025.431: The Dewey blog

Flash exhibit: Hermits

David Stanley / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Feeling like a hermit these days? Me too, and that’s what inspired our latest flash exhibit!

We had the LCSH “Hermits” mapped to 305.568 Alienated and excluded classes, which didn’t seem right. Yes, hermits are excluded from much of society, but they don’t quite fit with the other marginalized classes there. In the traditional sense, which is also the LCSH’s sense, a hermit is secluded for religious reasons. I moved the LCSH to 204.247 Asceticism in the religion schedules to reflect this. This would be the comprehensive number for religious hermits, or hermits in comparative religion, though works on hermits in specific religions would go elsewhere (e.g., 248.47 for Christian hermits, 297.446 for Sufi hermits).

Though sometimes treated as synonyms, there are separate LCSHs for hermits and recluses. Violet and I thought that was a better fit for 305.568, since living reclusively may be influenced by hostility from society. Of course, the distinction may come down to works in hand.

I also added the LCSH “Hermit crabs as pets” to the built number 639.67, under 639.6 Crustacean culture. Did you know that hermit crabs aren’t true crabs?

Finally, there’s something curious going on with the famous Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It’s the second-largest art museum in the world after the Louvre, and among the world’s top 10 most visited. It was already represented in a built number in WebDewey at 708.721, for art museums in Saint Petersburg, but you might not know it. We had the LC name authority record mapped, but following LC romanization rules, it’s “Gosudarstvennyĭ Ėrmitazh (Russia)”. You probably wouldn’t find that on a keyword search! I ended up creating an electronic-only Relative Index term “Hermitage Museum (Russia)”, which happens to be the Children’s Subject Heading form. We had started doing something like this with the names of world leaders where LC’s romanization diverges from more popular usage. There’s nothing wrong with keyword searching as an initial approach, so I hope this is helpful.

If you want to alleviate forced hermetism, here’s an ironic resource: last month, Apple released a one-take video that’s a virtual trip around the Hermitage Museum, shot entirely on a new iPhone. At a whopping five hours and 20 minutes, it’s great for slow TV fans or might be nice background material while working from home. It’s free on YouTube. Enjoy!

Flash exhibit: Cooking and baking

Last week we announced we'd be doing a series of flash exhibits, where we focus on a specific topic and publish small but hopefully helpful additions to the schedules. Since many folks are staying safe at home to prevent the spread of COVID-19, there's a lot of discussion of what everyone is eating. While the Dewey schedules already have a lot of provisions in these areas, we found a few more to add to help classify works about food and cooking.

First off, we've added the new number 641.5677 Islamic cooking, where we've added a Relative Index term for Halal cooking. This number was built using 641.567 Cooking for religious limitations and observances and adding the -7 from 297 Islam, Babism, Bahai Faith. We've also mapped Halal food to 297.576 Individual observances, along with Islamic dietary laws. Whether a work is classed in 641.5677 or 297.576 depends on the focus of the work, but hopefully it's clear which discipline the work belongs with: religion or cooking.

Since I've been craving sweet stuff, we added the LCSHs Doughnuts and Cupcakes to 641.8653 Cakes. Cupcakes obviously belong at that number, but you could make an argument for placing doughnuts at 641.8659 Danish, French, related pastries, and in fact, some libraries have classed works about doughnuts classed there. But more have used 641.8653. Maybe we need a new class number for doughnuts, but it would be a missed opportunity if the number didn’t have a zero in it for the sake of donut-shaped aesthetics!

Awhile back we also added the LCSH Smart cookers to 641.587 Steam and pressure cooking. That's the subject heading for Instant Pot and other "multi cookers," which are still enjoying a lot of popularity after being the hot new item a few years ago.

Are there other trends that we should be providing for? Do you see areas where additional numbers or revisions would be helpful? We’d be happy to work with you to make improvements! Get in touch at [email protected].

Reclassifying the 200s at Simmons University

Guest post by Ken Mathis, Simmons University Library

No library has a perfect system of organization and occasional checks of the stacks are necessary. It's important to check on how the collection has grown and understand when it needs to be worked on.

Beatley Library uses a combination of the Dewey Decimal Classification and Library of Congress Classification. The bulk of the collection falls under the LCC system while the juvenile section for non-fiction and special topics are under Dewey. This collection is primarily used by the Children's Lit faculty and graduate students in the program. 

In order to create a more accurate and welcoming religion section in Juvenile Literature, classified in Dewey, we decided that the optional arrangement provided in the print version of DDC 23 in 2011 (and developed in greater detail by Rebecca Green in 2019) would be a great alteration to the juvenile collection. The project was completed by Ken Mathis, a Collections & Systems Library Assistant, who joined the Simmons University Library team last July. The project took approximately 2 months, from November-December 2019 and changed a total number of 360 physical items.

While the project involved time and effort, it did offer better arrangement of material by offering a more chronological view of religion and more room for subjects that had been previously squished into the 290s in the original 200s arrangement in order to be more inclusive of non-Christian religions. There were a few logistical issues that needed to be addressed in order to be successful. How would the books themselves be processed in a way that's efficient and time appropriate? How would this change be communicated to the students and patrons of the Beatley Library? What would the reaction to this change be?

Signs were created in order to explain the decision to switch over to the optional arrangement and display how to navigate the new order of the section. All the items in the religion section were taken off the shelves at one time and Research & Instruction librarians emailed faculty in order to avoid any items being checked out and all could be accounted for.

Communication was necessary between the Collections & Systems department and User Services in order to make sure there was a smooth transition between the change in the Dewey organization of the religion section and no confusion about the future of navigation or how to access the materials in the in-between time period. The transition needed to be swift, yet accurate. It was necessary to make sure the change was noticed, acknowledged and understood by patrons of the library.

While the optimal arrangement itself was straightforward and there were instructions through WebDewey that offered guidance on how to change the call number of an item, it did require attention to detail and investigation to make sure all individual items made it to the right spot. As the religion section had books of various ages, some books needed to be evaluated in order to make sure they fit neatly into the new arrangement. This was to be expected as the DDC had been changed and updated over time. Some books were too specific in their classification number while others were too vague. Consistency needed to be considered for long term accessibility.

The physical processing of all of the items was the most time-consuming part of the transition and was done in batches as the project was being completed. All items needed new labels, stickers and label protectors. After the initial reclassification was finished, all the books were arranged by their new classification numbers and evaluated as a cohesive unit before being put back into their home in the stacks. The reaction from the Simmons community to the optional arrangement was not large, but certainly welcoming. The transition was smooth enough that no patrons were affected or burdened.

The project took time and effort but proved to be the right decision for the Simmons University Library. The change was welcomed and seen as an improvement to the juvenile collection. The library will continue to improve the organization of information and provide accessible material in an appropriate manner for all patrons.

Details of the optional arrangement can be seen at the manual note for 220-290 or this 2019 blog post: Mapping 220‒290 standard notation to the Optional arrangement for the Bible and specific religions.

EPC 142A exhibits available

For the next four weeks, the Editorial Policy Committee will hold its electronic Meeting 142A via listserv. We welcome all comments on the following proposals, available on the Dewey Google Drive:

• EPC 142A-S28.1 286.63 Restoration movement--Specific denominations
• EPC 142A-S36.1 362.88 Victims of crime; 364.1 Criminal offenses
• EPC 142A-S52.1 Cartography, map making vs. Maps
• EPC 142A-S62.1 Sanitary engineering for rural and sparsely populated areas
• EPC 142A-S96.1 ANC presidents discussion paper

The committee will vote on the exhibits in the first full week of March. You can give feedback here, in the Google Group, or by email to [email protected] or an EPC member.

Interested in being a part of this process? Browse info for contributors, or join our webinar tomorrow. We'd love to work with you!

What’s the distinction between myth and religion in Dewey? An explainer

Have you reviewed the materials in your library classed at 398.2 Folk literature lately? Are there works there that should be classed in the 200 Religion hierarchy instead?

Just as we constantly revise the DDC, classification decisions from the past should be reviewed periodically, especially in culturally sensitive areas. The topic of myths and legends highlights the need for an iterative approach to classification, as previous classification decisions may have inappropriately centered familiar beliefs while disregarding others that seemed foreign. The "mark it and park it" approach to classification (that is, making a classification decision about a work and never revisiting it) can lead to alienation between the organization of our library's collections and our professional goals of equity and inclusion.

So how do you determine which works should be classed in 398.2 versus 200? Dewey asks you to look at the presentation of the work in hand to determine whether it is presented as a religiously-based work, especially for works that might be described as myth.

Terminology challenges

The relationship between religion and myth can be difficult to pin down, because it depends on one's understanding of the definition of a myth. The Oxford English Dictionary gives two distinct definitions:

1.       A traditional story, typically involving supernatural beings or forces, which embodies and provides an explanation, aetiology, or justification for something such as the early history of a society, a religious belief or ritual, or a natural phenomenon.

2.       A widespread but untrue or erroneous story or belief; a widely held misconception; a misrepresentation of the truth. Also: something existing only in myth; a fictitious or imaginary person or thing.

Over the past century scholars have assigned various definitions to the word "myth," diverging in opinion on whether it implies that a story is sacred or related to religious rituals. Joseph Campbell famously gave his favorite definition of mythology as "other people's religion." The popular meaning of myth as being distinct from fact (as in the second OED definition above) means that assigning a value of "myth" to a particular story or set of stories is a value-laden proposition.

Dewey and myth

From its beginning, the DDC has asked classifiers to make a distinction between works that are presented as mythology and those presented as religion. The wording of the distinction has varied through editions, but the current language providing guidance was established in Edition 22 in 2003; it can be found in Manual note 398.2 vs. 201.3, 230, 270, 292-299 Myths and legends:

Use 398.2 for myths or mythology presented in terms of cultural entertainment or, especially, as representative of the early literary expression of a society, even if they are populated by gods and goddesses. Use 201.3 and similar numbers elsewhere in 200 for mythology presented from a strictly theological point of view or presented as an embodiment of the religion of a people. For example, use 398.2 for Greco-Roman myths retold for a juvenile audience; but use 294.382325 for Jataka tales illustrating the character of the Buddha.

Use 398.2 for mythology having a nonreligious basis that deals with beliefs and stories that can be referred to as superstitions, legends, fairy tales, etc., where the religious content or interest is not apparent. Use 201.3 and similar numbers elsewhere in 200 for mythology having a religious basis that deals with the most basic beliefs of people and with religious beliefs and practices.

Class specific myths and legends presented as examples of a people's religion with the subject in religion, e.g., legends of Jesus' coming to Britain 232.9.

Use 398.2 for interdisciplinary works on mythology, since this number includes folk narratives with a broader focus than religion alone. If in doubt, prefer 398.2.

In following these instructions, a work like Bulfinch's mythology, which clearly states that people no longer religiously believe in the gods and goddesses portrayed, is easily classed in 398.2. But for less clear examples, we know that catalogers will make judgments based on their own cultural context.

Questions about moving forward

One of the most frequent comments I hear about Dewey are questions about Indigenous stories being categorized as myth (for example, see Dr. Debbie Reese's 2018 post Some thoughts on a big word: MYTH and a 2013 post DDC 398.2 vs. 290s in Public Libraries by Reddit user MeepleWatcher). As librarians strive to equitably represent multiple worldviews in their libraries, these questions will continue to come up. How can we encourage catalogers to make culturally appropriate classification decisions in this area? Is it possible to make a clear distinction between religious beliefs and myths? Is that distinction valuable to users?

Should we change these instructions in the DDC? One potential option would be to revise the manual note to put all stories based in religion in the 200s regardless of a work's presentation. Another option would be to categorize all works about religions that are currently practiced in the 200s. Would those (or other) options solve any problems or just create new ones? There are no easy answers, but we want to open up the discussion to the profession at large.

In the meantime, take a look at the works that have been classed within 398.2 in your library. Do they accurately represent what your library's users would describe as myths and legends? Should some of them be reclassified? Has your library made any local adaptations to the DDC to more appropriately classify works representing "the most basic beliefs" of Indigenous or other peoples?

Why are the 200s so heavily focused on Christianity? An explainer

The most frequently questioned subject area within the DDC is the 200 Religion class, especially as an exemplar of the Christian, Western bias of the classification. So why is it structured the way it is? And what have the editors done to mitigate that bias?

Historical background and literary warrant

To understand the distribution of class numbers in the DDC, it's crucial to understand how classification numbers are assigned. Last week I posted an explainer about literary warrant, which explains how the Dewey editors decide which concepts get a Dewey number.

Melvil Dewey's approach was shaped by his early experiences in library work. Amherst College, where Melvil Dewey was employed as a student in the library (and where he was working when he developed the DDC), was founded in 1821 with a goal of the "classical education" of young men interested in the Christian ministry. While Dewey was working there, the Amherst College library's collection was heavily skewed towards books about Christianity, as was the first edition of Melvil's Decimal Classification.

Much has changed in the DDC since it was first published in 1876. One of the major revisions in this area were published with Edition 21 in 1996, when the numbers from 200-209 were revised to represent religion in general rather than Christianity. Still, much of the underlying structure remains.

A breakdown of the standard schedules

Here's a breakdown of the hundred divisions of the 200s in the standard DDC as it stands today:

200  Religion
210  Philosophy & theory of religion
220  The Bible
230  Christianity & Christian theology
240  Christian practice & observance
250  Christian pastoral practice & religious orders
260  Christian organization, social work & worship
270  History of Christianity
280  Christian denominations
290  Other religions

The 200-219 range are numbers about religion in general. 220-229 are about the Bible, which is a fundamental document for Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other groups such as the Samaritans.

To put it roughly, 65 of 100 of the standard DDC hundreds classes are devoted to Christianity and the New Testament alone. To be clear, this isn't the percentage of Dewey numbers that are devoted to Christianity-related topics, only the "notational real estate" that Christian numbers take up in the standard Dewey structure of the 200s. In contrast, the notational real estate of Judaism is just 1 out of 100, as it has just one dedicated number, 296. Similarly, a single number (297) is given to Islam, Babism & the Bahá'í Faith.

While the DDC can be expanded infinitely because of its decimal structure, notational real estate is a useful way of thinking about how much space each topic takes up. The 200s have one hundred sections available (each of the numbers from 200 through 299), and if Christianity takes up roughly 65 of those classes, it takes up about 65% of the footprint available for literature about religion. Many librarians have expressed the critique that Christianity takes up too much of the notational real estate of the DDC.

The literary warrant of specific religions

Former Dewey Program Manager Rebecca Green studied this area intensely during her time on the editorial team. In 2018, Rebecca identified 3,142,038 books that were classed with Dewey numbers 230-299 in WorldCat (the numbers that are dedicated to specific religions, excluding the Bible). Of those, 2,013,663 were classed in 230-289 (the bulk of the numbers for Christianity), which accounts for about 64% of the works, while 155,559 works were classed in 297 (the DDC number for Islam), accounting for about 5% of the works. Works classed in 296, the number for Judaism, accounted for about 3% of the works. You can find charts with the results of Rebecca's research on pages 2-3 of this document.

Rebecca's research showed that the real estate given to Christianity was not as out-of-line with literary warrant in WorldCat as many people assume—64% of the works given Dewey numbers about specific religions were classed with Christianity numbers, while 65% of the notational real estate in the 200s is given to Christianity alone. (To clarify and add to her work, I believe a more pertinent calculation would reveal that 85% of the notational real estate for the 230-299 range, the range for specific religions, is given to Christianity.) The results showed that religions of Chinese origin, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam should be given more real estate than they currently have. For example, about 5% of books in WorldCat had been classed in the Dewey number for Islam, but Islam has roughly 0.9% of the notational real estate in the 200s.

The limitations of this research are clear: these results only account for works that have been collected and cataloged by libraries in WorldCat, as well as classified with a Dewey number within the 230-299 range. However, these results from the world's largest bibliographic database give a rough sense for how much literature has been collected and classified with Dewey numbers.

Options for arranging Dewey differently: preferring a single non-Christian religion

The editors know that the standard arrangement doesn't serve all libraries equally well. At 290, users are presented with two options to give preferred treatment or shorter numbers to one specific religion. These options are good choices for libraries in areas where Christianity is not the predominant religion:

Option A: Class the sources of the religion in 220, other specific aspects of the religion in 230-280, comprehensive works on the religion in 230; in that case class the Bible and Christianity in 298

Option B: Class in 210, and add to base number 21 the numbers following the base number for the religion in 292-299, e.g., Hinduism 210, Mahabharata 219.23; in that case class philosophy and theory of religion in 200, its subdivisions 211-218 in 200.1

Options for arranging Dewey differently: a chronological/regional arrangement

In addition to these options, there is a Manual note at 220-290 that provides for a chronological/regional arrangement for the Bible and specific religions. You can explore this option at the Dewey Religion Browser, which maintains the standard notation. As one of the last projects she worked on, Rebecca developed a mapping from the standard notation for 220-290 to this optional arrangement. You can find the instructions for implementing this mapping in WebDewey via the Manual note at 220-290, or at https://tinyurl.com/optionalDDC220-290. The beauty of this mapping is that it is carried out through a series of add instructions, instead of a major reworking of the 200s.

The mapping provided for the optional arrangement of 220-290 is unique: instead of relying entirely on literary warrant, it provides a notational footprint that takes into account the size of a religion's literature, its number of adherents, and its perceived cultural significance. In this mapping, the notational real estate of Christianity is shrunk to 252-279, while Islam grows to 281-298 and Judaism remains at one number, 251.

Next steps

The editors have heard from one library which has reclassed their 200s to follow the optional arrangement, but we're not sure if additional libraries have considered or implemented this option since it was published in 2012. More vigorous revisions of the 200s have been seriously considered at multiple times throughout the past few decades, but these are challenging decisions, and we recognize that no one solution will work for all libraries. We're exploring new ways to facilitate the use of optional arrangements in the DDC so each library can decide what's best for their user community. As a profession, we need to grapple with the tension between interoperability/efficiency and meeting local needs with our classification decisions—I'm always excited to hear how libraries around the world are addressing those concerns. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Last batch of EPC 142 exhibits posted

As part of the editorial team's ongoing efforts to get the Dewey community involved in the editorial process, the next round of proposals for Meeting 142 of the Editorial Policy Committee are now available for public review and comment on the Dewey Exhibits page. The following exhibits are now available:

• EPC 142-S26.1 Migration in Christian social theology
• EPC 142-S61.1 Food intolerance
• EPC 142-S62.1 Sewage and composting toilets
• EPC 142-S74.1 Graphic design (discussion paper)

All exhibits for this meeting are now available on the Dewey Exhibits page. You may share comments via email to [email protected] or to individual EPC members, or use the Dewey Contributors Forum. The meeting will take place September 23-24, so make sure to give feedback before then if you want it considered before EPC votes.

As part of the editorial team's ongoing efforts to get the Dewey community involved in the editorial process, the next round of proposals for Meeting 142 of the Editorial Policy Committee are now available for public review and comment on the Dewey Exhibits page. The following exhibits are now available:

• EPC 142-S26.1 Migration in Christian social theology
• EPC 142-S61.1 Food intolerance
• EPC 142-S62.1 Sewage and composting toilets
• EPC 142-S74.1 Graphic design (discussion paper)

All exhibits for this meeting are now available on the Dewey Exhibits page. You may share comments via email to [email protected] or to individual EPC members, or use the Dewey Contributors Forum. The meeting will take place September 23-24, so make sure to give feedback before then if you want it considered before EPC votes.

Mapping 220‒290 standard notation to the Optional arrangement for the Bible and specific religions

Guest post by Rebecca Green

The 2012 publication of the last print edition of 200 Religion Class was accompanied by a Dewey blog posting that included the following explanation:

Another exciting feature of 200 Religion Class is an optional arrangement for the Bible and specific religions based on a chronological/regional view. For some time now, we have been exploring the development of an alternative view of 200 Religion to reduce Christian bias in the standard notational sequence for the Bible and specific religions. In cooperation with Ia C. McIlwaine (University College London, and the former editor in chief of the Universal Decimal Classification [UDC]) we have prepared a chronological/regional view of the Bible and specific religions based on a similar development introduced in the UDC in 2000. The new optional arrangement appears in appendix A of the print version of 200 Religion Class, and in a new Manual note at 220-290 Optional arrangement for the Bible and specific religions in WebDewey.

That blog posting also announced that a virtual browser based on the optional arrangement and linked to Dewey-classified resources in WorldCat.org was under development. This browser was subsequently made accessible at https://www.oclc.org/en/dewey/resources/religion/browser.html.

As the Manual note at 220-290 Optional arrangement for the Bible and specific religions specifies, the intention of the optional arrangement “is to provide an alternative view of 220-290 without any changes to the DDC notation.” This is accomplished by, first, using the captions provided for each area, e.g., Taoism, Buddhism, Religions of North American native origin, Judaism, Christianity, Islam; and then, within each religion or specified group of religions, subarranging in Dewey number order. On the one hand, this approach has the significant advantage of not requiring any change in notation. On the other hand, the approach also has disadvantages. One of these disadvantages is that the notation specifies the order of resources only within specific religions, not across the religion resources of an entire collection. Unless one has a firm grasp of the optional arrangement, using the notation to locate specific resources may hit some road bumps. A second disadvantage is that prominent non-Christian religions still make use of longer notations.

At the request of the Editorial Policy Committee (EPC), we have developed a mapping from the standard notation for 220‒290 to the Optional arrangement for the Bible and specific religions. This mapping provides a notation that mirrors the optional arrangement while standing in one-to-one correspondence with the standard notation. The mapping is implemented through a series of add instructions and has been designed to provide a notational footprint that takes into account the size of a religion’s literature, its number of adherents, and its perceived significance. For example, where Islam occupies a single three-digit number, 297, in the standard notational sequence, in the mapping from the standard notation to the optional arrangement, Islam occupies a range of eighteen three-digit numbers, 281–298. Note, however, that the set of notations generated by the mapping do not constitute official optional numbers for the 200s. The mapping exists only as a subsection of the Manual note at 220-290 Optional arrangement for the Bible and specific religions; no option notes have been added to standard numbers in the 200s. Implementation of this mapping faces the disadvantage of requiring significant resources to change the notation associated with all the resources in a collection classed in 220–290. After implementing the mapping, the notations used in a collection would not match those used by most other collections. However, since the numbers generated by the mapping are in one-to-one correspondence with standard Dewey numbers, both making the changes involved and relating mapped and standard notations could be supported automatically. An institution would need to consider whether the disadvantages of implementing the mapping are offset by using a notation that better represents the religions of the world and their literatures.

The new mappings can be accessed through WebDewey, via the Manual note for 220-290, or at https://tinyurl.com/optionalDDC220-290.

Draft proposals for DDC revisions now available

I'm pleased to announce that the editorial team will now be requesting feedback on potential changes from a larger audience—that is, you!

As I mentioned in my blog post FAQs of a New Dewey Editor, the primary job of the editors is to research publishing trends and make suggestions about potential changes to the Dewey schedules and tables. Once we've completed our research, we publish those suggestions in an exhibit, which is simply a document that summarizes our research and makes an argument for revising the DDC. A few times a year, we bring these exhibits to the Editorial Policy Committee (EPC), a group of ten people representing libraries from around the world. The EPC gives feedback and votes on whether to implement the changes that the editors propose.

We'll now be sharing those exhibits with a wider audience: everyone who has Internet access, in fact! You can now find the most recent exhibits we've shared with EPC at oc.lc/DeweyExhibits. To be clear, these are proposals and may not be implemented as written. EPC often requests changes (large and small), or asks editors to revise entirely, before exhibits are approved.

We’ll be pleased to hear your feedback on this initial group of exhibits, which covers topics such as space flight and travel, birds, Montenegrin language, asexuality, Two-Spirit people, and a notation for optional arrangement of the 200s. Voting by the EPC members on this group of proposals begins on Monday February 25, so if you have comments, please send those to us at [email protected] before that date.

EPC Meeting 141

On October 15–16, Meeting 141 of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) Editorial Policy Committee (EPC) was held at OCLC headquarters in Dublin, Ohio. Often held in June, this year’s meeting was pushed back to October; with Rebecca Green’s retirement and Violet Fox joining the team, we wanted the extra time to be able to present a full agenda to the committee. As it turns out, Rebecca was able to join us for this meeting, allowing her to present the exhibits she had worked on and to say goodbye to EPC members.

This year’s meeting was the first face-to-face meeting for new member Elise Conradi from the National Library of Norway. Readers may recall that at last year’s meeting, the committee updated its bylaws, including provision for a member representing the European Dewey Users Group (EDUG), and EDUG elected Elise as its representative shortly thereafter. Member Gert de Jager, finalizing his dissertation on Dewey, was unable to attend. Also in attendance were Jody DeRidder, Marti Heyman, and Sandi Jones from OCLC. The meeting included presentations from OCLC Research Scientist Diane Vizine-Goetz, and from Stephen Schindehette, Technical Product Manager for Data Services and WorldCat Quality Management.

The committee approved two changes to the editorial rules, which govern how the editorial team works. The first establishes procedures for dealing with Relative Index terms that could be considered offensive to groups of people. This arose when the editorial team was contacted by a Dewey user from Ethiopia who identified a dated, offensive term for an ethnic group from that country. The revised rules provide guidance about when such terms should be removed. Other terms which may be considered offensive may still be retained if used by some of the people in question (e.g., “queer”). The second change to the editorial rules provides greater latitude for providing common forms of individuals’ names in the schedules. For example, at 951.93052 Administration of Kim Chŏng-ŭn, 2011-, there is now an index term for the common name of North Korea’s leader (Kim Jong-un), in addition to the form found in the Library of Congress Name Authority File.

The main business of EPC is the review of proposals for changes to the tables and schedules of the DDC. EPC 141 exhibits included proposals that will result in the following:

• An official option in the Introduction for prioritizing Indigenous groups in knowledge classification; this is the result of several years and discussions with Indigenous knowledge organization professionals.
• Clarification on how to class works about relations between two or more religions.
• Development for Orthodox Christian churches which makes clear how to express geographic notation for ecclesiastical jurisdiction vs. scope of the work; a new Manual note explains some of the complex structure of Orthodox churches and their implications for classification.
• Provision has been made for endangered languages and responses to language endangerment, both in the 400s and at 306.44 Languages for sociolinguistics.
• Updated language for transgender people and transgender identity, along with clear places in the schedules and tables for works about the LGBT community as a whole.
• Changes to the schedules for scouting organizations that enable expression of coeducational (boys and girls) scouting groups.
• The hierarchy of 629.2 Motor land vehicles, cycles will be updated to provide for autonomous vehicles, such as self-driving cars.
• Changes to the period tables under 871-878 Subdivisions for specific forms of Latin literature and 881-888 Subdivisions for specific forms of classical Greek literature that reduce the chances of building invalid numbers in WebDewey.

Finally, EPC requested more detail in a proposal that laid out an optional, chronological notation in the 200s with less emphasis on Christianity. This notation expands upon the option given in the Manual note 220-290 Optional arrangement for Bible and specific religions. We welcome any feedback on current use of, or interest in, this option.

As usual, after we’ve implemented a change in WebDewey, we’ll often make a blog post going into more detail. Stay tuned!