No, this isn’t about a modern reimagining of The Hobbit—it’s the story of how we eventually found a place for vaping in the DDC. For a single topic, it took us a while.
We all know the DDC is discipline based, right? So what discipline does vaping belong to? Several of them. When introducing a topic into the classification, it’s always a good idea to consider whether there are similar topics that could either form models for a new development, or even whether the new topic can go in an existing number.
Vaping first came to our attention in the “before times”, identified as a priority by respondents in a 2019 user survey. Emily Zinger, our intern that year, assisted then-editor Violet Fox in researching the topic, as did volunteer contributor Josh Hall. Their efforts culminated in exhibit EPC 142C-S36.1 Vaping and vaping devices.
You’re welcome to read the whole exhibit, but to summarize, they looked at how tobacco products, smoking, and cigarettes were treated in the DDC. They identified an important split between vaping as an activity versus vape devices (also known as e-cigarettes, e-cigs, vape pens, vapes, and many other terms) and their liquid, which can be covered in disciplines such as manufacturing. It was a great start, but ultimately, EPC sent it back for further work. It took us a while to prepare a revamped exhibit, but in our defense, it was 2020.
I led the efforts on this year’s version, EPC 145-S36.2. I kept “Vaping and vaping devices” as the title, which I believe I suggested before. (Was I inspired by a certain King of the Hill catchphrase? I’ll never tell!) As I noted in the exhibit, last year’s Editor in Residence, Kathryn Becker, helped a lot to get us back on track with the topic. It really does take a village.
My general approach was to start with the previous exhibit, which had solved a lot of the fundamentals, but to scale back a bit, saving some similar topics, such as indoor smoking bans and other law aspects, for another day.
You can see all of the approved changes live in WebDewey, which differ in some respects from what I proposed. An important one, inspired by feedback from colleagues in the UK, was to put vaping in including notes, limiting it to standing room.
Why? For all the interest in the topic, we just haven’t seen that much literature on it. I still expect it to grow, but it didn’t grow as much as I expected since 2020, for example. Using including notes here is more “future-proof”, in that if we later decide to give smoking and vaping different numbers, we can do so. Conversely, if we decide class-here notes are more appropriate, that the topics should be treated the same, it’s easier for us to shift that way, and allow number building, than vice versa, which would entail invalidating numbers users could otherwise have built in the meantime.
I’m glad to say that once we really get to work on an exhibit, the timeline is shorter than it was here. But the journey of vaping is also a good example of how the extra time to get it right can really pay off.
Some really useful slides here. I've been looking for something like this to help with a research piece I've been working on.
Posted by: Raz Vapes | 07 October 2024 at 09:52 AM
I am glad it was an enjoyable experience for you. I think that you should definitely do it again sometime and hopefully I will be able to make it to that one
Posted by: Dream Kado | 07 October 2024 at 11:15 AM