025.431: The Dewey blog

Endangered languages

Recently we have added notes to clarify how to classify works on endangered languages and responses to language endangerment (approved at EPC meeting 141 in October).

The key notes are found at the interdisciplinary number, 306.44 Language:

Class here anthropological linguistics, ethnolinguistics, sociolinguistics; endangered languages; responses to endangerment of languages, e.g., language documentation, language revitalization

Class effects of language endangerment on specific linguistic elements with the linguistic element, e.g., effects of language endangerment on morphology 415.9

Class documentation of a specific language or language family with the language or language family, e.g., a grammar of Koroshi (a dialect of Baluchi) 491.598

As Rebecca Green, former Dewey Editorial Program Manager, wrote to EPC:

Causes of language endangerment include natural catastrophes, famine, disease; war and genocide; overt repression; and cultural/political/economic dominance (Austin and Sallabank, p. 5). Of these, the latter category is the most common.

Responses to the shrinking diversity of human language have included language documentation, that is, an attempt to record the basic vocabulary and syntax of a language before it dies, and language revitalization, an attempt to reverse the decline of native speakers of the language.

We see endangered languages as a sociolinguistic phenomenon, with 306.44 Language (with anthropological linguistics, ethnolinguistics, and sociolinguistics named in its class-here note) as the best number for interdisciplinary works. Sociocultural factors are typically prominent in both the decay and the attempted revival of an endangered language, further supporting the choice of an interdisciplinary number under 306.44 over a number in the 4xx hierarchy.

Austin, Peter K., and Julia Sallabank. 2015. The Cambridge handbook of endangered languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Because endangered languages and responses to endangered languages are in a class-here note at 306.44, standard subdivisions can be added, and subdivisions of 306.44 are available, for example:

306.442 Anthropological linguistics, ethnolinguistics, sociolinguistics of a specific language

306.449 Language planning and policy

 At 410 Linguistics are these notes:

Class here . . . . interdisciplinary works on language documentation

For sociolinguistics, language documentation as a response to endangerment of languages, see 306.44

At 417.7 Historical linguistics (Diachronic linguistics) is this note:

Class endangered languages in 306.44

Here are examples of works classed in 306.44 Language:

Endangered languages: An introduction (306.44)

Language death: Factual and theoretical explorations with special reference to East Africa (306.4409676—built with 306.44 plus T1—09 plus T2—Uganda and Kenya, which has note “Class here East Africa”)

Reversing language shift in the Far North: Linguistic revitalization in Northern Scandinavia and Finland (306.44948—built with 306.449 Language planning and policy plus T2—48 Scandinavia and Finland)

Note: The Cambridge handbook of endangered languages should also be classed in 306.44.

Here are examples of works classed in 400s:

A grammar of Tundra Nenets (494.4—built with 494 Altaic, Uralic, Hyperborean, Dravidian languages, miscellaneous languages of south Asia plus numbers following T6—94 in T6—944 Samoyedic languages)

 A grammar of Chiapas Zoque (497.43—built with 497.4 Penutian, Mayan, Mixe-Zoque, Uto-Aztecan, Kiowa-Tanoan languages plus numbers following T6—974 in T6—9743 Mixe-Zoque languages)

 

Apply to be the 2019 Dewey Decimal Intern

The editorial team is pleased to offer another internship this summer! The Dewey Decimal Intern will work full-time at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. This is a paid internship that will last twelve weeks over the course of summer 2019; dates are flexible. Find the internship description and application form here. (Though the description says "work from home," the intern will need to work at the Library of Congress office in DC.)

Differing slightly from previous internships, this year the intern role will include work that echoes the work done by the editors. The intern will research subject areas that need revision in the DDC, investigating classification trends in published literature and proposing additions or revisions. We're also looking for someone who will help us spread the word about the work that the editorial team does to ensure the DDC is kept up to date.

Dewey Editor Alex Kyrios was the first Dewey Decimal Intern back in 2011, I was the intern in 2012 and 2013, and Rachel Maxwell joined the Dewey team as intern in 2017 and 2018. This position started my interest in classification—it's a great way to learn the intricacies of the DDC as well as gain a deeper understanding of the work that goes into maintaining a classification. Please consider applying today!

Mapping Dewey: 1936 Dewey Decimal Map of the United States

My spouse is a map nerd, so when I saw the book Picturing America : the golden age of pictorial maps (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, in association with the Library of Congress, 2017) in the Library of Congress gift shop, I bought him a copy. While looking through it he called me over to show me one of the map reproductions in the book: a Dewey map of the U.S.! I was able to request the map at the Library of Congress and view it in its full-size (48 x 71 cm) glory.

The Dewey Decimal map of the United States : a guide to library shelves was created in 1936 by Bertine E. Weston, who served as Library Journal editor in the 1930s and 1940s. As one of the keys explains, the map also provides class numbers for "products, industries, etc., found among the various states and neighboring waters simply to provide a further guide to the shelves."

The guide to the map explains that "Books on the history of a state will be found on the shelves under the classification number shown on the map. The shelf number for books of travel, etc., will be found by placing the Figure 1 after the Initial 9. Thus the history number for Illinois 977.3 becomes 917.73 for travel, Topography, etc." That’s a nicely succinct way of describing the patterns of the 900s built off of Table 2's geographic areas.

Below are a few details of the map. I love the spouting whale off the coast of Washington and the alligator crawling out of the boundaries of Florida!

Local option for classifying works about Indigenous peoples

The recent addition of a local option to the DDC Introduction for prioritizing Indigenous groups (approved at EPC meeting 141 in October) is an excellent opportunity to highlight some of the work that former Dewey Editorial Program Manager Rebecca Green has engaged in in this area during the last five years.

In 2013 the Dewey editors began studying in earnest the complaints seen about the classification of materials about Indigenous peoples in the DDC. One frequently repeated critique is the assertion that works about North American Indigenous peoples are "historicized," that is, isolated into the Dewey 900s and thus placed in a historical context. Rebecca addresses this claim in her 2015 paper "Indigenous Peoples in the U.S., Sovereign Nations, and the DDC," demonstrating that Indigenous peoples of North America are treated in the same way that any other peoples associated with a geographic area are. For example, a book about the history of American Indian education is classed in the 370s (Education) and not in the 900s. As an example, Boarding school blues : revisiting American Indian educational experiences is classed in 371.82997 Schools for North American native peoples, built with 371.829 Schools for ethnic and national groups, plus T5--97 North American native peoples, following the add instruction at 371.8291-371.8299 Schools for specific ethnic and national groups. This treatment is the same as any other ethnicity would receive.

In that paper Rebecca goes on to review other criticisms of the DDC and lays out several areas where improvements could be made. The most significant was the need to represent Indigenous nations as a subject distinct from Indigenous peoples. Ultimately, a proposal was put forth to represent Indigenous nations with notation that incorporated Table 2 (Geographic Areas) notation for continent plus Table 5 (Ethic and National Groups) notation for the Indigenous people.

In 2017 Rebecca wrote a discussion paper describing this prospective Table 2 notation along with potential schedule options for collocating literature about specific Indigenous groups. Over the course of her investigations, Rebecca shared proposals and discussion papers with, and sought feedback from, information professionals at the American Indian Resource Center, County of Los Angeles Public Library; the Xwi7xwa Library, University of British Columbia; the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia; the University of Missouri; and such groups as the University of Washington Indigenous Information Research Group, the IFLA Indigenous Matters Section, and the American Indian Library Association.

The feedback from those experts was generally positive about the approach; however, they were concerned about the length of the notation required. As Rebecca wrote in EPC exhibit 141-T2.1, the reviewers "mostly see the proposal as a good faith effort to acknowledge and provide for Indigenous nations in a manner consistent with general principles of the DDC, but also see the end results as an approach unlikely to be useful in the context of Indigenous institutions." Essentially, the proposal was useful in theory, but it was unclear who would benefit from the notation in practice. Rebecca discussed this feedback at a 2017 ASIS&T SIG/CR (Special Interest Group on Classification Research) workshop presentation, "Providing for Indigenous Nations in the Dewey Decimal Classification."

During the October EPC meeting, it was decided that the development of Table 2 notation to represent North American Indigenous groups would be postponed, at least for the time being. In the meantime, a simpler notation was devised as a non-standard option for libraries with collections that emphasize Indigenous subjects; the following text was approved and has been added to the Introduction:

12.7 If organization by Indigenous people is preferred over organization by subject, a local-option notation could be formulated by appending Dewey notation for the subject to an alphabetic code representing an Indigenous people. Given the close relationship between peoples and languages, possible sources for the alphabetic code are the ISO 639 Language Codes (parts 1–3 can be searched at https://iso639-3.sil.org/code_tables/639/read). For example, under such an option, Yupik education could be represented as YPK370.

To be clear, libraries using Dewey are always welcome to implement local solutions to areas where standard notation does not serve their users well. This addition to the Introduction simply provides one potential local option that may prove useful for tribal libraries and other libraries that wish to highlight their Indigenous collections.

Given the amount of thought and effort that Rebecca poured into identifying potential solutions, this result may perhaps seem a little anticlimactic. But that effort expresses the considerate deliberation required for the complex and sensitive issues involved in the representation of and access to Indigenous materials. As she shared in her SIG/CR presentation, Rebecca's work also reflects the most important feedback the editors received over years of consultation: that "the process of working through changes is as important as the result; it is crucial that the voice and perspective of Indigenous Americans be reflected in the representation of their nations in the DDC." This outcome also represents the fact that there is no single approach to Indigenous classification that Indigenous information professionals agree on or agree would be best for all or most institutions.

What is an easy way to determine whether adding a standard subdivision to a specific number in WebDewey would violate the rule against adding one standard subdivision to another standard subdivision?

The rule against adding one standard subdivision to another standard subdivision is complicated, as can be seen in this note at T1—0 Table 1. Standard Subdivisions:

Do not add one standard subdivision to another standard subdivision unless specifically instructed. Standard subdivisions may be added to special notation listed in the regular standard subdivision sequence, to subdivisions of T1—04 Special topics that are specifically listed in the schedules, and to displaced standard subdivisions wherever they appear. Numbers in the schedules that look as though they were built with notation from this table but are outside the regular sequence of standard subdivisions are not considered “standard” subdivisions. Hence notation from Table 1 may be added to such schedule numbers

The Introduction (section 8) expands on this instruction with examples, but the matter is still difficult. What is the simplest way to determine whether it is OK to add a standard subdivision to a specific number in WebDewey? Look for the Synthesized number components box, newly introduced in a September 2018 WebDewey update.

(1) If the Synthesized number components box shows that the number was built with standard notation from Table 1, then it is forbidden to add another standard subdivision. For example, 370.1 Philosophy and theory, education for specific objectives, educational psychology has this Synthesized number components box:

Similarly, 370.14 Communication has this Synthesized number components box:

The presence of a class-here note in a record for a number built with standard notation from Table 1 does not grant permission to add another standard subdivision. For example, 535.220287 Testing and measurement has the class-here note “Class here photometry” to show that the standard subdivision has an extended meaning in context; but the Synthesized number components box makes clear that the number was built with standard notation from Table 1, and no second standard subdivision may be added to 535.220287.

(Some regular standard subdivisions have instructions for adding special notation to the standard subdivision, e.g., T1—08 Groups of people and T1—093-T1—099 Specific continents, countries, localities; extraterrestrial worlds. Following those instructions where they exist in Table 1 is not the same thing as adding one standard subdivision to another standard subdivision.)

 (2) If there is no Synthesized number components box for the number, then standard subdivisions notation may be added. The Introduction cites 370.11 Education for specific objectives as an example of “special notation listed in the regular standard subdivision sequence.” That special notation does not come from Table 1; T1—011 Systems has a different meaning; a note at 370.11 says “Do not use for systems; class in 370.1.” The absence of a Synthesized number components box for 370.11 makes it clear that the number is special notation, not built with regular standard subdivisions notation. Similarly, 370.113 Vocational education has no Synthesized number components box. Standard subdivisions may be added to build, for example: 370.1130941 Vocational education—Great Britain.

The Introduction cites 155.9042 Stress as an example of a subdivision of T1—04 Special topics that is specifically listed in the schedules. The number 155.9042 has no Synthesized number components box; standard subdivisions may be added.

(3) If there is a Synthesized number components box, but the number was not built with standard notation from Table 1, then standard subdivisions may be added. The Introduction cites the example of geographic treatment of penal institutions being displaced from 365[.09] History, geographic treatment, biography to 365.9 History, geographic treatment, biography. The number 365.973 Imprisonment—United States, . . . has this Synthesized number components box:

(To use the WebDewey number building tool to add a standard subdivision to a built number like 365.973, you will need to build the number from scratch, starting in this case at 365.91-365.99 Geographic treatment, biography.)

Note: Number spans in WebDewey never have a Synthesized number components box; but spans of numbers built with regular standard subdivisions usually have the caption “Standard subdivisions.”

We’re pleased that the Synthesized number components box is now available to provide insight into how specific numbers are built. It’s a useful new feature for both beginners and more advanced Dewey users to better understand number building.