Guest post by Steph Hooton
Compared to other professions, there aren’t a lot of books available in communication design. So, as a communication design practitioner, whenever I come across an interesting volume, I buy it. Over the years, after visiting countless new and used book stores, antique stores, and library, estate, and yard sales, I’ve managed to accumulate quite a few volumes — over five thousand, in fact.
While I didn’t plan on owning a personal library, it’s proven to be indispensable — and a challenge to organize. So, a few years ago, I decided to copy the experts and arrange my library according to the Dewey Decimal Classification system. This worked out great at the beginning, but as I worked through my holdings, I discovered that many communication design works were assigned to numbers scattered across the entire breadth of the DDC system, that no particular area within the DDC system had the depth of numbering needed to classify them, and that a significant portion of the DDC system’s communication design nomenclature was outdated, archaic, or incomplete.
Given the fact that communication design as we know today didn’t exist when the DDC was created, and coupled the dramatic growth and evolution the field gone through over the past several decades, these circumstances weren’t too surprising. But, what to do? Well, since information design and typographic hierarchy are inherent disciplines my field, I set aside my shelving and got to work figuring out what was needed. Then, even though I’d always thought of the DDC system as firmly established and constant, I reached out and asked OCLC if they might be open to making some updates.
Their response was immediate, professional, gracious, welcoming, and positive. I was invited to contribute my ideas and work with OCLC experts. What followed has been over five years of extraordinary collaboration: objective, wide-ranging research; careful, thoughtful analysis; and respectful, professional advancement in documenting, planning, and updating the information architecture for communication design within the DDC system.
To anyone shelving books in a library, thinking “this book really belongs in that section over there,” I recommend sending your insights and suggestions to OCLC. Your contribution will be appreciated, and may help people all over the world have better organizational access to knowledge.
For myself, I look forward to continued collaboration with OCLC, and to resuming the shelving of my publications — this time, in their newly built homes.
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