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!
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