025.431: The Dewey blog

The Winter Olympic Games: Something Old, Something New

While the Olympic Games have a long and illustrious history, the specific sports included as part of the Olympics vary over time.  In preparation for the publication of DDC 23, the current slate of games—both summer and winter—was reviewed and updated.

Accordingly, since our last post on the Winter Olympic Games, several events in the Winter Olympics have been given their own DDC numbers:

Event	DDC number
Biathlon	796.9322
Bobsleigh	796.952
Luge	796.954
Skeleton	796.956

Examples of works for which these numbers are now appropriate—the works mentioned here pre-date the expansions—include:

Biathlon, cross-country, ski jumping, and Nordic combined

Yes, I can!: the story of the Jamaican bobsled team; this work would now be classed at 796.95209227292 (built from 796.952 Bobsleigh + T1—0922 Collective biography + T2—7292 Jamaica, following the add instruction at T1—0922)

Olympic luge

Headfirst: the Olympic success story of skeleton

In the case of other winter Olympic sports, existing notes have been modified so that comprehensive mention of individual events is given:

796.914  Speed skating           

Class here long track speed skating, short track speed skating

796.937  Freestyle skiing        

Including aerial and mogul skiing; ski cross

796.939  Snowboarding          

Including big air, halfpipe, slopestyle snowboarding; snowboard cross (boardercross), parallel giant slalom racing

Class here alpine, freestyle snowboarding

Long track speed skating and short track speed skating were not given their own numbers because the literature most often treats the sport comprehensively.  For example, Speed skating has chapters on each of the individual speed skating events in the winter Olympics.  Similarly, the literatures on freestyle skiing and snowboarding tend to treat the sports as a whole (e.g., Freestyle skiing; Snowboarding: techniques and tricks), but some of the literature focuses on individual styles (e.g., Men's aerials & women's moguls 1; Extreme halfpipe snowboarding moves).  None of these styles yet has sufficient literary warrant to justify its own number, but we’ll keep our eyes open. 

Let the games begin!

Today--Friday, February 7, 2014--marks the commencement of the XXII Winter Olympic Games with a carefully orchestrated group of opening ceremonies.  One of the elements of the opening ceremonies is the parade of participants, which the International Olympic Committee's factsheet describes in this manner:

Tradition dictates that the delegations parade in alphabetical order according to the language of the host country, except for Greece, which leads the parade, and the host country, which brings up the rear. . . . Each delegation is led in by its flag and a board displaying its name.

Being chosen as the flag bearer for one's country in these opening ceremonies is a great honor, the choice resulting from the vote of the team captains of each sport.  Typically the flag bearer is one of the athletes competing in the games.  Two exceptions stand out in the list of U.S. flag bearers:  for the 1906 Intercalated Games (Summer) the U.S. flag bearer was Matthew Halpin, the team manager; for the 1928 Olympic Games (Winter) the U.S. flag bearer was none other than Godfrey Dewey, son of Melvil Dewey, and we trust you all know who he is.

And how did Godfrey Dewey end up as the U.S. flag bearer for the 1928 Olympics, held in St. Moritz, Switzerland?  A Sports Illustrated article on the 1932 games reports the following: 

The town [Lake Placid, N.Y.] received, in 1927, a feeler from the U.S. Olympic Committee. Would Lake Placid consider bidding for the 1932 Winter Games? No, said the city fathers, who for generations had been content to let slow enough alone. Why not? said Dr. Dewey, who was convinced that Lake Placid was already the winter sports capital of the U.S. . . .

On his own, Dr. Dewey headed off on a tour of European ski resorts—Chamonix, where the first Winter Games had been held in 1924, Gstaad, Mürren and finally St. Moritz for a live viewing of the 1928 Winter Olympics.

But again we ask: how did Godfrey Dewey end up as the U.S. flag bearer for the 1928 Olympics?   The website of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame and Museum (Godfrey was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1970) provides additional insight: 

Godfrey Dewey's ski sport experience won him the role of manager of the 1928 U.S. Winter Olympic Team that competed in St. Moritz, Swizterland.  He was instrumental in bringing the 1932 Winter Olympic Games to Lake Placid, New York.  In 1936, he wrote an article "Ski Hill Design."  This article published by the National Ski Association gave the principles, profiles and tables sufficient to determine the most suitable hill for a given site and design profile with assurance that it would give the desired results. For over 65 years he was an outstanding ski sport developer for the Adirondack region which saw Nordic and alpine phases become exceptional recreational and competitive pastimes.

So we see that both U.S. flag bearers who were not athletes competing in the games were team managers.

We should note that it was under Melvil Dewey that the development of the Lake Placid Club took place.  It was the Club that made Lake Placid a viable candidate for the Winter Olympics, while it was largely through Godfrey Dewey’s efforts that they actually came there.  Lake Placid was also the venue for the 1980 Winter Olympics.

If you’re in an Olympics frame-of-mind, you might want to check out any of our myriad (sort of goes with Olympiad, huh?) related posts from the 2010 winter games and the 2012 summer games:

• Winter Olympic Games
• Olympics 2012 Prequel                                 
• Women’s Soccer (Football)        
• Dewey goes Olympic!                   
• After a weekend away from the Olympics       
• London calling (the Dewey team)                    
• Olympic Basketball Courts           
• Midweek wrap-up, tape delayed
• When athleticism and aesthetics meet
• Where are they now?   
• Olympic Etymology        

Cookbook Finder and Dewey

"Cookbook Finder is an experimental, works-based application that provides access to thousands of cookbooks and other works about food and nutrition described in library records. You can search by person, place, topic, course, ingredient, method, Dewey and more." Cookbook Finder was developed by OCLC Research.  

Although Dewey has always been part of Cookbook Finder, it has now become visible, with assignable numbers from DDC 23 (including built numbers) appearing with captions in detailed-record displays.  To search by Dewey number, click the class number in the detailed record.

Detailed records in Cookbook Finder are long, but here is the beginning of a detailed record, showing the Dewey number:

 

If you find a work that you want, you can click the cover art (or the cover art place holder) in the detailed record to go to the record in WorldCat.org to find the work in a library.

What is included in Cookbook Finder?
•    Commercial, community, society cookbooks
•    Culinary biography
•    Literary cookbooks
•    Popular and scholarly works on food and nutrition
What formats? Print, electronic, video, audio, etc.

With Cookbook Finder, you can type "biography" into the basic search box, and the first result will be My Life in France by Julia Child, followed by biographies of other cooks—very different from typing "biography" into the search box of WorldCat.org or a typical library OPAC!

Using Advanced Search in Cookbook Finder, you can type "desserts" in the Subject box and "Italy" in the Place box to retrieve 43 works, including Sweet Maria's Italian Desserts: Classic and Casual Recipes for Cookies, Cakes, Pastry, and Other Favorites; and Dolci Toscani: The Book of Tuscan Desserts.  The detailed records display: 641.86 Desserts.  A bibliographic record may have a more specific number—641.860945 or 641.8609455 (built with 641.86 Desserts plus T1—09 History, geographic treatment, biography plus T2—45 Italy or T2—455 Tuscany region)—but those built numbers are not found in the DDC 23 database (the database distributed in WebDewey).  Only a number in the DDC 23 database will be displayed in Cookbook Finder, because the caption is needed to explain the number.  

Among the "Related Works" listed with Sweet Maria's Italian Desserts is Sweet Maria's Italian Cookie Tray.  The detailed record for that work displays 641.8654 Cookies.  Among the next steps planned for the Cookbook Finder is provision of browsing based on Dewey hierarchy; that would provide another way to get from desserts to cookies.

Using Advanced Search, you can type "Italian cooking" into the Subject box to retrieve 3863 results, including Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes and Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany. The detailed records display 641.5945 Cooking—Italy and 641.59455 Cooking--Tuscany (Italy). In these cases, the built numbers are in the database (641.59 Cooking characteristic of specific geographic environments, ethnic cooking plus T2—45 Italy or T2—455 Tuscany region).

If you click the DDC number 641.59455 in the detailed record for Heat, you get 142 results.  If you are looking strictly for a cookbook, you can use the "Narrow Your Results" option at the left to limit a search to the genre "Cookbooks"; that leaves 7 results, excluding Heat but including The Tuscan Sun Cookbook: Recipes from our Italian Kitchen.

Also in the DDC 23 database are these numbers and captions:
    641.59451 Cooking--Northern Italy
    641.59457 Cooking--Southern Italy
    641.59458 Cooking--Sicily (Italy)
These represent another opportunity for future browsing based on Dewey hierarchy.

(Note: Information about Cookbook Finder was supplied by Diane Vizine-Goetz, Senior Research Scientist, OCLC Research.)