Joan is off in Florence (yes, Florence, Italy, not Florence, Nebraska) speaking at the Global Interoperability and Linked Data in Libraries Seminar, so I’m stepping in to report on last week’s meeting of the Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee (EPC)—Meeting 135—held in Dublin (yes, Dublin, Ohio, not Dublin, Ireland—hmm, that just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?). Stay tuned for a report from Joan on the Florence meeting later this week.
This EPC meeting had a strong people component to it—and we’re not talking Table 1—08 Groups of people here.
- EPC welcomed two new committee members: Pat Riva, Coordinator of the Monographs Section in the Cataloguing Directorate for Heritage Collections (Direction du traitement documentaire des collections patrimoniales) at Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) in Montreal, Canada, and Gert de Jager, Subject Cataloguer, Unisa Library, University of South Africa in Pretoria, South Africa. Incidentally, Pat is also speaking at the Florence seminar.
- EPC celebrated the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee by re-electing Caroline Kent (British Library) as chair and electing Jonathan Furner (UCLA, but, as you may recall, formerly an assistant editor of the DDC) as vice-chair (you can take the Englishman out of the British Isles, but fortunately the accent lingers on). Jonathan replaces Anne Robertson (Australian Committee on Cataloguing), who had served the maximum number of years as vice-chair.
- EPC passed a resolution congratulating and offering best wishes to Jay Jordan, outgoing president and CEO of OCLC. As the resolution noted, Jay has “unfailingly [advocated] and [supported] the mission of the Dewey Decimal Classification;” we trust he will remain “a Friend of Dewey.”
- Where’s the picture of all these people? you ask. Remember our trusty photographer Giles Martin, who retired from his position as assistant editor of the DDC last year and returned home to Australia? The lack of an official photograph of the EPC meeting is only one of the more visible losses (pun intended) we have suffered with Giles’ relocation to Australia. (But note that we have not discontinued him! Giles is still contributing to DDC maintenance and development.)
The agenda included proposals related to modifications to EPC work methods and DDC development (for example, how can data from WorldCat be used to inform development of the DDC?), new editorial rules for segmentation and for oceans and seas, and updates to the classification. More particularly, a new standard subdivision for archaeology is coming; small updates to the classification in Table 2 Geographic Areas were approved, as were updates in 004-006 Computer science and 330 Economics. The committee considered discussion papers on Islamic law; the treatment of marriage, partnerships, and unions in the DDC; and the possible adoption of a new taxonomic basis for 583-584 Angiosperms. The committee approved follow-up discussion and consultation on all but the last.
The committee had a wide-ranging discussion on engaging with Dewey users and the role of social media. The agenda also included presentations on modeling topics in the DDC, DDC research, DDC training, edition-level metadata, Dewey linked data, data provenance, upcoming enhancements to WebDewey 2.0, and the virtual chronological/regional religion browser.
Two follow-up electronic meetings have been scheduled: Meeting 135A will take place the first week in October and will focus on Islamic law, while Meeting 135B has been scheduled for the first week in November to consider a revised proposal on marriage, partnerships, and unions. The next face-to-face meeting of EPC—Meeting 136—will be held at OCLC headquarters in Dublin, Ohio, 13–14 May 2013.
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