
• EPC 143-S29.1e - 297.576 Individual observances
• EPC 143-S30.1 - 304.8 Movement of people
• EPC 143-S30.2 - Disasters as causes of social change
• EPC 143-S74.1 - Graphic design and communication design
• EPC 143-T1.2 - Terminology in T1--08 Groups of people
• EPC 143-T2.1 - Kosovo
• EPC 143-T2.2 - T2--599 Philippines
• EPC 143-T6.1 - T6--9549 Eastern Himalayan languages; T5--9549 Eastern Himalayan peoples

(To paraphrase guidance we give on the Summaries, Consult exhibits for complete and exact titles.)

Please share any feedback, positive or negative! You can do so by commenting on this post, posting to the the Dewey Contributors Google Group, or by email to dewey@oclc.org or an EPC member.

LCSH in WebDewey

I always enjoy going through the answers of our user surveys. One that has come up a few times, including the most recent one, is a desire for more mapped LCSH in WebDewey. I hear you! Mappings are a prime example of the value you can get out of WebDewey that just aren't practical in print.

Our current mapping of LCSH tends to be ad hoc. When we're working a certain area, we'll look for relevant LCSH to add on. Once upon a time, the editorial team tried to map all new LCSH every week. That quickly became more than we could chew! And if you've ever seen a mapped LCSH for a really obscure or specific topic, it may well have come from this. As you may know, the bar for authorizing an LCSH is much lower than that for a new Dewey number.

One comment on LCSH mapping in particular intrigued me:

More LC subject headings within the schedules as those tend to be more useful than Relative Index terms. Or at least make them match more

In years past, the editorial team often specifically chose not to map LCSH that were an exact or close match for a Relative Index term. While I can see the logic there, it's not a practice I've maintained. If you browse LCSH in WebDewey, for example, a heading that's not there just isn't there--an equivalent Relative Index term doesn't help.

Of course, it's a different story with keyword searching, which doesn't care about the source of a term. For that reason, I've often created Relative Index terms that differ from their equivalent LCSH--not to be contrarian, but to enhance keyword accessibility. We also have more flexibility with Relative Index terms. For example, we could give two Relative Index terms for close concepts that are clumped into a single LCSH, or use a more internationally recognized version of a US-centric term.

So my questions for you...

1. What are some specific areas (or even specific numbers) that you'd like to see more LCSH added to?
2. Do you prefer Relative Index terms that closely match LCSH, or do you want them to diverge?
3. Any other suggestions related to LCSH in WebDewey?

Now is your chance to participate in the Dewey Priorities Survey

The Dewey Decimal Classification is a valuable resource and keeping it current is important to all of us. We work with users like you to constantly improve it, to make the system more valuable across cultures and types of libraries.

To better learn what’s important to our users we invite you to participate in a brief Dewey priorities survey.

Please note that this survey will close on 11 April 2022.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Portrait of an editor: Constantin Mazney

Courtesy Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

I have been researching previous editors of the DDC for a project you may hear more of later this year. As you can imagine, much has been written about some of these men and women; several have their own Wikipedia articles. But details on a few of them were scarce, even in John Comaromi’s excellent Eighteen editions of the Dewey Decimal Classification, published in the DDC’s centennial year of 1976. One of those was Constantin J. Mazney. We knew Mazney was editor-in-chief for Edition 14, published in 1942, but not much more. In this post, I’ll share more details I found, along with the work of a few people I thank at the end.

Constantin John Mazney was born May 17, 1889, in Odessa, now in Ukraine, then a part of the Russian Empire. He had a musical background, first earning a music degree from Moscow Imperial Conservatory (now Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory) before immigrating to the United States in 1923. He listed his occupation as choirmaster in 1929 when applying for naturalization. We also know he worked as a schoolteacher in Detroit during this period.

In the US, Mazney studied at the University of Michigan. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in library science there, and worked in the university library from 1935 to 1938 before moving to the Library of Congress. At Michigan, Mazney studied under Margaret Mann, who recommended him for the DDC editorship after the death of Dorcas Fellows. According to Comaromi, it was largely in deference to Mann that Mazney was chosen as editor-in-chief.

Mazney oversaw the production of Edition 14, but it was unfortunately not a smooth process, exceeding its budget and missing deadlines. I can only speculate as to whether World War II exacerbated this—maybe I’m projecting current-day “supply chain issues” onto the past! Shortly after its publication, Mazney was relieved of his position by the Decimal Classification Committee.

Whether or not World War II more directly affected the production of Edition 14, public records from around that time show Mazney registered for the military draft, though he would have been in his 50s at this point. Records from the University of Michigan have him at the “Research Library” in Upton, NY in 1949, perhaps at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. (Incidentally, one of the operators of Brookhaven today is Battelle, a research organization OCLC has collaborated with most recently for the REALM Project.)

At any rate, Mazney seems to have returned to Washington, DC at some point, and died here in December 1951. He never married. He willed about $5500, around $50,000 today, to help fund a University of Michigan student award in Mann’s honor, which is still in place today (and not to be confused with ALA’s Margaret Mann Citation).

I enjoyed learning more about this man who had my job (more or less) 80 years ago, and hope you found this an interesting read too. If you have any corrections or additions, I’m happy to hear them. For people of Mazney’s time, we only have literal paper trails, and can only piece together the whole story from sometimes ephemeral documents. I hope future biographers will have an easier time of it. I ditched Facebook over 10 years ago, but my LinkedIn is reasonably up to date.

My thanks to MP Satija and Allie Alvis for research assistance, and to Jacob Nugent at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library for the same, plus the image. The timing of this post is coincidental, and has been in the works for several weeks.

New DDC editor-in-residence focused on equity

(cross-posted from OCLC Announcements)

Kelly West recently joined OCLC as the first visiting editor-in-residence for the Dewey Decimal Classification® (DDC®) system. In this inaugural six-month role, West will contribute her expertise to reduce systematic bias embedded in the DDC.

The new DDC editor-in-residence program offers early and mid-career librarians or others from allied fields the opportunity to collaborate closely with the DDC’s editor, Alex Kyrios, and the Editorial Policy Committee. Extending and maintaining the DDC requires deep knowledge and understanding of the structure of the classification scheme. In addition, placing every topic in an effective position within the scheme requires deep understanding of the topic. The DDC community worldwide will benefit from sustained engagement with a subject-matter expert to address a problematic portion of the DDC.

West is currently earning an MLIS from Louisiana State University. She serves as a 2020 – 2022 Kaleidoscope Program Diversity Scholar with the Association of Research Libraries as well as a 2021 – 2022 Spectrum Scholar with the American Library Association. Her professional interests include educating others through the preservation of Black cultural history, archival research, community outreach, and library advocacy.

OCLC continues to work toward improving diversity, inclusion, and equity throughout the library community. The DDC offers many opportunities for improving subject heading labels and the classification structure to empower underrepresented voices across a multicultural community. This editor-in-residence program is one step in a long journey to address past wrongs.

The DDC editorial team is always open to ideas from the library community to make the DDC truly reflective of libraries’ collections and evolving needs. To participate in these conversations or share a proposal, learn more about being a Dewey contributor.

DDC MARC tips: subfields $m and $2

A recent social media discussion asked about the purpose of subfield $m of the MARC 082 field, the field for DDC numbers in the bibliographic format. Subfield $m is a simple binary subfield, in which you can enter a value of a to mark the number as standard or b to mark it as optional.

If you don’t use this subfield, you’re not alone. In a perfect world, it would probably be nice to always have this information specified. But in practice, I think it’s safe to say catalogers are mostly entering standard numbers into the 082 field.

Please do use subfield $m if you’re recording an optional number (so specifically, $m b). If you really want to be thorough, you can use it for standard numbers as well.

Until recently, subfield $m was marked as mandatory on the 082 page in OCLC’s Bibliographic Formats and Standards documentation. We’ve changed that to mark it as optional. If you’re curious, it was probably marked mandatory because it’s marked that way in the Library of Congress’s National Level Requirements. I tip my hat to my OCLC colleague Jay Weitz for tracking that down.

While we’re on the subject of MARC, I wanted to remind you of the changes earlier this year to subfield $2. In short, this subfield now carries date and language information in addition to edition, to give a fuller picture of the provenance of a DDC number. You may have seen examples of this in WorldCat, and as of this writing, the Library of Congress MARC documentation page still has the additions in red text.

If you use a macro or Connexion constant data for subfield $2, you might consider adding $m to it too.

Collected biographies in 930-990

Recently, I wrote about individual biographies in 930-990. To quickly recap, individual biographies typically should go elsewhere unless they’re for historians, historic figures, or ordinary people used as examples of life in a certain period.

With collected biographies in this area too, be careful in applying standard subdivisions. The large add table at 930-990 plays a similar role to typical standard subdivisions here. Notably absent from this table is an equivalent notation to T1—092 Biography. That doesn’t mean you can’t use T1—092 at all in the 900s, just that you usually need to go to a specific period. Ordinary people go in the period in which they live; public figures typically go with the highest office they attained, or when they were most prominent. What about a historian who specializes in the entirety of a country’s history? Then you can use 930-990:007202 Historians and historiographers. So a biography of a historian of all of Chinese history could class at 951.007202, though one who specialized in Ming dynasty history would class at 951.026092.

Collected biographies, then, are the main reason you’d add biographical notation to the broadest number for an individual country’s history. Notation 930-990:0099 Collected biography is for “Description, critical appraisal, biography of people associated with the history of the continent, country, locality but limited to no specific period”. For example, use 954.0099 for collected biographies of people from India across time. In practice, these are often works that describe national leaders and other famous figures, but the same treatment would apply for ordinary people, whose lives illustrate the place over time.

Either way, if you’re simply adding T1—092 to the broadest number for a country’s history, that’s a mistake! If you’re tempted to do so, the right answer depends on the work you’re classifying.