025.431: The Dewey blog

Dewey in Dotland

Pictured, left to right: Debra Halabis, Joan S. Mitchell, Michelle Rosen

I had the pleasure of visiting the Durham Academy Lower School Library on Friday, and was immediately swept away by a Dewey fantasy land in the form of blue decimal "dots" everywhere I turned.  Two blue "dot" staff members greeted me, a blue "dot" clock hung on the wall, a round blue "dot" rolling bookmobile was loaded with books, and a blue "dot" dressed as a forest ranger sat perched atop a range of shelves (outfits on the last apparently change with the research project at hand).  There was even a wonderful library-instruction book ("Trouble in the Library: The Adventures of Dewey Decimal") written by staff members Michelle Rosen (Librarian) and Debra Halabis (Library Assistant).  Michelle and Debra, thanks again for your hospitality, and for demonstrating how useful (and fun) the Dewey Decimal Classification system can be for researchers of all ages!

 

Speciation

A previous blog on evolution mentioned in passing the topic of speciation.  This time let's focus on speciation as we explore more places where aspects of evolution may be classed.  Browsing the Dewey Relative Index for "speciation" yields:

Speciation (Biology)    576.86
Species                    578.012
Species—evolution     576.86

In the upward hierarchy for speciation at 576.86 is 576.8 Evolution.  An example of a general work on speciation is Speciation.  Here is an excerpt from the publisher's description plus the table of contents:

Aimed at professional biologists, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates, Speciation covers both plants and animals . . . , and deals with all relevant areas of research, including biogeography, field work, systematics, theory, and genetic and molecular studies. It gives special emphasis to topics that are either controversial or the subject of active research, including sympatric speciation, reinforcement, the role of hybridization in speciation, the search for genes causing reproductive isolation, and mounting evidence for the role of natural and sexual selection in the origin of species.

Contents:

1. Species: reality and concepts
2. Studying speciation
3. Allopatric and parapatric speciation
4. Sympatric speciation
5. Ecological isolation
6. Behavioral and nonecological isolation
7. Postzygotic isolation
8. The genetics of postzygotic isolation
9. Polyploidy and hybrid speciation
10. Reinforcement
11. Selection versus drift
12. Speciation and macroevolution

(Incidentally, if your biology is a bit rusty, the University of California site Evolution 101 might help, e.g., its section on speciation.)

Speciation has the LCSH:

Species

In LCSH, "Speciation (Biology)," is a non-preferred term pointing to the preferred term "Species."  The Dewey entry 578.012 Classification has "species" in its including note, but it also has a class-elsewhere note: "Class speciation in 576.86."  The work Speciation is classed in 576.86 Speciation.

What about works on speciation that don't cover both plants and animals?  For example, Speciation in Birds.  Here are excerpts from a reviewer's description plus the book's table of contents:

In this book, Trevor Price aims for a highly challenging task, namely to synthesize the roles of ecology, behavior, and genetics in bird speciation. . . . .

The book opens with two introductory chapters, where main concepts are defined and some of the main themes of the book are introduced. One of the main themes, the ecology of speciation, is treated thoroughly in the next five chapters. . . . .

The second main section of the book, chapters 8 to 12, covers nonecological speciation. Many avian allospecies do not appear to differ much ecologically but differ in traits that are used in species recognition, such as plumage color and song. Such traits are thought to evolve mainly through sexual and other forms of social selection, suggesting that social selection is important in bird speciation. Price also discusses how ecological factors may contribute to shaping such socially selected traits.

The last major section of the book, chapters 13 to 16, is mainly devoted to the final stages of speciation, and evolutionary processes operating in differentiated populations that experience secondary contact. . . . .

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Geography and Ecology
3. Geographical variation
4. Parapatric Speciation
5. Ecological speciation
6. Ecological controls and speciation on continents
7. Behavior and ecology
8. Geographical isolation and the causes of island endemism
9. Social Selection
10. Social selection and the evolution of song
11. Divergence in response to increased sexual selection
12. Social selection and ecology
13. Species recognition
14. Mate choice at the end of speciation
15. Hybrid zones
16. Genetic incompatibility
17. Conclusions

Speciation in Birds has the LCSH:

Birds—Speciation

Browsing the Relative Index for "birds" yields:

Birds                     598
. . . .
Birds—evolution       598.138

Also, in the schedule record for 576.8 Evolution is the see reference: "For evolution of animals, see 591.38."  The see reference has hierarchical force and carries subordinate topics of evolution like speciation at 576.86 with it.

At 591 Specific topics in natural history of animals is a scatter note: "Class a specific topic in natural history of animals with respect to a specific taxonomic group of animals with the group of animals, plus notation 1 from table under 592–599, e.g., beneficial mammals 599.163."  Hence the base number for the work will be 598 Aves (Birds).   The footnote add instruction at 598 leads to 592–599 Specific taxonomic groups of animals.  At that span is an add table with the following:

1 General topics of natural history of animals

Add to base number 1 the numbers following 591 in 591.3-591.7, e.g., beneficial animals 163, marine animals 177

At 591 Specific topics in natural history of animals is a table of preference that places behavior, evolution, and ecology in the following order:

Behavior                                                                         591.5

Genetics, evolution, young animals                                      591.3

Animal ecology, animals characteristic of specific environments 591.7

Both behavior (e.g., social selection) and ecology are discussed in Speciation in Birds, but both are discussed as causes of speciation, a subordinate topic of evolution.  Although the table of preference might suggest that the work should be classed with behavior, the rule of application overrides the table of preference, and the work is classed with evolution.

Speciation in Birds is classed in 598.138 Evolution of birds (built with 598 Aves [Birds] plus 1 from the add table under 592–599 Specific taxonomic groups of animals plus 38 from 591.38 Evolution).  The built number appears in the Relative Index, as noted above.

Graham flour, graham bread, graham crackers

(This is the fourth in a series of posts on eponyms.)

Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) is best known today for his eponymous bread and crackers, although he would not recognize (or approve of) some of the products now known by his name.  For example, chocolate graham crackers or graham crackers with a cinnamon-and-sugar topping are substantially different from the graham crackers originally created by Graham.  Indeed, we should probably use the terms “graham bread” and “graham crackers” only in conjunction with the use of graham flour, also created by and named after Sylvester Graham, and in which the components of the wheat kernel are ground separately (the endosperm finely; the bran and germ coarsely) and then combined.  (See the description of graham flour given on the Home Cooking channel on About.com.) 

Graham flour is classed in 641.3311 Food from wheat (built with 641.3 Food plus 311 from 633.11 Wheat, following the add instructions at 641.33–.35 Specific food from plant crops.  Graham bread is classed in 641.815 Bread and bread-like foods (a see reference at 641.3 Food indicates that interdisciplinary works on specific dishes are classed in 641.8 Cooking specific kinds of dishes and preparing beverages). 

And then we come to graham crackers.   Are they really crackers?  (Sylvester Graham must have thought so.)  If so, they should be classed in the same number as graham bread (crackers are mentioned in the including note at 641.815 Bread and bread-like foods).  Or, given that modern graham crackers are often located alongside cookies on grocery store shelves, should they be classed in 641.8654 Cookies?  (A see reference at 641.815 draws off pastries to 641.865, of which 641.8654 is a subdivision.)  We could pursue these questions by exploring the relationship between graham crackers and digestive biscuits, as well as the relationship between English biscuits and American cookies.  We could look at definitions of crackers, biscuits, and cookies.  In the end, perhaps the clearest thing we could say is that graham crackers are neither the prototypical cracker nor the prototypical cookie, but the original graham cracker was more cracker-like and modern graham crackers tend to be more cookie-like.  In reality, the question is somewhat moot, because the literature on graham crackers is almost always on some aspect of graham crackers (e.g., nutrition education; the graham cracker market) that takes it outside of 641 altogether.

Sylvester Graham’s creation of graham flour, graham bread, and graham crackers was a part of the Graham Diet, which eschewed white bread, meat, and spices (as well as alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea), espousing instead a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.  A leading advocate of the healthy food movement in the 19^th century, Graham helped to establish the American Vegetarian Society.  To round out the story, early in his adult life, Sylvester Graham was ordained as a Presbyterian minister and was also associated with the Pennsylvania Temperance Society, serving as a traveling speaker.   In sum, Graham was a social reformer.

“Social reform movements” appear in the class-here note at 303.484 Purposefully induced change, where the scatter class-elsewhere note, “Class innovation and reform directed to a specific end with the end, e.g., reform of banking 332.1” also appears.   Consequently, health reform should be classed in 613 Personal health and safety, while diet reform should be classed in 613.2 Dietetics; health reformers and diet reformers would be classed in 613.092 and 613.2092, respectively.  A biography emphasizing his contributions to vegetarianism would be classed more specifically in 613.262092 Vegetarianism—biography.   A biography on Graham emphasizing that his dietary reforms were aimed at curbing alcoholism or curbing sexual urges might be classed in 613.81092 Alcohol abuse—biography or 613.95092 Sex hygiene--biography, respectively.  (Although Sylvester Graham was not formally educated in medicine, the title of Martha H. Verbrugge’s “Healthy Animals and Civic Life: Sylvester Graham's Physiology of Subsistence” [Reviews in American History 9:3 (September 1981), 359-364] is not meant ironically.  Numbers in 610 Medicine and health therefore are not inappropriate.)   

But what would the comprehensive biography number for Sylvester Graham be?  The Manual note at T1—092 Biography instructs us, “If the person made approximately equal contributions to a number of fields”—which seems to be the case here—“use the number for the subject that provides the best common denominator.”   For this reason, we should choose a general number.  A comprehensive biography for Sylvester Graham should therefore be classed in 613.092 Personal health—biography.

Evolution

A recent article in Science ("Founder Effects Persist Despite Adaptive Differentiation: A Field Experiment with Lizards") got me thinking about how to classify works on evolution. Different aspects of evolution are classed in different numbers.  A work that emphasizes evolution commonly also considers the interrelated topics ecology and adaptation.

One of the works cited in the article may serve as an example: The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation. The publisher's description and the table of contents help clarify the scope and focus of the work:

Adaptive radiation is the evolution of diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage. It can cause a single ancestral species to differentiate into an impressively vast array of species inhabiting a variety of environments. Much of life's diversity has arisen during adaptive radiations. Some of the most famous recent examples include the East African cichilid fishes, the Hawaiian silverswords, and Darwin's Galapagos finches. This book evaluates the causes of adaptive radiation. It focuses on the 'ecological' theory of adaptive radiation, a body of ideas that began with Darwin and were developed through the early part of the 20th century. This theory proposes that phenotypic divergence and speciation in adaptive radiation are caused ultimately by divergent natural selection arising from differences in environment and competition between species. The text re-evaluates the ecological theory, along with its most significant extensions and challenges, in the light of all the recent evidence.

Contents:

1. The origins of ecological diversity
2. Detecting adaptive radiation
3. The progress of adaptive radiation
4. The ecological theory of adaptive radiation
5. Divergent natural selection between environments
6. Divergence and species interactions
7. Ecological opportunity
8. The ecological basis of speciation
9. Divergence along genetic lines of least resistance
10. The ecology of adaptive radiation

As the examples in the description suggest, The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation covers a range of plants and animals.  The work has the LCSH:

Evolution (Biology)
Adaptive radiation (Evolution)
Ecology
Adaptation (Biology)

Browsing the Relative Index for "evolution" yields:

Evolution 576.8

Searching or browsing for "adaptive radiation" yields no hits, but browsing the Relative Index for "radiation" yields one relevant entry:

Radiation (Biological evolution) 576.84

The schedule record 576.84 Evolutionary cycles has the class-here note: "Class here catastrophes, extinction, radiation."

Browsing the Relative Index for "ecology" yields:

Ecology 577

By the rule of application, since ecology is discussed as a cause of adaptive radiation, the work is classed with adaptive radiation in 576.84 rather than ecology.

Browsing the Relative Index for "adaptation" yields:

Adaptation (Biology) 578.4

The entry 578 Natural history of organisms and related subjects, which is part of the upward hierarchy of 578.4 Adaptation, has the see reference: "For genetics and evolution, see 576."  That reference has hierarchical force.

Various aspects of evolution are discussed in the work.  Natural selection (named in a class-here note at 576.82 Theories of evolution) is discussed as a cause of adaptive radiation. Speciation (named at 576.86 Speciation) is discussed only in the context of adaptive radiation.  The emphasis is on adaptive radiation. The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation is classed in 576.84 Evolutionary cycles.

 

Nicotine

(This is the third in a series of posts on eponyms.)

Within the nightshade family of plants is the genus Nicotiana, including more than 70 species of tobacco.  Both the genus name Nicotiana and nicotine, the alkaloid that is the principal constituent of the tobacco leaf, are derived from the name of Jean Nicot de Villemain (1530–1600), a French diplomat and scholar.   As France’s ambassador to Portugal, Nicot sent tobacco seeds that had originated in the New World to Paris in 1560; he also recommended tobacco to the queen, Catherine de Medici, for migraine headches, thus introducing medicinal use of tobacco to the French court. 

The literature on nicotine is inseparable from the literature on tobacco and has many aspects.   For example, from a social welfare perspective, tobacco abuse is classed in 362.296 Tobacco as a subdivision of 362.29 Substance abuse  (for example, Smoking.drugabuse.gov:  Nicotine addiction ... and other dangers of tobacco use); from a human toxicology persective, tobacco is classed in 615.9523952 (built with 615.952 Plant poisons, plus 3952 from 583.952 Solanaceae [the scientific name for the nightshade family], following the add instruction at 615.9523–615.9528 Specific plant poisons; for example, Toxicology:  Tobacco-specific n-nitrosamines:  Recent advances); from an agricultural perspective, tobacco is classed in 633.71 Tobacco as an alkaloidal field crop (for example, The culture of tobacco).  Other appropriate numbers can be seen by browsing the Relative Index under Tobacco, Tobacco abuse, Tobacco industry, etc.  No interdisciplinary number for nicotine or tobacco is given.

Works on Jean Nicot de Villemain as a French diplomat should be classed in 327.440092 Foreign relations of France—biography (built with 327 International relations, plus T2—44 France, plus T1—0092 Biography [the use of 00 for standard subdivisions is given in a footnote], following the add instructions at 327.3–327.9 Foreign relations of specific continents, countries, localities).  (The Manual note at T1—092 Biography indicates that for public figures, greatest weight should be given to the highest office reached, after which it specifies that 327.3–.9 should be used for ambassadors.)  While Nicot may be best known for introducing the use of tobacco to France, his most significant work was the compilation of Thresor de la langue françoyse, tant ancienne que moderne, perhaps the first modern dictionary of the French language.   Works on Jean Nicot as a French lexicographer should be classed in 443.092 French lexicographers (built with 44(0) French, plus T4—3 Dictionaries, plus T1—092 Biography).   Although lexicography is in the class-here note at T4—3028 Auxiliary techniques and procedures; apparatus, equipment, materials, in the preference table for Table 1, T1—092 Biography is higher than T1—028 Auxiliary techniques and procedures; apparatus, equipment, materials.

But what about a comprehensive biography of Jean Nicot?  The Manual note at T1—092 Biography gives the following instructions:   “Use the number for the subject of the person’s most noted contribution for the comprehensive biography of the person.   If the person made approximately equal contributions to a number of fields, use the number for the subject that provides the best common denominator, giving some extra consideration to the person’s occupation.”   The introduction of tobacco to the French court, from which the use of tobacco was further disseminated throughout Europe, was a “contribution” of significant effect, marked by the eponymous use of his surname for tobacco’s scientific name and for its chief chemical compound.  But however significant the effects of his actions with respect to tobacco, his ambassadorship was of only 2-3 years’ duration.  The remaining 40 years of his life were spent as a man of learning.  No number would seem to provide a best common denominator across the range of his contributions.  The Manual note subsequently instructs:  “Class an individual biography in the number most nearly covering the history and civilization of the place and time of the activity emphasized when a work is not clearly associated with any subject but is clearly associated with a place, even in cases when a person’s activity may not approximate the whole of the most specific period.”  Consequently, a comprehensive work on Jean Nicot is best classed in 944.029092 (built with 944.029 Historical periods of France—reigns of Francis II, Charles IX, Henry III, 1559–1589, plus T1—092 Biography).

Tuesday Afternoon

Well, that's what it is right now for the Dewey editorial team (save consulting assistant editor Giles Martin in Australia, who is probably already into Wednesday morning).  But it's also the title of the sixth song in the set that the Moody Blues played last night in Pittsburgh.  Listening to them, I couldn’t help but muse about how useful it is to have the note "Class here specific rock styles" under 781.66 Rock (Rock 'n' roll).  In a show that ranged from pure rock ("I'm Just a Singer [in a Rock and Roll Band]") to spoken word ("Late Lament") to the something-for-everyone-in-one-song ("Question"), I thought about how hard it is to describe the Moody Blues beyond rock.  The Manual note at 781.62 vs. 781.63-.66 Folk and popular music instructs one to use allmusic.com or a similar online source for help determining the style of music.  Allmusic.com lists the Moody Blues in the Pop/Rock genre, with the styles of Prog-Rock, Contemporary Pop/Rock, Album Rock, Art Rock, British Invasion, Psychedelic, British Psychedelia, and AM Pop.  I think this gives you an idea of why we decided not to subdivide 781.66 by specific rock styles!

The biography number for the Moody Blues is 782.421660922 (built with 782.42 Songs plus 1 General principles [from the add table under 782.1-782.4 Vocal forms] plus 66 Rock music [from 781.66, following the instructions in the aforementioned add table] plus T1—0922 Collected biography).  For that last element, if you were tempted to add collected biography by geographic area and slip in T1—092242 (T1—0922 plus T2—42 England) or T1—092242496 (T1—0922 plus T2—42496 Birmingham), please don't do so.  The Manual note at  T1—0922 Collected biography instructs:  "Do not use area subdivisions for collected biography of groups that have a strong collective personal identity, even though all the members are known to have come from one particular area, e.g., the Beatles 782.421660922 (not 782.42166092242 or 782.42166092242753)."

And yes, they did play "Nights in White Satin."