Previously, we told you about a new feature in WebDewey: the Number Components option in the advanced search. I wanted to go into a bit more detail about this feature so you can see what it can (and can’t) do.
First things first: any Number Components search will only be looking at built numbers. That includes all numbers that display with a puzzle-piece icon, or the human-figure icons that represent personal or institutional built numbers. It also includes numbers without icons that still count as built numbers. In most cases, those numbers without icons are built with standard subdivisions. Here’s an example:
What’s going on here? It’s building from standard subdivision T1—01 Philosophy and theory, as you can see in the Synthesized number components, but it’s using a modification of the standard subdivision for this area. Namely, it has a do-not-use note, adds a –013 that is otherwise absent from Table 1, and defines –015 differently than T1—015. A number like 792.01 would be given in a printed version of the classification to carry these notes. By contrast, the puzzle-piece records in WebDewey would either only show up in the Relative Index in print or not at all.
In short, a Number Components search looks at what’s in a Synthesized number components box. If a record doesn’t have one, a Number Components search won’t retrieve it. Looking at the same example of 792.01, a Number Components search on either 792 or T1—01 will retrieve it, but they won’t retrieve 792 or T1—01 themselves, since neither of those are built numbers with a Synthesized number components box.
Also, the Number Components search only looks at the specific components from the Synthesized number components box. It won’t give you any instance of a specific string of numbers. Let’s look at another example:
There are four different things you could put into the Number Components search that would retrieve this one (got it?). But searching “473” in Number Components gives you nothing, even though there are valid numbers like the one above that have that string.
Most of the time, this shouldn’t be a problem, but be careful. If you work with standard subdivisions a lot, you may know that 0973 at the end of a number indicates a topic in the United States. But searching “0973” in Number Components doesn’t retrieve anything either. That’s because a built number ending in 0973 is really getting that string from two components: T1—09 and T2—73. Fortunately, advanced search will let you look for both at the same time:
As always, let us know if you’re running into any trouble with this or another aspect of WebDewey. You can leave a comment here or email dewey@oclc.org with your question.
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