025.431: The Dewey blog

EPC 142B exhibits available for review

Three new proposals to revise Dewey are now available for public review at oc.lc/deweyexhibits. These exhibits will be part of EPC meeting 142B, and the Editorial Policy Committee will review and vote on them in July. The proposals now available are: 

• EPC 142B-S20.1 Witchcraft
• EPC 142B-S28.1 Pentecostalism
• EPC 142B-S79.1 BASE jumping

The editorial team has a few more exhibits in the works for this meeting, which we'll post to oc.lc/deweyexhibits when they're ready for review.

We're happy for any feedback, whether positive or negative; feel free to provide comments on this post, in the Dewey Contributors Google Group, or by email to [email protected] or an EPC member.

Raising a racket

At their September meeting, the Editorial Policy Committee reviewed and approved another sports-themed proposal: EPC Exhibit 142-S79.3 Pickleball and racquetball. Ruby Woodard, Senior Dewey Classifier at the Library of Congress, noticed more books coming in for cataloging about pickleball. If you aren't familiar, pickleball is a game similar to tennis or badminton which is played with short paddles and a light perforated plastic ball (a wiffle ball). It's been around since 1965 but has been growing in popularity, especially with senior citizens. Ruby did the research needed to demonstrate there was appropriate literary warrant for pickleball, and it was a simple task to create a new number 796.348 Pickleball.

In reviewing this hierarchy, I noticed that racquetball was a class-here concept at the number for squash, 796.343. I'm not an expert or even a player, but I investigated further and discovered racquetball and squash are two distinct sports, with differently sized racket, balls, and courts, as well as different scoring systems and techniques. Luckily the next number in this sequence was vacant, so I was able to propose racquetball be moved to an adjacent number, keeping materials on this subject close to each other. EPC approved relocating the subject to a new number: 796.344 Racquetball.

Although the changes aren't too dramatic, I needed to do a fair amount of research to ensure I understood the difference between racquetball, racketball, and rackets (all three are different sports!). You can see my summary of that research on page 2 of EPC Exhibit 142-S79.3.

photo: pickleball players on the court ("Grand Canyon 2014 Pickleball Tournament" by martinvirtualtours is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Gaelic games; or, The travails of an American trying to pronounce "camogie"

EPC 142, the in-person meeting of the Editorial Policy Committee, took place September 23-24. The editorial team is now working on following up on the decisions from that meeting, publishing the exhibits that EPC approved and making plans to address issues in exhibits they sent back for revision.

One of the exhibits they approved was a topic that was brought to our attention by Mary Kiely, Cataloguing & Acquisitions Librarian at Dublin City University, who got in touch on behalf of the Library Association of Ireland Cataloguing & Metadata Group (LAICMG). Mary emailed us to ask about Gaelic games, sports which are played primarily in Ireland and are governed by the Gaelic Athletic Association, especially the most popular of those games, Gaelic football and hurling. Those sports were given at including notes at 796.33 and at 796.35, respectively, and Mary wanted to see if these were good candidates for being continued to their own class numbers.

Mary and her team worked with me to check the literary warrant for some of the most popular Gaelic games in WorldCat and in Irish library catalogs, and we determined that Gaelic football, hurling, and camogie met the twenty-title threshold for their own class numbers. We suggested creating a class-here note for Gaelic games as a whole at 796.309415 Ball games—Ireland (Island) and added a scatter-see reference for specific Gaelic games. We proposed creating new numbers: 796.337 Gaelic football and 796.3592 Hurling and camogie (these are essentially the same sport played by men [hurling] and women [camogie]). We also suggested clarifying that Gaelic handball should be classed at 796.312 Court handball. EPC had a spirited discussion about the correct number for Gaelic games as a whole, since the games are played primarily in Ireland but also in pockets around the world by members of the Irish diaspora; in the end, EPC members approved the exhibit as proposed.

I asked Mary what she would say to other librarians who were interested in making changes to Dewey. She wrote:

While writing up the Dewey exhibit seemed daunting at first, collaborating with Violet made this a very interesting and enjoyable experience. I'm delighted to see the exhibit has been accepted, and Gaelic games are now clearly represented in Dewey, a classification system used in thousands of libraries worldwide. If you are interested in a particular topic but unsure where to begin, contact Violet or one of the other Dewey editors and take it from there.

You can view the exhibit which Mary and I co-wrote to propose these changes. To see all the changes associated with this exhibit in WebDewey, click the "Updates" button at the top of any WebDewey page, and where it says "projects," select project EPC 142-S79.1.

photo: camogie players in action ("Garda V Defence Forces" by dfmagazine is licensed under CC BY 2.0)

New provision for fantasy sports

During their electronic Meeting 140B, the Dewey Editorial Policy Committee approved an exhibit adding provision for fantasy sports. When working on an exhibit on electronic games (keep an eye on the Dewey blog for more information on this), we noticed that some works on fantasy sports were being classed in 793.93 Adventure games, where “fantasy games” is in a class-here note. But while fantasy sports are literally a type of fantasy, with players imagining themselves managing professional sports teams, the “fantasy” at 793.93 refers to the genre of fantasy (e.g., The Lord of the Rings).

If fantasy sports didn’t belong at 793.93, where did they belong? We saw works on fantasy sports classed with the sport itself, with sports statistics, or as separate games. Each of those approaches made sense considered on their own, but the diffusion made us realize we needed to make clear where fantasy sports belong in Dewey.

While a game like fantasy baseball or fantasy football obviously has some connection to the sport being simulated, users looking for works on fantasy sports won’t necessarily care about works on how to play sports, or vice versa. This led us to put fantasy sports with indoor games in 793-795. Are fantasy sports games of skills? Yes. While outcomes are partially determined by the performance of real-world athletes, a great deal of skill goes into fantasy sports players picking the best athletes for their teams. With an open subdivision at 794 Indoor games of skill, then, we opted to continue fantasy sports to a new class, 794.9 Fantasy sports.

An add note at 794.9 lets you build from the numbers for individual sports in 796.3-796.9. For example, Winning fantasy baseball: Secret strategies of a nine-time national champion (previously classed in 793) can now be classed in 794.9357 Baseball--fantasy sports (built with base number 794.9 plus 357 from 796.357 as instructed at 794.9). In WebDewey, we added built numbers for the two most popular fantasy sports, baseball and (American) football, but numbers built for other sports, such as cricket, ice hockey, and soccer, are just as valid. We also added see-also references at both 793.93 and 794.9 to avoid any more confusion between fantasy games and fantasy sports.

Let the games begin!

Today--Friday, February 7, 2014--marks the commencement of the XXII Winter Olympic Games with a carefully orchestrated group of opening ceremonies.  One of the elements of the opening ceremonies is the parade of participants, which the International Olympic Committee's factsheet describes in this manner:

Tradition dictates that the delegations parade in alphabetical order according to the language of the host country, except for Greece, which leads the parade, and the host country, which brings up the rear. . . . Each delegation is led in by its flag and a board displaying its name.

Being chosen as the flag bearer for one's country in these opening ceremonies is a great honor, the choice resulting from the vote of the team captains of each sport.  Typically the flag bearer is one of the athletes competing in the games.  Two exceptions stand out in the list of U.S. flag bearers:  for the 1906 Intercalated Games (Summer) the U.S. flag bearer was Matthew Halpin, the team manager; for the 1928 Olympic Games (Winter) the U.S. flag bearer was none other than Godfrey Dewey, son of Melvil Dewey, and we trust you all know who he is.

And how did Godfrey Dewey end up as the U.S. flag bearer for the 1928 Olympics, held in St. Moritz, Switzerland?  A Sports Illustrated article on the 1932 games reports the following: 

The town [Lake Placid, N.Y.] received, in 1927, a feeler from the U.S. Olympic Committee. Would Lake Placid consider bidding for the 1932 Winter Games? No, said the city fathers, who for generations had been content to let slow enough alone. Why not? said Dr. Dewey, who was convinced that Lake Placid was already the winter sports capital of the U.S. . . .

On his own, Dr. Dewey headed off on a tour of European ski resorts—Chamonix, where the first Winter Games had been held in 1924, Gstaad, Mürren and finally St. Moritz for a live viewing of the 1928 Winter Olympics.

But again we ask: how did Godfrey Dewey end up as the U.S. flag bearer for the 1928 Olympics?   The website of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame and Museum (Godfrey was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1970) provides additional insight: 

Godfrey Dewey's ski sport experience won him the role of manager of the 1928 U.S. Winter Olympic Team that competed in St. Moritz, Swizterland.  He was instrumental in bringing the 1932 Winter Olympic Games to Lake Placid, New York.  In 1936, he wrote an article "Ski Hill Design."  This article published by the National Ski Association gave the principles, profiles and tables sufficient to determine the most suitable hill for a given site and design profile with assurance that it would give the desired results. For over 65 years he was an outstanding ski sport developer for the Adirondack region which saw Nordic and alpine phases become exceptional recreational and competitive pastimes.

So we see that both U.S. flag bearers who were not athletes competing in the games were team managers.

We should note that it was under Melvil Dewey that the development of the Lake Placid Club took place.  It was the Club that made Lake Placid a viable candidate for the Winter Olympics, while it was largely through Godfrey Dewey’s efforts that they actually came there.  Lake Placid was also the venue for the 1980 Winter Olympics.

If you’re in an Olympics frame-of-mind, you might want to check out any of our myriad (sort of goes with Olympiad, huh?) related posts from the 2010 winter games and the 2012 summer games:

• Winter Olympic Games
• Olympics 2012 Prequel                                 
• Women’s Soccer (Football)        
• Dewey goes Olympic!                   
• After a weekend away from the Olympics       
• London calling (the Dewey team)                    
• Olympic Basketball Courts           
• Midweek wrap-up, tape delayed
• When athleticism and aesthetics meet
• Where are they now?   
• Olympic Etymology        

Tiki-taka rules (once more)!

In case you were following the Euro 2012, which has just ended on Sunday with the final game of Italy vs. Spain, you may have been as astonished as many by the kind of football that was on display.

Although Spain defended their title by beating Italy 4:0, this historically high final score does not tell the whole story of the game. Italy was down to 10 players for the last 30 minutes or so due to injuries, which made it impossible for them to catch up to Spain, already leading 2:0 at that time.

Nonetheless, the crowd in the stadium in Kiev saw history in the making by what now – even given all the difficulties comparing eras – may be considered the best national soccer team of all time. Spain is the first team to win three major tournaments in a row (Euro 2008, World Cup 2010, Euro 2012), all the while cultivating their own distinct style of play and not conceding a single goal in any of the knockout stages!

Tiki-taka, as the style is usually called, has not only prompted admiration, but also harsh criticism. It is characterized by a quick passing game that is not very forward-oriented, but instead relies on keeping possession of the ball as long as possible. The rationale is that, eventually, chances for scoring are going to just "present themselves." This Euro even saw Spain regularly starting a player as a "false nine" (a midfielder nominally occupying the position of a lone striker), which in essence means playing with no striker at all. Spain remains very flexible, however, as attested by the unusually high goal count on Sunday (the likely outcome of a pure tiki-taka game being 1:0). Still, every goal was scored by a different player! Tiki-taka as a tactic is in standing room at 796.3342 Strategy and tactics [of soccer].

While at the beginning of the tournament a match-up of Germany and Spain (almost a “clásico” in itself by now) sounded like a mouth-watering prospect, it didn't come to pass. Germany may have focused too much on Spain as their natural opponent after losing the Euro 2008 final and the World Cup 2010 semifinal against them, so that they were not able to overcome an excellent Italian side in the semis this time. Well, the qualifiers for the World Cup 2014 in Brazil have already begun, so the deck will be shuffled again very soon.