025.431: The Dewey blog

Happy Retirement, Giles!



Giles Martin, assistant editor of the DDC since 1999, retired from OCLC on 17 August and returned home to Australia last weekend.  Giles’ history with the Dewey editorial team really began on AUTOCAT (an international discussion list devoted to library cataloging and authority control topics).  Giles was a prolific poster in the early days of AUTOCAT, and the Dewey editors noticed that he gave sensible advice on DDC questions.  When a vacancy opened up on the Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee (EPC) in 1993, the Australian Committee on Cataloguing was invited to nominate a member and Giles was chosen.  Giles served on EPC from 1993 until 1999, at which time he joined OCLC as assistant editor of the DDC, the first member of the Dewey editorial team from outside the United States.

One of Giles’ signature phrases is “it’s really messy.”  We, Giles' colleagues on the Dewey editorial team, always appreciated his willingness to tackle the things that are “really messy” in the DDC: mathematics, life sciences, agriculture, religion, the ancient world, tricky hierarchies, unbalanced spans, and, messiest of all, the conversion of DDC data from the ESS format (our previous proprietary format) to the MARC 21 classification and authority formats.  

Prior to joining the Dewey editorial team, Giles had a distinguished career in Australian libraries that included the following professional posts: cataloguer, University of Sydney; librarian, systems section, University of New South Wales Library; and successive posts at the University of Newcastle Libraries as librarian, senior librarian (cataloguing), head cataloguer, deputy technical services librarian (monographs), and librarian in charge of quality control.  He also served on the Australian Bibliographic Network (ABN) Standards Committee, the ABN Subject Headings Review Panel and the Australian Committee on Cataloguing.

Good luck, Giles, on this new phase of your life!!! 

 

Computer programming, programs, and data

DDC 23 includes numerous changes in 004-006 Computer science.  As a previous post noted, some of these changes were incorporated into the DDC in November 2008, but others are new with the publication of DDC 23 in print and in WebDewey 2.0.  This post reviews many of the changes involving computer programming, programs, and data in 005.

One small set of changes was instituted to make clear where two programming-related topics should be classed.  Both of the topics, application frameworks and integrated development environments, were added to the class-here note at 005.1 Programming.  According to a guest editorial for a special issue of Communications of the ACM on object-oriented application frameworks, “a framework is a reusable, ‘semi-complete’ application that can be specialized to produce custom applications.”  According to Webopedia, an integrated development environment is “a programming environment integrated into a software application that provides a GUI builder, a text or code editor, a compiler and/or interpreter and a debugger.”  At the core of both application frameworks and integrated development environments are programs, but they are not end-user applications; rather they are tools that support more efficient programming.  The Manual note at 005.1 vs. 005.3 Programming vs. Programs clarifies that 005.1 and its subdivisions tend to target programmers, while 005.3 and its subdivisions tend to target end users; furthermore, works devoted equally to programming and programs are to be classed in 005.1 or 005.2, which are programming numbers.  Representative titles include Domain-specific application frameworks: frameworks experience by industry and Integrated software development environments: requirements for the next generation, both of which should be classed in 005.1.

A second small set of changes teases out the classification of web servers, web server programs, and web services.  In fact, these changes are not restricted to 005.  Web servers are computers that are accessible via the Internet and that deliver web pages.  For example, “http://ddc.typepad.com/025431/” is interpreted by a web server at TypePad as a request to deliver the Dewey blog to the client making the request.  Web servers have been added to the class-here note at 004.36 Distributed processing in recognition of their role in client-server computing.  A web server program (e.g., Apache HTTP server) is the software run by a web server; accordingly, web server programs have been added to the class-here note at 005.376 Programs for distributed computing.  (Web server programming belongs in the parallel class, 005.276 Programming for distributed computing.)  The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) defines a web service as “a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network.”  (Incidentally, the part of http://dewey.info aimed at machine consumption is a web service.  Consider, for example, http://dewey.info/class/641.5/a14/about.rdf, which is rather more machine-friendly than human-friendly!  For further information on dewey.info, see here.)  This direct machine-to-machine interaction distinguishes web services from more traditional client-server computing.  Web services have been added to the including note at 006.78 (Multimedia systems) Programs.  Representative titles include:  Run your own web server using Linux & Apache, classed in 004.36; Web server programming, classed in 005.276, and Enabling context-aware web services: methods, architectures, and technologies, classed in 006.78.

The largest set of changes affects 005.7 Data in computer systems.  Error-correcting codes were relocated from 005.72 to their own number, an expansion at 005.717.  At the same time, file formats were relocated from 005.741 to 005.72 Data preparation and representation, which now brings document formats, record formats, and file formats together in that number as topics approximating the whole of the class.  Furthermore, see references at 005.72 make clear that data representation through data structures and through file organization are to be classed in 005.73 Data structures and 005.741 File organization and access methods, respectively.  Portable document software (e.g., Acrobat Reader) has now found a home in 005.726 (Data preparation and representation) Programs.  The splintering of data mining based on methods used has been dropped, as evident primarily in the relocation of data mining based on database management methods from 005.74 Data files and databases to 006.312 Data mining.  In a return favor, logic databases and deductive databases have been relocated out of 006.33 Knowledge-based systems to the built number 005.74015113 Mathematical logic (built with 005.74 Data files and databases plus notation 015 Scientific principles from Table 1 plus notation 113 from 511.3 Mathematical logic, following the add instruction at 1—015.  New numbers have been provided for 005.743 Database design and architecture, with data modeling and data models in its class-here note, and 005.745 Data warehousing, with transaction processing systems in its class-here note.  A new number has also been provided for 005.753 Temporal, spatial, constraint databases.  Object-relational databases have been relocated from 005.757 Object-oriented databases to 005.756 Relational databases.  Class-elsewhere notes instructing the classifier to class various types of database that run in a network in 005.758 Distributed data files and databases have been replaced by an instruction at 005.754-005.757 to class distributed versions of databases in 005.758.  Representative titles include:  How to do everything Adobe Acrobat X, classed in 005.726; The Evolution of Conceptual Modeling: From a Historical Perspective towards the Future of Conceptual Modeling, classed in 005.743; and Data warehouse design: modern principles and methodologies, classed in 005.745.

A final small set of changes concerns 005.8 Data security.  Changes here start with the addition of digital rights management and electronic signatures to the including note at 005.8.  Digital rights management refers to technologies used to protect intellectual property rights by limiting access to content.  The use of electronic signatures is a general data security strategy.  Such signatures can be made more secure through encryption; encrypted electronic signatures, which typically are referred to as digital signatures, have been added to the including note at 005.82 Data encryption.  These changes conclude with a change in the caption at 005.84, which has been generalized to Malware.  Representative titles include:  Digital rights management for e-commerce systems and Developing measures and standards for the European electronic signatures market, both of which are classed in 005.8; RSA Security's official guide to digital signatures, classed in 005.82; and Malware forensics:  investigating and analyzing malicious code, classed in 005.84.

Letitia (Tish) Reigle

On August 4, our dear colleague Letitia (Tish) Reigle passed away.  Tish was a member of the Library of Congress U.S. General Division's Dewey Section (and its predecessor, the Decimal Classification Division) for the last 35 years.  We cannot begin to estimate how many thousands of Dewey numbers she assigned to works represented by LC bibliographic records during those years—primarily to works in science and technology—but that is only part of the story.  Tish’s suggestion “We really need a provision for topic x” nearly always led the Dewey editorial team to consider some improvement to the classification.  A recent example of a change prompted by a suggestion from Tish is the recasting of T1—0286 from “Waste technology” to “Green technology (Environmental technology)” in DDC 23, but there are many more such instances scattered throughout the five full editions of the DDC developed during her tenure at LC (DDC 19 - DDC 23).  Until recent health problems sidelined her a bit, Tish was the key party arranger and decorator for any event in the office, and the Dewey archivist.  A conversation with Tish could range from 16^th-century English history to current Scandinavian crime fiction.  She adored her family and her dogs.  Tish was a great colleague and friend to all.  We will miss you terribly, dear Tish.

Julianne Beall, Eve Dickey, and Joan S. Mitchell (on behalf of the Dewey Section and Dewey editorial team)