025.431: The Dewey blog

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.

Individual biographies in 930-990

If you’re used to standard subdivisions, it can be easy to slip into “autopilot” when classifying. Working on a biography? Add T1—092 Biography to the end. Like many heuristics, or mental shortcuts, this can save you time, but make sure you’re keeping an eye out for exceptions. Don’t do this if you’ve already added another standard subdivision, for example (although, because T1—092 is quite high on the Table 1 table of preference, you might well want to replace the other standard subdivision with –092!).

One big area where you should be careful with biographies is the 900s. This post will focus on 930-990, for the history of specific places. As you probably know, standard DDC practice is to class biographies in the respective subject area, usually with –092 at the end, e.g., 020.92 for a biography of S.R. Ranganathan. What sort of biographies belong in 930-990? Our guide here is the extensive 930-990 Manual note, and specifically the Biography section.

This note covers “biographies of persons who lived during the historical period and also for biographies of historians and historiographers of that period”. But this does not override the general practice described in the previous paragraph here. Ranganathan lived in 20^th-century India, but a biography of him would not class at 954.04 1947-1971 in Indian history.

So what do we mean by “persons who lived during the historical period”? It could mean a biography of an “ordinary” person, used as an illustration of what life was like in that place and time. Consider this example, a diary of a teenager in 1920s Portland, Oregon. Its DDC number, 979.549042092, has –092 added to a built number for Multnomah County, Oregon in 1918-1945. The Manual note we’re referring to specifically allows the use of –092 here even when the subject doesn’t approximate the whole.

You could also be in 930-990 for an individual biography of a public figure. National leaders, such as presidents, prime ministers, and monarchs, should typically have their biographies at the highest office they reached. Even when there’s a specific number for a leader’s administration, such as 973.932 Administration of Barack Obama, 2009-2017, add –092 if appropriate. A comprehensive biography on Barack Obama himself would class at 973.932092. Consult the Manual note for T1—092 for more information on biographies of public figures.

Finally, individual biographies of historians and historiographers class at the historical place and period they studied, plus –092. This means they could share a number with some of their subjects. Works classed at 942.055092 (base number 942.055 Reign of Elizabeth I, 1558-1603) could include biographies of Elizabeth I herself as well as historians of Elizabethan England, regardless of where and when those historians lived.

I hope you’ve found this helpful! Stay tuned for a future blog post on collected biographies in 930-990.

Participate in the latest 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 05 October 2021.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Changes to WebDewey public comments

As the result of recent security enhancements added to WebDewey, HTML markup can no longer be used in comments. The same is true for existing comments. Users who have entered comments with HTML tags should edit their comments and remove the tags.

Remember, there are three levels of comments: personal, institutional, and public. Public comments can be seen by all WebDewey users, and if you delete a public comment, it is deleted for everyone. Please be courteous in your use of comments. You can use the WebDewey preferences to hide personal, institutional, and/or public comments.

Update to WebDewey login process via Connexion

As a result of a security update installed today, users will need to enter their authorization number and password when they launch WebDewey from Connexion (client or browser). You are still welcome to save your WebDewey authorization and password in your web browser to prevent having to enter this information every time.

Brief WebDewey outage August 17

On Tuesday, August 17, we will be doing some brief testing in WebDewey in preparation for its move to HTTPS. The work will start 4:00 PM EDT (8:00 PM UTC) and should not last more than an hour.

While the application may not be entirely inaccessible during this period, disruptions are likely to occur, so I recommend you plan not to use it then.

Update: Testing is complete, and WebDewey has been switched over to HTTPS! Let us know if you have any trouble.

What’s in a note? Part 2

This is the second in a two-part series explaining the difference between similar notes you’ll find in the DDC. Part 1 focused on notes that describe what’s at a particular class: class-here and including notes. This part will look at notes that tell you to go to a different class: see references, class-elsewhere notes, and see-also references. Much like the relationship between class-here and including notes, these three give the same basic instruction, but there’s nuance to each. (Quick sidebar: What’s the difference between a note and a reference? Nothing! I don’t have a better explanation than that…)

A see reference is used for topics that logically belong in the class you find the note at, but for whatever reason is located somewhere else. Usually, it’s to give the topic a shorter number, or because the space it would otherwise go in is full or otherwise used.

For example, let’s look at 552.1-552.5 Specific kinds of rocks, which has five subclasses. I’m no geologist, but I remember from school that rocks are classified into three broad categories: igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. In the DDC, each of these has its own number under 552.1-552.5, as do two other categories: 552.2 Volcanic rocks and 552.3 Plutonic rocks. If you know your rocks, you might know that volcanic and plutonic rocks are subclasses of igneous. Sure enough, if you look at 551.2 Igneous rocks, there are two see references, pointing you to the respective numbers for volcanic and plutonic rocks. Since they’re see references instead of another type of note, that’s your cue that the topics logically belong together. Why did we give volcanic and plutonic rocks their own classes? Probably because there was enough literary warrant to do so.

Next up is the class-elsewhere note. They’re the workhorses of this type of note, and may be used for all sorts of relationships between topics. Check out that link to the Glossary for some of the cases in which we’d use one. The general idea is “you might expect this topic to be here, but it’s actually elsewhere.” Perhaps you could say the same for a see reference, but unlike see references, a class-elsewhere note doesn’t necessarily make any claims about the type of relationship between the topics.

For example, look at 374 Adult education. This number and its subclasses are about formal educational programs aimed at adults who already have some level of formal secondary and/or higher education. The first class-elsewhere note at 374 points to 331.2592 for on-the-job training. Since most people with jobs are adults, training given to workers often amounts to education of adults. But it’s different enough from what’s in 374 that it’s over in another discipline (in this case, labor economics). The second class-elsewhere note is for adult high school equivalency programs, such as the GED in Canada and the US. Since these programs involve secondary education, the DDC places them with secondary education even though they involve adult learners.

In both cases in the above example, you could imagine that if the DDC were being redesigned from scratch today, perhaps we would decide to put on-the-job training or adult high school equivalency programs with adult education. There’s enough of a relationship that we at least expect some classifiers might check there, so the class-elsewhere note helps steer you right.

Finally, the see-also reference. Unlike the other two notes in this post, a see-also reference links a topic to a class where it really doesn’t belong. There may only be a very loose relationship, or no relationship at all, between the two topics. Why bother noting these at all, then? It might be a case of homonymy, where the same or similar word has different meanings, or perhaps the topics are sometimes confused in everyday usage too.

There’s an example of a see-also reference at a recent development—the new number for conspiracy theories, 001.98. It has the note “See also 364.1 for conspiracy to commit a crime”. Conspiracy has a specific meaning in many legal and criminal codes. Like conspiracy theories, it stems from the basic definition of a conspiracy: two or more people collaborating on something in secret, often something nefarious. But people charged with criminal conspiracy may not have been engaged in any activity that’s the subject of a conspiracy theory, and not all conspiracy theories deal with activities that are necessarily criminal. From an editor’s perspective, I can imagine someone with a work on criminal conspiracy ending up at 001.98, perhaps from a keyword search, so I want to make sure they know to look elsewhere.

I hope this has been a helpful look at these similar types of notes. Knowing this, if you ever come across one of these in the wild that seems like it should be another type, feel free to reach out! You may well be right.

WebDewey upgrade to HTTPS

This morning (US time), we upgraded WebDewey to use secure HTTPS connections. Some users have reported issues accessing WebDewey as a result. Refreshing your browser (Ctrl + R) should fix it, or a hard refresh (Ctrl + Shift + R) if not. If you've tried those and are still having issues, feel free to reach out.

Otherwise, you shouldn't notice any changes to WebDewey as a result of this. It simply means a more secure site.

Update: We've rolled back the change as we investigate some issues. I apologize for the inconvenience.

What’s in a note? Part 1

Most notes in the DDC do a pretty good job of getting across their intent in plain English (or in the language of your chosen translation). If you’re classifying a work on a given topic and find the topic in a note that says “class here” or “including”, you know you’re in the right place. If you see it in a note that refers you to a different number, you know you should head over there. A note by any other wording would do just as well, right? Not exactly. By minding the wording of a note in addition to just looking for the topics, you can get some valuable information about how to classify.

This is the first in a two-part series about some of the different types of notes that may initially sound like they’re saying the same thing, but actually have some important differences. First, I’ll compare the notes that tell you you’re in the right place (class-here and including), and the next will cover notes that point elsewhere.

A topic in a class-here note is said to approximate the whole of the class number. That doesn’t mean it’s identical, but it’s close enough that we probably won’t give that topic its own number in the future. For example, the caption at 597 is “Cold-blooded vertebrates”. Since reptiles and amphibians have their own numbers underneath, that mostly leaves fishes. Most of the numbers under 597 are about fish, except for those dedicated to reptiles and amphibians. We will probably never continue fishes and have separate numbers for fishes and (all) cold-blooded vertebrates.

You can add standard subdivisions for any topic in a class-here note, so 597.03 is equally valid for an encyclopedia of fishes or an encyclopedia of cold-blooded vertebrates. Class-here notes have hierarchical force, meaning they apply at the number where they’re given and all of its subdivisions. Another topic in the class-here note at 597 is “bony fishes”, which describes the vast majority of all living fish species. So an encyclopedia of bony fishes could also class at 597.03, and even as you go further down in 597, you don’t need to distinguish between cold-blooded vertebrates, fishes, and bony fishes.

What about including notes, then? Topics there still class at the number where the note appears, but they are topics in standing room; they do not approximate the whole. For example, let’s look at 595.387 Anomura. Anomura is a taxonomic group of crustaceans. Among other animals, hermit crabs are part of Anomura. But in the DDC, hermit crabs are in an including note there. Because they don’t approximate the whole, standard subdivisions cannot be added for hermit crabs. A zoological journal dedicated to Anomura would class at 595.38705, but a journal dedicated to hermit crabs would just be 595.387, with no standard subdivision.

There are two main reasons why we would put a topic in an including note—and sometimes it’s both:

1. The topic is just one smaller part of what’s in the class. Using the example of 595.387, there are many Anomura species that are not hermit crabs.
2. There were not enough works about the topic when we last checked (what we call literary warrant).

It’s important to note the part about “when we last checked”. If you ever come across a topic in standing room that seems like it obviously deserves its own number, you may well be right! Sounds like a great opportunity to contact us and get involved in the editorial process yourself! (See oc.lc/DeweyContributors for more information.)

I hope this has been helpful in explaining the difference between two notes that seem to do the same thing, but still signal important differences. Stay tuned for the next post on see references, class-elsewhere notes, and see-also notes.

Zoom and other internet meetings

What’s the best DDC number for a work about using Zoom, or other online meeting applications like Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, or WebEx? As with many topics, it can really depend based on the emphasis and the discipline of the book.

At 004.6 Interfacing and communications, you can find the mapped LCSH “Internet videoconferencing”. You’ll also find a see-Manual reference for 004.6 vs. 384.3 Computer communication services, which suggests 004.6 if in doubt.

You might think a work like Zoom for dummies doesn’t sound like computer science, but the DDC doesn’t limit computer science to the sort of advanced material you’d find in a university computer science department. “How-to” type works about using computer applications fit here just fine.

But take care if you have a work that isn’t really about using Zoom or similar programs. Consider a work like You’re on mute. With a chapter on dating and advice like not engaging in video calls while in the bathroom (!), it sounds more like etiquette. I’d recommend 395.5 Etiquette by situations for this work, which has online etiquette in an including note. Too bad this is in standing room and you can’t add T1—0207 Humorous treatment!

If you have a work about Zoom and similar technologies for instructional use, like Introduction to teaching with Zoom, check 371.358 Electronic distance education, which has teleconferencing in an including note.

Other numbers you might want to consider include 658.456, for business meetings, or even 060, the interdisciplinary number for meetings. Should you add T1—0285 Computer applications if able? Good question. Just because something’s happening with a computer doesn’t mean you should necessarily add it, given how much we do in our daily lives with computers now.

Above all, consider your work in hand. Computer science could be appropriate even if the work isn’t highly technical… but many other disciplines could be appropriate if they’re the focus of the work.

I’m hoping to discuss these issues further with the Editorial Policy Committee (EPC) at their next meeting—and we may have some improvements to our coverage of topics like Zoom meetings then too. In the meantime, I’d love to hear about what kind of literature you’re seeing in this area, and where you’re classing it.

Register for August 2021 eCourse: Using WebDewey and Understanding Dewey Decimal Classification

We're just about a month out from a new class of Using WebDewey and Understanding Dewey Decimal Classification, brought to you by ALA Publishing in cooperation with OCLC. Dewey Editor Alex Kyrios will serve as the instructor for this 4-week facilitated eCourse starting on Monday, August 2, 2021.

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.

New changes to DDC MARC fields

At last year’s virtual ALA Annual, I presented a discussion paper to the MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) around the issue of modernizing citation of DDC numbers in the MARC formats. I summarized the issue in a blog post then. In short, the problem was to better express the recency of a DDC number when you could only cite the edition number—and we’ve decided not to designate new editions in the future.

MAC response to the discussion paper was positive. Reinhold Heuvelmann of the German National Library (DNB) suggested a different approach that would expand the existing subfield $2 in DDC MARC fields rather than designating new ones. Then, at this year’s virtual ALA Midwinter (the last one!), I presented a formal proposal to implement these changes, using the same basic approach as the discussion paper, plus the DNB’s feedback. That proposal was approved, and its recommendations are now live with the June 2021 MARC update.

To review these changes, see the documentation for the MARC Bibliographic 082 field. I think of this as the “bread-and-butter” DDC field; you’ll see the same sort of changes in other DDC fields, such as Authority 083. As of this writing, the changes are in red. The main change is the redefined subfield $2:

$2 - Edition information

Information on the edition from which the DDC number was assigned. If DDC numbers are assigned from more than one edition, each DDC number or range of numbers is contained in a separate 082 field. If the DDC number is assigned from a printed version, record edition number (use “23” for print-on-demand), a slash (/), the language of the edition, a slash (/), and the year of publication or printing. If a DDC number is assigned from an electronic version, record edition number (use “23” or “22” for WebDewey, as appropriate), a slash (/), the language of the edition, a slash (/), and the date on which the DDC number was assigned by the cataloger. Languages are recorded according to the three-character codes in the MARC Code List for Languages. Dates are recorded according to Representation of Dates and Times (ISO 8601) in the pattern yyyymmdd.

082	00$a792.8/2$223/eng/20190402

What does this mean for your practice? That depends on if you’re using WebDewey or a printed version (either the traditional, published editions or a more recent print-on-demand version).

WebDewey: Keep using 23 as the edition number (unless you’re using DDC 22!). After a slash, add a language code. Note that this is the language code of the DDC you’re using, not the language of the resource or the language of the cataloging. If you’re reading this, it will probably be “eng” for English. Then add a further slash and whatever the date is as you assign the number. A macro or other shortcuts like the constant data in OCLC Connexion could help with this. Because the date is recorded in ISO 8601 format, it’s not wrong to give only the year, or only year and month. But it’s good to be precise.

Print: Keep using 23 as the edition number (unless you’re using an older edition). The print-on-demand versions, which were introduced in 2018, are all considered edition 23, like WebDewey. After a slash, add a language code. If the cover of your print DDC says “Dewey Decimal Classification”, it’s probably “eng” for English! Then add a further slash and the publication or printing year of your print DDC. That’s easy if you’re using print-on-demand, since they’re named for their year of printing. Otherwise, just check the title page. (Hint: the print DDC 23 is 2011.) Don’t record month or day in this case.

Like any change, this means some adjustment. A priority for this change was that it be backwards compatible: any MARC record out there with just an edition number is still valid, even though it provides less information than the current standard. I’m excited that with these changes, catalogers everywhere will have more detailed information about the “provenance” of assigned DDC numbers.

Yoga and health

Guest post by Julianne Beall

We recently published a new number for therapeutic use of yoga (615.824) and a Manual note explaining how to classify various aspects of yoga in relation to health and disease at 613.7046 vs. 615.824, 615.851, 615.852, 616-618 Yoga and health. Here we highlight a few key points from the Manual note and give examples.

Use 613.7046 Physical yoga for works on preventive or "staying healthy" use of physical yoga, hatha yoga, yoga as exercise. Also use 613.7046 for comprehensive works on preventive and therapeutic use of all kinds of yoga. Examples:

Yoga for fitness and wellness

Yoga

Yoga for dummies

Use 615.824 Yoga for works on therapeutic or "regaining health" use of physical yoga, hatha yoga, yoga as exercise. Also use 615.824 for comprehensive works on therapeutic use of all kinds of yoga. Examples:

Recovery yoga: A practical guide for chronically ill, injured, and postoperative people

Healing yoga: Proven postures to treat twenty common ailments -- from backache to bone loss, shoulder pain to bunions, and more

Yoga as therapeutic exercise: A practical guide for manual therapists

For use of physical yoga, hatha yoga, yoga as exercise (or comprehensive works on all kinds of yoga) in treating a specific disease, begin with the number for the disease in 616-618. Then from the appropriate add table, add 06 Therapy plus 24 from 615.824 Yoga, following the instruction at 061-069 Specific therapies. Examples:

Yoga for arthritis: The complete guide 616.7220624

(616.722 Arthritis plus 06 Therapy from add table at 616.1-616.9 Specific diseases plus 24 from 615.824 Yoga, following instruction at 616.1-616.9:061-069 Specific therapies)

Gentle yoga for back pain 617.5640624

(617.564 Backache plus 06 Therapy from add table at 617 Surgery, regional medicine, dentistry, ophthalmology, otology, audiology plus 24 from 615.824 Yoga, following instruction at 617:061-069 Specific therapies)

Geocaching

The DDC was in its 21^st Edition when geocaching was first played in 2000. Geocaching is an outdoor pursuit where players use GPS technology to track down hidden “caches”. The caches are more likely to have little trinkets, or even just a logbook, but the activity speaks to one’s inner child, or perhaps even the archetypical pirate’s hunt for buried treasure. Despite these romantic aspects, geocaching was sparked by a fairly technical change to GPS technology, which made it much more accurate as of 2000.

After receiving a request for a DDC number for geocaching, I knew I’d want to start at 796.5 Outdoor life. Presumably one could create an indoor geocache, but players would quickly run into trouble accessing it, so outdoor life it is. Since most of the subdivisions of 796.5 are already in use, I thought I could add geocaching as a “roommate” to another topic. Orienteering is an older game than geocaching, but both are fundamentally about taking navigational technology and turning it towards fun, competition, or both.

Along with other changes approved at electronic EPC Meeting 142D, the scope of 796.58 has been widened to both orienteering and geocaching. Two new subdivisions have been authorized for the individual pursuits: 796.582 Orienteering and 796.587 Geocaching.

Now that geocaching has its own DDC number, who wants to create a cache with coordinates that incorporate 796.587? Or maybe print out this post and put it in a cache near a library? The possibilities are endless!

WebDewey Install May 12, 2021

Please see the updated link below for the May 12 release notes.

A WebDewey install is scheduled for Wednesday, May 12, 2021. Please see the attached file for details.

Download WebDewey May 12 Install Release Notes

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 28 May 2021.

We look forward to hearing from you!

EPC 142D exhibits available for review

This week marks the start of Electronic Meeting 142D of the Editorial Policy Committee (EPC). You can view the following revision proposals at oc.lc/deweyexhibits: 

• EPC 142D-S39.1 - Wedding planning and other events associated with customs
  • EPC 142D-S39.1a - Wedding planning
  • EPC 142D-S39.1b - Customs and associated events
• EPC 142D-S54.1 - Geographic treatment of minerals and mineralogy
• EPC 142D-S61.1 - 615.53 General therapeutic systems
• EPC 142D-S79.1 - Geocaching
• EPC 142D-S98.1 - Presidents of Colombia
• EPC 142D-T2.1 - Provinces of Bulgaria

EPC will be voting on these the last week in April. 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.

Changes on the horizon: Graphic design

Here on the Dewey blog we like to highlight new changes and otherwise talk about what’s already there in the classification. What about the future? Well, for a general picture, there’s the public Google Drive page where proposals for EPC are posted. But there are bigger changes in development, which I hope to present to EPC at their next face-to-face meeting, when that meeting can be safely held.

One example of that is the overhaul of graphic design in the 740s. If this sounds familiar, it may be because you saw the discussion paper on the topic that was part of EPC Meeting 142, in September 2019. The discussion paper was just a starting point, but it gives you some idea of the changes that will come. This is big, on the level of changes that in the past would have been held until the publication of the new print edition.

I’m particularly excited that these changes will involve the reauthorization of a three-digit number, 744, that has been vacant since Edition 17 (1965). The proposal will seek to modernize treatment of design, such as graphic design, communication design, and industrial design. Most of the changes will be focused on the 740s. Besides having graphic design relocated from 741.6 and a new 744 hierarchy established, expect to see a revamped 745, and notes throughout the schedules for related topics such as user experience design, semiotics, and antiques.

We’re working with a professional graphic designer to plan this change. I’d love to hear what your library’s collection of works in this area is like. Anything in totally different places that feel like they should be together? Topics that seem to be pigeonholed where they just don’t fit? Expect to see more of this proposal in the months to come.

Fiction in the DDC

A user recently asked how the DDC handles fiction vs. nonfiction. It’s common in the library world to think of this basic division between creative and informative works, and to see them physically separated in libraries.

So how does the DDC handle fiction? There isn’t a strict fiction/nonfiction divide, though there are a few areas where fictional works are most likely to go. The biggest of these is the 800s, the main class for literature. Other areas include folklore (398), graphic novels (741.5), movies (791.43), TV (791.45), and video games (794.8).

In some cases, the fiction/nonfiction split is more defined than others. For example, 791.43 is about movies as a whole—Hollywood business, making movies, distribution, etc.—while the films themselves go at 791.437. In the 800s, there’s specific notation for literature itself and works that analyze or criticize literature, though there’s a mix. If you went down a shelf, for example, you might see criticism of English literature, followed by French literature, followed by criticism of French literature.

Many public libraries especially will organize their contemporary fiction collections by author name, title, genre, etc., rather than a formal classification system like the DDC. There’s still a correct DDC number for any John Grisham novel, for example, but many libraries may choose not to use it. Others may place some fictional works in the Dewey schedules, such as Shakespeare’s plays, but not more current publications. A library using a system like this may well first ask whether a work is fiction or nonfiction before deciding how to classify it.

Finally, be aware that if you see the word “fiction” in the DDC, it usually has a more specific meaning. In Table 3, for example, fiction is listed as one of several literary forms:

In this case, fiction means forms such as novels and short stories. Other literary forms, such as drama and poetry, may tell fictional stories, but are not considered fiction for classification purposes.