025.431: The Dewey blog

Staying up-to-date with Dewey

The Dewey editors are always working to revise the schedules to ensure we're keeping up with new publication trends. So how do you find the latest, most up-to-date DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification) numbers?

WebDewey is the easiest way to use the DDC to organize and classify your library collections. With WebDewey, metadata managers have the most up-to-date DDC numbers available that are based on an array of continually evolving topics and languages.

WebDewey also includes the ability to:

• search or browse DDC numbers, Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and mapped Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
• add your own notes and display them in context
• navigate a simple user interface that is suitable for both novice and power users

If you prefer to have offline access to DDC, we have you covered there, too. OCLC now offers a Dewey Print-on-Demand option for situations where a reliable internet connection is not available. The individual volumes include the latest changes and topics available in the DDC as of January 2019 and is updated on an annual basis. You can select the volumes individually, but we recommend you order all four to have the complete set.

New batch of EPC 142 exhibits posted

As part of the editorial team's ongoing efforts to get the Dewey community involved in the editorial process, the next round of proposals for Meeting 142 of the Editorial Policy Committee are now available for public review and comment on the Dewey Exhibits page. The following exhibits are now available:

• EPC 142-S52.1 Cartography, map drawing, map making vs. Maps
• EPC 142-S79.1 Gaelic games
• EPC 142-S79.2 Podcasting
• EPC 142-S79.3 Pickleball and racquetball

This is in addition to the initial six posted last month. The meeting will take place September 23-24, 2019, so you have some time. You may share comments via email to dewey@oclc.org or to individual EPC members, or use the Dewey Contributors Forum.

WebDewey install scheduled for July 30, 2019

A WebDewey install is scheduled for Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 8:00am ET. You may experience 10-15 minutes of downtime during this install.

629.454 - Project Apollo

This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar mission. On July 16, 1969 the space shuttle carrying Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin was launched from the Kennedy Space Center. Several days later, on July 20^th, the Apollo lunar module successfully landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong took that first giant leap.

Class books about the Apollo 11 mission at 629.454 Circumterrestrial and lunar flights, where Project Apollo is listed as a Relative Index term along with other NASA missions and orbital flights in general. Titles at this number include Team moon: how 400,000 people landed Apollo 11 on the moon.

If you are classing biographies of the astronauts who manned the Apollo project, look under 629.450092 Astronauts, built by adding 629.45 Manned space flight + T1—092 Biography. Take special note that this built number uses double zeros before the standard subdivision. You can see from the examples at 629.45001-629.45009 that standard subdivisions in the 629.45 hierarchy should always be built with double zeros. The LCSH Armstrong, Neil, 1930-2012 at this number lets you know that you’re in the right place. Sure enough, at here you will find books such as Neil Armstrong: a life of flight.

Curious about the moon in general? Leave behind numbers under 620 Engineering and instead head over to the hierarchy under 520 Astronomy. 523.3 Moon is where to class books about our moon. At this number you will find resources including The scientific context for exploration of the moon.

Not only will books at the above numbers help you celebrate Apollo 11^th’s anniversary, but they, along with  other related numbers (check out 629.441 Space shuttles, 523.4 Planets, asteroids, trans-Neptunian objects of solar system, and 523.1 The universe, galaxies, quasars), are full of titles perfect to bring out for this year’s summer reading program or your space exploration-themed display.

Nasa [Public domain]

My Experience as a New Dewey Contributor

The DDC is launching a new community engagement initiative where librarians and classifiers just like you have the opportunity to propose new and edited Dewey numbers. Crafting a new number may seem intimidating, but I’m here to tell you that it’s easier to succeed in editorial work than you may think.

I arrived at the Dewey offices two months ago with a semester-long Cataloging and Classification class under my belt, along with some excitement and determination. Since then, I have built a proposal for a new podcasting hierarchy from the bottom up. It’s true that researching and proposing a new Dewey hierarchy does have a bit of a learning curve, but it’s also true that the process isn’t inaccessible to people like you and me, the editorially uninitiated.

Here’s a quick rundown of my experience drafting a DDC proposal.

I began by looking for literary warrant. I searched WorldCat for books with the subjects “Podcasts,” and “Podcasting.” Once I had established that there were enough works on this topic to justify its own number, I looked at where these items are currently classed. A good clue that a topic may need to be reworked in the DDC is if books on the topic are scattered throughout the classification. As I suspected, this was the case for books on podcasting. While scattering is to be expected for very broad topics, it can be a problem for a subject as specific as podcasting. Another indication that a new podcasting number is needed was that even when podcasting books were classed together, the DDC number under which they were located did not make logical sense.

My next step was to explore the DDC itself and look for places in the existing hierarchy where my proposed topic seemed to naturally fit. I accomplished this by searching for topics similar to podcasting, like radio and television. I analyzed the hierarchies of these parallel subjects and used their structure to inspire my new podcasting hierarchy.

While there’s more to building a new number than these preliminary steps, they’re a good place to start. I am not a subject matter expert in podcasting. After completing the research outlined above, however, I now have a better sense for how the topic might fit into the existing schedules.

We know that the DDC isn’t perfect. We also know that our user community is brimming with ideas on how to improve the classification. Join us in editorial work and put those ideas into action! You may not realize it yet, but you already have all the tools you need to propose your very own Dewey number. Reference our Editorial Project Checklist and/or get in touch with the editors at dewey@oclc.org for more information on how to begin your own DDC proposal.

796.334 - Congratulations to the US Women's National Team!

The Dewey editorial team would like to join the chorus and congratulate the US Women’s National Team for their win at the FIFA World Cup! With soccer-mania still in the air, now is the perfect opportunity to learn more about the Dewey classification of the sport. General books on soccer—or football for our international users—should be classed at 796.334 Soccer (Association football). Notice that since men’s and women’s soccer follow the same rules, they are both classed at this number. Works here include Soccer in action and The world through soccer: the cultural impact of a global sport.

Books about the World Cup have their own number in the hierarchy, 796.334668 World Cup competition. Searching for books about this year’s champions? Look no further than 796.3346680973 World Cup competition—United States, built by adding 796.334668 World Cup competition + T1—09 History, geographic treatment, biography + T2—73 United States. Titles found here include include US women win the World Cup, a book about the 1999 World’s Cup and its legacy.

If watching soccer matches for the past month has inspired you to grab a ball, head outside, and play the game yourself, stop by 796.3342 Strategy and tactics on your way to the field. Titles at this number, including Go for the goal: a champion’s guide to winning in soccer and life, will teach you all the tips and trick you’ll need to become a soccer star in no time.

How can you get involved in making the DDC better?

Over the past year we've been developing ways for library workers to be more involved in reviewing and creating proposals to revise the DDC. A lot of people have talked about wanting to help but aren't sure how they can get involved. There are different options depending on your interest:

• The editors publish draft proposals ("exhibits") when we submit them to the Editorial Policy Committee for review. You can find these at http://oc.lc/deweyexhibits and we welcome your feedback—we want to hear how proposed changes would impact your library.
• As the editors work with Dewey users to create proposals, we disseminate the drafts to each other and to a group of DDC experts via email regularly. If you’d like to be a part of giving us feedback before the drafts are made public, please let us know via the poll below.
• We're looking for more Dewey users to help us create proposals. We've created a site with a checklist of how an exhibit is made and examples of recent exhibits to give you a sense for the research that goes into revising the DDC: http://oc.lc/deweycontributors. For a small change, this might take just a few hours' worth of work; larger revisions will likely require more back and forth.

Have just a little time to spare? Help us review draft proposals in general or in your area of expertise. Have a concern about an outdated area of Dewey? Work with us to research how we can update the schedules to benefit your library's users and library users around the world!

If you'd like to get involved in any way, please fill out this quick form to let us know!

Results from recent poll and survey

In April the Dewey editorial team publicized a short poll in which we asked library workers to rate the importance of topics that the editors had identified as needing development. A few weeks later we distributed a longer survey designed to ask broader questions about identifying subjects which needed updates. We got hundreds of responses to these questionnaires and we're glad to be able to shape our work in accordance with your insights!

Some of the topics that came up as being high priority for libraries:

• food intolerance
• vaping
• low-income neighborhoods

We still haven't had any takers to help us move forward with updating these topics, so please let us know if you'd be willing to help.

We also asked people to identify which of the main classes were the highest priorities for potential revisions. As you can see below, survey respondents identified 000 Computer science, information & general works, 600 Technology (Applied sciences), and 300 Social sciences as areas in which revisions would be most useful to their users.

We also asked people if they'd be willing to contribute to editorial work to make the DDC better for their users—many people were on board, which is exciting! One of the things we heard most frequently is that people wouldn't be willing to contribute because they didn't have the expertise. If this is a concern you share, let me assure you that you don't need to be a subject matter expert. I mean, I'm not an expert in sewage systems but I'm working on a small update to that part of the schedules right now. Librarians are great at researching any topic—that's a skill you can use to collaborate on updating Dewey for the benefit of your users! Your expertise in how your library's users are using the DDC is incredibly valuable for proposing revisions.

To learn more about contributing, visit http://oc.lc/deweycontributors and don't hesitate to get in touch at dewey@oclc.org.

Shall Not Be Denied - Women's Suffrage at the Library of Congress

On June 4^th the Library of Congress debuted their new exhibit, ‘Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote,’ commemorating the centennial anniversary of the campaign for women’s suffrage. This movement lasted over seventy years before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified into law in August 1920, granting millions of women the right to vote. The exhibit, located in the Jefferson Building, showcases letters, photographs, posters, and other items from the beginning of the movement to the present day. Visitors can read diary entries from famous suffragists and listen to songs that both praise and ridicule the idea that women should be active participants in democracy. They can view desperate telegrams written about women arrested for their protesting and watch the speeches of female politicians who owe their work those honored by the exhibit.

Comprehensive items about the woman’s voting rights movement in the United States should be classed at 324.6230973 Women—suffrage—United States. This number is built using 324.623 Women’s suffrage + T1—09 History, geographic treatment, biography + T2—73 United States. Examples of titles classed here are A history of the American suffragist movement and Jailed for freedom: The story of the militant American suffragist movement.

One of the most moving items on display is a scrapbook once owned by suffragists Elizabeth Smith Miller and her daughter Anne Fitzhugh Miller. The book’s open page features a rare photograph of Harriet Tubman, most likely taken at her home in New York. Works on this abolitionist and suffragist can be found at 326.8092 Abolitionists (Antislavery activists). Build this number by starting with 326.8 Emancipation and adding T1—092 Biography. Works classed here include I am Harriet Tubman and Harriet Tubman: slavery, the civil war, and civil rights in the 19^th century.

‘Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote’ will be on view through September 2020. Don’t miss this opportunity to explore the history of the women’s suffrage movement in person.

001.942: World UFO Day

World UFO Day, a holiday created for extraterrestrial enthusiasts to search the skies for unidentified flying objects, takes place tomorrow, July 2^nd. World UFO Day marks the approximate anniversary of the Roswell Incident when, in 1947, a balloon crashed just outside of Roswell, New Mexico, sparking decades of UFO fervor. Although the United States military reports that the accident involved nothing more than a routine surveillance balloon, these claims have not stopped ufologists and other conspiracy theorists from spreading stories of spaceship landings and government cover ups.

To bone up on your UFO knowledge in general, look for works classed at 001.942 Unidentified flying objects (UFOs). The Relative Index reveals that works about Alien abduction and Human-alien encounters should be classed here as well. Titles at this number include UFO’s: a scientific debate and A close look at close encounters.

Books about the Roswell Incident itself should be classed at 001.9420978943 Roswell Incident, Roswell, N.M., 1947. Build this number using the following procedure, 001.942 Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) + T1—09 History, geographic treatment, biography + T2—78943 Chaves County. Books at this number include The Roswell report: case closed and The Roswell UFO crash: what they don’t want you to know.

If you’re not convinced by what you read in the 001s, head to the 800s to find UFO books that are decidedly fiction. Class collections of fiction works on UFOs from two or more literatures in 808.838762 Science fiction, built using the steps 808.83 Collections of fiction + T3B—308762 *Science fiction. Works at this number include The year’s best science fiction: thirty-fifth annual collection.

And remember, Dewey users, the truth is out there.