025.431: The Dewey blog

Flash exhibit: Disabilities

The newest of our flash exhibits focuses on disabilities. This is a subject that is in constant flux as our cultural conceptions shift, so we try to keep up with revisions in the DDC as much as we can. Most works about disabilities are classed either in the 610s (medicine) or the 300s (cultural groups, education, or services to people with disabilities).

New works are always being published by disabled people with a wide range of topics. One that I noticed recently was not yet provided for in Dewey was works about sex and disability, so I've added a new built number, 306.7087 People with disabilities—sexual relations. This can be applied to many published works and new works like A Quick & Easy Guide to Sex & Disability (to be published July 2020).

Traditionally we've used the terms "deaf-blind people" or "blind-deaf people" in Dewey. However, most organizations around the world, including the World Federation of the Deafblind, do not use a hyphen in describing deafblind people. I've replaced those variants with the consistent use of the phrase "deafblind" in notes in multiple places. I've kept access to variants like Deaf-blind people and Blind-deaf people at in the Table 1 and interdisciplinary number (T1—0871 People with blindness and visual impairments and 305.9081 People with visual impairments), but in those and other places throughout the schedules, like 371.911 Students with blindness and visual impairments, we've used Deafblind people in the Relative Index terminology.

When works about disabilities are approached from a medical perspective, they should be classed in the 600s. I've added a new Relative Index term, Reading disorders—medicine, to 616.8553 Written language disorders to provide additional keyword and browse access.

I've also added the LCSH Autism spectrum disorders to 616.85882 Autism. In 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) replaced terms like Autistic disorder and Asperger syndrome with just one term, Autistic spectrum disorder. Dewey has maintained terminology like Asperger syndrome and  Pervasive developmental disorders because they are still in use by the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), and because works are still being published about those conditions.

While these were all relatively straightforward additions, while reviewing this subject I found one problem that I'd like to address. At 371.94 the caption currently reads Students with emotional disturbances, and there is a note reading "Including attention-deficit-disordered students, autistic students, hyperactive students." I don't think this caption is clear, and I’d like to find a librarian to help me work through a better way to describe these works. If you would be interested in assisting with this important project, please get in touch via email at dewey@oclc.org.

Flash exhibit: Hermits

David Stanley / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Feeling like a hermit these days? Me too, and that’s what inspired our latest flash exhibit!

We had the LCSH “Hermits” mapped to 305.568 Alienated and excluded classes, which didn’t seem right. Yes, hermits are excluded from much of society, but they don’t quite fit with the other marginalized classes there. In the traditional sense, which is also the LCSH’s sense, a hermit is secluded for religious reasons. I moved the LCSH to 204.247 Asceticism in the religion schedules to reflect this. This would be the comprehensive number for religious hermits, or hermits in comparative religion, though works on hermits in specific religions would go elsewhere (e.g., 248.47 for Christian hermits, 297.446 for Sufi hermits).

Though sometimes treated as synonyms, there are separate LCSHs for hermits and recluses. Violet and I thought that was a better fit for 305.568, since living reclusively may be influenced by hostility from society. Of course, the distinction may come down to works in hand.

I also added the LCSH “Hermit crabs as pets” to the built number 639.67, under 639.6 Crustacean culture. Did you know that hermit crabs aren’t true crabs?

Finally, there’s something curious going on with the famous Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It’s the second-largest art museum in the world after the Louvre, and among the world’s top 10 most visited. It was already represented in a built number in WebDewey at 708.721, for art museums in Saint Petersburg, but you might not know it. We had the LC name authority record mapped, but following LC romanization rules, it’s “Gosudarstvennyĭ Ėrmitazh (Russia)”. You probably wouldn’t find that on a keyword search! I ended up creating an electronic-only Relative Index term “Hermitage Museum (Russia)”, which happens to be the Children’s Subject Heading form. We had started doing something like this with the names of world leaders where LC’s romanization diverges from more popular usage. There’s nothing wrong with keyword searching as an initial approach, so I hope this is helpful.

If you want to alleviate forced hermetism, here’s an ironic resource: last month, Apple released a one-take video that’s a virtual trip around the Hermitage Museum, shot entirely on a new iPhone. At a whopping five hours and 20 minutes, it’s great for slow TV fans or might be nice background material while working from home. It’s free on YouTube. Enjoy!

Flash exhibit: School desegregation

The first of our flash exhibits is now live, and the topic is school desegregation. We were inspired by Library of Congress classifier Ruby Woodard, who requested a number for Ruby Bridges, a civil rights activist known for being the first African-American child to desegregate a school in New Orleans. Ruby Bridges is now mapped to 379.263092, a new built number for biography of school desegregation.

While working on this, we noticed that the LCSH "School desegregation—massive resistance movement," which was mapped to 379.263 School desegregation, could better be mapped to a more specific number. We added the new built number 379.2630975, for school desegregation in the American South, to support this mapping.

Finally, while "massive resistance" to school desegregation occurred across the South after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, Virginia was the epicenter of it (Wikipedia’s article focuses heavily on Virginia), so we added a built number specifically for school desegregation in Virginia too, at 379.26309755.

We have some ideas for future topics. What would you like to see?

COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019)

Guest post by Julianne Beall

We hope you are not yet trying to classify books about COVID-19! Why? Because we are not yet sure where to recommend that you class them.

Remember SARS? When we indexed "Severe acute respiratory syndrome—medicine" to 616.2 Diseases of respiratory system, we were following MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). The MeSH heading Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has Respiratory Tract Infections as the immediate broader term in the MeSH tree structure.

MeSH has not established a heading for COVID-19, but it has established a MeSH Supplementary Concept record. COVID-19 is mapped to Pneumonia, Viral. If the heading, when it is established, has Pneumonia, Viral as the immediate broader heading, we will index COVID-19 (Disease)—medicine to 616.241 Pneumonia.

The 616 number can be added at various places in the 610s and elsewhere, e.g., interdisciplinary number and social services number for respiratory tract diseases 362.1962, interdisciplinary number and social services number for pneumonia 362.196241; incidence of and public measures to prevent respiratory tract diseases 614.592, incidence of and public measures to prevent pneumonia 614.59241.

Stay tuned!

EPC 142A exhibits available

For the next four weeks, the Editorial Policy Committee will hold its electronic Meeting 142A via listserv. We welcome all comments on the following proposals, available on the Dewey Google Drive:

• EPC 142A-S28.1 286.63 Restoration movement--Specific denominations
• EPC 142A-S36.1 362.88 Victims of crime; 364.1 Criminal offenses
• EPC 142A-S52.1 Cartography, map making vs. Maps
• EPC 142A-S62.1 Sanitary engineering for rural and sparsely populated areas
• EPC 142A-S96.1 ANC presidents discussion paper

The committee will vote on the exhibits in the first full week of March. You can give feedback here, in the Google Group, or by email to dewey@oclc.org or an EPC member.

Interested in being a part of this process? Browse info for contributors, or join our webinar tomorrow. We'd love to work with you!

Making the switch to Intellectual disabilities

Most revisions that we talk about on the blog are large changes. The editors draft up formal proposals to revise Dewey; since February 2019, we've made those formal proposals public. (We make announcements about those periodically, but you can always see what we've got in the works at oc.lc/deweyexhibits). But we also make smaller changes nearly every day, which include things like fixing typos or adding new subdivisions for administrative divisions for countries around the world. (For example, last week we published revised class numbers for Norway, which recently went from having 19 counties to 10 counties.) We don't always talk about those changes, but they're important to keeping the DDC current; I wanted to share one of the small but impactful changes we've made recently. 

Last week I asked the Editorial Policy Committee to review my proposal to replace the term Mental retardation with Intellectual disabilities where it appears in captions, notes, and/or Relative Index terms. However, to ensure classifiers can find the correct terminology, I suggested leaving the Relative Index entries Mental retardation at 362.3 and People with mental retardation at T1--0874 and 305.9084. These will direct classifiers to the preferred terms Intellectual disabilities and People with intellectual disabilities. EPC approved those changes this week and they're now in WebDewey.

Why did this change take so long? One reason is that we have an international scope for Dewey. ICD-10 (the tenth revision of the World Health Organization's International Statistical Classification of Diseases) still uses Mental retardation, although the terminology will change with ICD-11, which will be in effect worldwide January 2022.

Why not just get rid of the term Mental retardation entirely? Well, because of the international usage in ICD-10, I worry that people won't find the correct place to classify works about intellectual disabilities if I don't provide cross references using the older terminology. In addition, I'm concerned that the Relative Index term People with mental disabilities could be confused for People with mental retardation, so I think it's important to keep both terms to give classifiers a heads up that these are not the same concept. In a few years, we should be able to revisit the decision and determine whether to remove references to Mental retardation entirely.

There is more work to be done in this area! I would welcome assistance from Dewey users to clarify terminology and ensure classifiers have appropriate guidance for the literature that is being published. For more information on contributing to shaping the DDC, please visit oc.lc/deweycontributors and get in touch via email at dewey@oclc.org.

What’s the distinction between myth and religion in Dewey? An explainer

Have you reviewed the materials in your library classed at 398.2 Folk literature lately? Are there works there that should be classed in the 200 Religion hierarchy instead?

Just as we constantly revise the DDC, classification decisions from the past should be reviewed periodically, especially in culturally sensitive areas. The topic of myths and legends highlights the need for an iterative approach to classification, as previous classification decisions may have inappropriately centered familiar beliefs while disregarding others that seemed foreign. The "mark it and park it" approach to classification (that is, making a classification decision about a work and never revisiting it) can lead to alienation between the organization of our library's collections and our professional goals of equity and inclusion.

So how do you determine which works should be classed in 398.2 versus 200? Dewey asks you to look at the presentation of the work in hand to determine whether it is presented as a religiously-based work, especially for works that might be described as myth.

Terminology challenges

The relationship between religion and myth can be difficult to pin down, because it depends on one's understanding of the definition of a myth. The Oxford English Dictionary gives two distinct definitions:

1.       A traditional story, typically involving supernatural beings or forces, which embodies and provides an explanation, aetiology, or justification for something such as the early history of a society, a religious belief or ritual, or a natural phenomenon.

2.       A widespread but untrue or erroneous story or belief; a widely held misconception; a misrepresentation of the truth. Also: something existing only in myth; a fictitious or imaginary person or thing.

Over the past century scholars have assigned various definitions to the word "myth," diverging in opinion on whether it implies that a story is sacred or related to religious rituals. Joseph Campbell famously gave his favorite definition of mythology as "other people's religion." The popular meaning of myth as being distinct from fact (as in the second OED definition above) means that assigning a value of "myth" to a particular story or set of stories is a value-laden proposition.

Dewey and myth

From its beginning, the DDC has asked classifiers to make a distinction between works that are presented as mythology and those presented as religion. The wording of the distinction has varied through editions, but the current language providing guidance was established in Edition 22 in 2003; it can be found in Manual note 398.2 vs. 201.3, 230, 270, 292-299 Myths and legends:

Use 398.2 for myths or mythology presented in terms of cultural entertainment or, especially, as representative of the early literary expression of a society, even if they are populated by gods and goddesses. Use 201.3 and similar numbers elsewhere in 200 for mythology presented from a strictly theological point of view or presented as an embodiment of the religion of a people. For example, use 398.2 for Greco-Roman myths retold for a juvenile audience; but use 294.382325 for Jataka tales illustrating the character of the Buddha.

Use 398.2 for mythology having a nonreligious basis that deals with beliefs and stories that can be referred to as superstitions, legends, fairy tales, etc., where the religious content or interest is not apparent. Use 201.3 and similar numbers elsewhere in 200 for mythology having a religious basis that deals with the most basic beliefs of people and with religious beliefs and practices.

Class specific myths and legends presented as examples of a people's religion with the subject in religion, e.g., legends of Jesus' coming to Britain 232.9.

Use 398.2 for interdisciplinary works on mythology, since this number includes folk narratives with a broader focus than religion alone. If in doubt, prefer 398.2.

In following these instructions, a work like Bulfinch's mythology, which clearly states that people no longer religiously believe in the gods and goddesses portrayed, is easily classed in 398.2. But for less clear examples, we know that catalogers will make judgments based on their own cultural context.

Questions about moving forward

One of the most frequent comments I hear about Dewey are questions about Indigenous stories being categorized as myth (for example, see Dr. Debbie Reese's 2018 post Some thoughts on a big word: MYTH and a 2013 post DDC 398.2 vs. 290s in Public Libraries by Reddit user MeepleWatcher). As librarians strive to equitably represent multiple worldviews in their libraries, these questions will continue to come up. How can we encourage catalogers to make culturally appropriate classification decisions in this area? Is it possible to make a clear distinction between religious beliefs and myths? Is that distinction valuable to users?

Should we change these instructions in the DDC? One potential option would be to revise the manual note to put all stories based in religion in the 200s regardless of a work's presentation. Another option would be to categorize all works about religions that are currently practiced in the 200s. Would those (or other) options solve any problems or just create new ones? There are no easy answers, but we want to open up the discussion to the profession at large.

In the meantime, take a look at the works that have been classed within 398.2 in your library. Do they accurately represent what your library's users would describe as myths and legends? Should some of them be reclassified? Has your library made any local adaptations to the DDC to more appropriately classify works representing "the most basic beliefs" of Indigenous or other peoples?

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.

First round of EPC 142 exhibits available

As part of the editorial team's ongoing efforts to get the Dewey community involved in the editorial process, the first 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-S33.1 333.9554 Resource economics of mollusks
• EPC 142-S36.1 362.88 Victims of crimes
• EPC 142-S53.1 Mechanics in physics
• EPC 142-S62.2 LED lighting
• EPC 142-S95.1 Historical periods of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau
• EPC 142-S98.1 Historical periods of Brazil

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.

Algae

Slime: How algae created us, plague us, and just might save us is an interdisciplinary work on algae (reviews in Nature, Science).

Do you know how to find the interdisciplinary number for algae? Browse the Relative Index for “algae” and choose the entry with no subheadings: Algae 579.8.

In the schedule record for 579.8 Algae, there is no note specifying that interdisciplinary works are classed in that number; however, the first class number displayed for a topic in the Relative Index is the number for interdisciplinary works, if the entry has no subheading (see the Introduction, sections 11.8 and 11.9).

Would you expect to find recipes in a book with the main title Slime? Perhaps not—yet a reviewer of Slime writes that book has “a fascinating appendix of recipes using algae” (link for review in Nature above).

What if the title instead mentioned seaweed? Browse the Relative Index for “seaweeds”:

The number for cooking seaweeds (641.698) was authorized in 2018, continued from 641.6 Cooking specific materials. An example of a work classed in 641.698 Seaweeds is The seaweed cookbook: A guide to edible seaweeds and how to cook with them.

An example of a work classed in the “resource economics” number for algae and for seaweeds—333.9538—is Seaweeds: Biodiversity, environmental chemistry, and ecological impacts. The schedule record for 333.9538 Seaweeds has the class-here note “Class here algae, kelp.”