28 Cost Benefit Analysis in the Dewey

Here’s a case of a strange hole in the Dewey listing: cost benefit analysis, which could be financial, economic, or social. Usually, we think of CBA in the sphere of public projects: this is where ‘social’ or ‘economic’ prices come in (shadow prices, as they are called). For private proposals, we would talk of investment analysis, break-even, and so on. But the general topic of CBA seems to have been missed in the DDC.

Let’s start with the Index, which gives the following suggestions for ‘cost-benefit analysis’: 658.1554, and a sub-entry in ‘public administration’, 352.43 (there’s also ‘cost control’, 352.85). The first number, 658.1554, is of course in the domain of business management, and is repeated under the index entry ‘cost effectiveness; financial management’ 658.1554, ‘cost reduction’ 658.1552, ‘cost-volume-profit analysis’ 658.1554. If we go to the DDC entry, we find these numbers under 658.15 Financial management, then 658.155Management of income and expense, which has 658.1552 Cost analysis and control, 658.1553 Kinds of costs, and 658.1554 Income (Revenue), with the note “Including break-even analysis, cost-benefit analysis, cost-volume-profit analysis”. If this is what we are looking for, we’re home and dry: the very phrase CBA is reproduced here, so it should fit.

But what if we are looking for a more general, strategic, conceptual sort of slot where the theoretical stuff can be put? What about extension to all types of costs and returns, not just financial? If we want to stick with 658 management, we can try in 658.4 Executive management, especially where project management or decision tools are provided for. A promising heading would be 658.401 Planning, policy making, control, quality management, but it has general themes like strategic management, and not CBA specifically. Another entry may be at 658.403 Decision making and information management, since CBA is, after all, a decision tool for choosing between options. Again, it doesn’t quite answer: there’s Mathematical techniques, Systems theory, Operations research, Group decision making, but not CBA. Perhaps we may have to settle for a generic 658.404 Project management, but we are actually looking for CBA as a tool of analysis even before choosing a project alternative, so it doesn’t quite fit.

Let’s look at the other location suggested in the Index, 352.43 or 352.85. This is not even in Economics, but under 352-354 Specific topics of public administration, 352.4 Financial administration and budgets. 352.43 is Financial control, including non-financial managerial accounting, performance auditing, etc. This again is too narrowly focused, as is 352.85, Price and cost controls. We want something more generalised, broader, more conceptual and theoretical. We would like to see such a slot under Economics, rather than in the applied (techniques) parts of the schedules. According to E.J. Mishan (Cost-Benefit Analysis, 3^rd edition), it is not enough to judge projects merely by financial profitability because “…what counts as a benefit or a loss to one part of the economy – to on or more persons or groups – does not necessarily count as a benefit or a loss to the economy as a whole. And in cost-benefit analysis we are concerned with the economy as a whole, with the welfare of a defined society, and not any smaller part of it.”

One hint is that CBA is especially relevant in the case of public projects, where costs or benefits (not necessarily financial) accrue to a wide range of persons, most of whom are not even remotely concerned with the project or its objectives (bystanders, in a way, who are willy-nilly dragged into the process). So we may expect to see some slot in parts of Economics like Investment, Public expenditure or Welfare economics. There is no alternative, then, to scanning through the entire schedule under Economics to see if there is a likely slot missed out by the Index.

Starting with 332.6 Investment, we find these numbers are more narrowly focused on the mechanics of investing finances, rather than on conceptual treatises on what constitutes costs and returns and how to compare unlike items accruing to non-identical persons. We do have 332.678 Investment guides, but these are not about different criteria (of which CBA might be one), but information for different types of investors (private, individual, institutional etc.), or different types of industry.

This brings us to 336 Public finance, which really should be the home of CBA and assessment criteria for public projects. Much of it, however, deals with the actual inflow of funds (Public finance as a species, not as a subject of study!), then specifically Revenue, Taxes, etc. The section 336.3 Public debt and expenditure looks promising, especially 336.39 Public expenditure, but this has no subdivisions at all to cater to CBA as a decision tool.

The next possibility is under 338 Production (economics), where costs and returns should surely be treated in a general fashion. There are some promising locations: 338.06 Production efficiency (including cost-output ration, which may be taken as the obverse of B/C ratio which is another way of expressing the results of CBA); and similar subclass numbers for ‘Production efficiency’ under different sectors, such as 338.16 under Agriculture, 338.26 Extraction of minerals, 338.3 Other extractive industries (strangely, no 338.36), 338.45 under Secondary industries and services (why not 338.46?). This brings us to 338.5 General production economics, which refers actually to microeconomics (economics of the firm), but I suppose we could extend it to society as a large firm! We have 338.51 Costs, 338.516 Profits (which is the closest they get to C/B!) 338.52 Prices, 338.521 Price theories (class here law of supply and demand, theories of value), but no CBA as a criterion. There doesn’t seem to be any number for the field of Welfare Economics, unless you count this one in macroeconomics, 339.2 Distribution of income and wealth, or the Index entry 330.1556 Welfare economics school. There are some other numbers for economic theory, such as 330.157 Marginal utility school (neoclassical school, utility theory), 330.16 Theories of wealth, 330.17 Theories of property, but no specific number for theories of value, especially for “unpriced” values where there are no market transactions (so important for a social CBA; but see 338.521 cited above, which includes theories of value).

So there are cases where you may not find a suitable slot; I wonder whether this reflects some underlying ideological bias in the founders of the DDC! Bottom line: where have CIP (cataloguing-in-publication) entries slotted CBA books? The Mishan volume I cited above has been put by CIP (by the Library of Congress) under the business management class 658.1554 Income (Revenue), which has the note “Including break-even analysis, cost-benefit analysis, cost-volume-profit analysis”, as already quoted.

Looking over my shelves, I find that I have put all my books on CBA under 350.1556 Welfare economics school, since most of them go on to deal with the social costs and benefits (not just the returns to the investing institution or entity), and these are for the most part treatises on theory and concept, rather than descriptions of the economy. There is, of course, another underlying consideration in this, as in all my classification decisions: it is more useful to group together items on a broad area of interest, even if some should have strictly gone to some other location. Especially in a smallish home collection, it may be better to sacrifice a theoretical precision for the sake of convenience in usage. On the other hand, where the treatise deals with a particular sector, I have tended to class it under that subject, with the nearest standard subdivision to approximate the subject of CBA. Thus, books on forest economics, including those dealing with social costs and benefits (SCBA, the subject of my PhD) have gone to the location 333.75’0681 Forest lands – Organization and financial management, even though the exact slot should have provided for economic or social rather than financial, analysis rather than management. Books on the financial and business economics of forest management, however, have gone to 634.92 Forest management (or, if they are heavy on financial management, such as the classic Forest Planning by Johnston, Grayson and Bradley, 1967, to 634.92’0681), if they are not much concerned about social and welfare aspects. I guess I have still to sort out my ideas on 634.9 (left-brain) versus 333.75 (right-brain) for forestry!  

27 Psychology, philosophy and self-help in Dewey

Another area in which there seems to be too much choice of numbers is psychology and philosophy, with self-help or self-improvement thrown in. As in the case of natural history, there is  a pretty basic divide between the humanities and the sciences.

To start with, the 100’s have the core topics of Philosophy, parapsychology and occultism, and psychology. These are not exactly happy bed-fellows for a discerning lot. Then we have the 110’s, Metaphysics, the 120’s, Epistemology, causation, humankind, the 130’s  Parapsychology and occultism, then the 140’s Specific philosophical schools and viewpoints. Then come the 150’s Psychology, the 160’s Logic, the 170’s Ethics (Moral philosophy), then the 180’s Ancient, medieval, eastern philosophy. This is where you have the great classical age thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicureans, and one section 181 for Eastern philosophy (yes, in singular!). The last is 190’s for modern western philosophy.

One problem with this arrangement is that philosophy books tend to get split up on the shelves. Apart from the rather odd interpolation of paranormal and fringe pursuits, there is the problem that books on general philosophy, world philosophy, theory of philosophy, or abstract subjects under Metaphysics and Epistemology etc. are bunched in the start, while Logic and Ethics and the entire gamut of ancient philosophies go to the end, with Psychology forming a broad wedge in-between. This is bound to confuse the searcher in any case, leave alone resolving the perplexities of life and living!

A second difficulty was experienced by me, at least, in the treatment of eastern philosophies (181). While there are numbers for philosophies of different places, starting with 181.1 Far East and South Asia, there is a specific list for India 181.4 (as here is for China and Korea 181.11). The six traditional schools are provided their individual numbers from 181.41 onwards; but Buddhist philosophy is at 181.043, Jainist at 181.044. The confusion sometimes comes because philosophy and religion are so closely intertwined, and there are separate numbers for all the main religions in the 200’s. Thus we have this interesting effect that much of Buddhist thought (philosophy) goes off to the religion numbers; while much of Hindu religion may happen to come into philosophy, especially if you think of Vedanta as a religious (or at least a spiritual) rather than a philosophical pursuit. On the other hand, many philosophical works are classed under religion, such as the Upanishads (294.592’18), which may better be studied as philosophy, in fact very similar to the precepts of say the Stoics (188).

A subject head that seems to mirror the last mentioned philosophy is in 158 Applied psychology. It is worth spelling out the note under this heading:

 “Class here application of individual psychology in general; comprehensive works on how to better oneself and how to get along with other people; comprehensive works on psychological and parapsychological or occult techniques for achieving personal well-being, happiness, success.”  

This looks like a tall order; even more specific is 158.1 Personal improvement and analysis:

“Class here works intended to make one a better person (!) or to stave off failure, to solve problems or to adjust to a life that does not meet one’s expectations; works on specific systems and schools of applied psychology written for persons who wish to be improved or analyzed.” 

No mention of 'believe it and you’ll see it', 'awaken the giant', 'you can be great', and so on!

Of course there are only a limited set of original books on psychology itself (think of Freud, Jung, and a few others), but a veritable flood of self-help and improvement books that could claim a place in 158.1. If you wouldn’t like to clutter (I was about to use the word foul!) your ‘serious’ psychology shelves with these other genre of slightly doubtful vintage (if you have a person in the household that has done a college course on psychology, you may have this situation), there is a completely different slot for the latter: this is in the technology 600’s, to be precise under 646 Sewing, clothing, management of personal and family life (it looks like Dewey was of the conviction that 'a stitch in time saves nine'!).  You could put most of the self-improvement works under 646.7 Management of personal and family life, which has 646.76 Social skills, 646.77 Dating and choice of mate, 646.78 Family life (“Class here guides to harmonious family relations”, essential if you have teenagers around!), 646.79 Guides for persons in late adulthood (“Class here guides to retirement”).

On the other hand, if you look at success in a more corporate world, you have 650.1 Personal success in business (“Class here interdisciplinary works on success, formerly 646.7"), which includes 650.11 Time management (also at 640.43 Management of time, in home and family management), 650.12 Financial success, 650.13 Personal improvement and success in business relationships, 650.14 Success in obtaining jobs and promotions, and  a few more; and 658.409 Personal aspects of executive management (“Class here success as an executive”). So do not think there is any dearth of choice, for classifying or for life strategies!

Another useful location for self-help in the sense of physical and mental fitness comes in at 613.7 Physical fitness, which includes not only exercises of different genres, but also techniques (hence in the 600’s!) of yoga and so forth. The spiritual side of yoga, of course, is in religion: at 204.3 Worship, meditation, yoga, or in Hinduism: 294.543 Worship, meditation, yoga, or in philosophy: 181.45 Yoga in Indian philosophy.

So you can imagine that your practical psychology and philosophy books are going to be scattered around. And don’t forget to cover your 'unusual' psychology books in plain paper!

  

26 When you have too many choices in Dewey

There are often situations where a book will fit into any of a number of places in the Dewey Decimal Classification system. I have a couple of suggestions, or tricks, if you will, to find your way in such situations.  I’ll take a couple of examples to make my suggestions clear.

Take a simple straightforward title like America’s Wild Woodlands, a National Geographic Society (NatGeo) publication from 1985. Now this could be filed under Forests and forestry, if such a number existed in Dewey; or under Forests alone, or Forestry alone. It could, however, also go under Wildlife, if such a number existed, as it deals with the flora and fauna of the country’s forest areas. It could of course also go into the subjects under Ecology, if the approach adopted were their inter-relationships and the way they interact with and in their habitat and environment. It could, of course, be classed under Natural history (which has been generously endowed in DDC 22 in comparison to earlier versions), or under Environment and Natural resources. It could of course be put with outdoor pursuits like Walking, trekking or hiking, outdoor camping, even Geography and travel in and of the region. I am almost certain there could be a few more numbers which could plausibly accommodate such a title.

For a small home library, it may not be that crucial to get the Dewey class numbers exactly right: what is more important is probably to put together the relatively few books on a topic all together at the place one would most usually expect hem to be. As I have suggested many times, it is important to arrive at a grouping that gives you to hand, at one place, all your books on the subject, rather than spreading them sparsely throughout the shelves. The subject is more important, in my consideration. If you make the country the main criterion, then you would have to search through all the shelves country by country to locate books on a particular subject (starting from World, then by Continent, and so on). As far as possible, therefore, I put Country last in the number-building exercise.

This does not, of course, answer the question of which subject (Classes) to put each title under. Now is when I try to visualize where I would like to have all books with such an approach or slant. Since forests and forestry are the subject in which what I have a lot of titles, I feel I have to exercise a little more discretion and split up my collection judiciously.

The basic distinction I try to make is between science/technology and … non-science! That is, the social sciences and humanities. Titles that talk of the sociology, politics or economics of forests go into the latter category, to be assigned to the 300’s in the DDC. Even within science/technology, I like to separate the purely technical books, reports and manuals out, and put them under the 600’s. Those titles which deal with the science aspects would go to the 500’s. Of course, those which contain a travelogue, or talk about the geography and history could go to the 900’s, but I would perhaps not mind having them with the titles in the other categories depending on the accent or coverage.

These are admittedly somewhat vague distinctions, and one can decided only by scanning the book and judging where the main emphasis lies. The book decidedly seems to me to be about the forest as habitat, about its trees and plants and animals, the changes in ecology over time, etc., although there is one picture of a bearded bloke with a home-made guitar (dulcimer) as a nod to the human denizens. In the present case, I feel ‘forest as a habitat’ would sum up the subject of the book. On the whole, I get the sense that the book is about the natural history of North America’s wild (natural) forests, rather than about the forest economy or managed (planted) crops. I will be happy to put this book in the natural history section, to join a number of others about the forests of various regions and places.

Natural history has been given a good deal in dc22, as we no longer have to isolate all these nature books in 508 Natural history, to be followed by all the mathematical and physical sciences before coming back to biology, botany, ecology etc. Instead, dc22 advices us to go to 578  ‘Natural history of organisms and related subjects’, and we have a nice entry in 578.7 ‘Organisms characteristic of specific kinds of environments’, with the note “Class here biology of specific kinds of environment”. This is right up our path in the woods, and 578.73-.75 gives us a mechanisms to bring in digits from 577.3-577.5 for nonaquatic environments, and 578.76-.77, from 577.6-577.7 aquatic environments. In our example, 577.3 is Forest ecology, and we can take the last digit and attach it to 578.7, thus giving us 578.73 Natural history of organisms in forest environments, thank you and welcome! Now it is a simple job to add the place code, -0973 for America, 578.730973.

The number 578 refers to natural history of all types of organisms in different environments, but there are separate classes for the natural history of limited groups of organisms: 579 Microorganisms etc., 580 Plants (or more specifically, 581 Specific topics in natural history of plants), similarly 590 Animals or 591 Specific topics in natural history of animals, 598 Birds and finally 599 Mammals, where there are no special numbers for natural history as such (I suppose the whole field is about natural history!), but you can attach sub-numbers for specific topics from 591.3-59.7 and so on to mix and match for a narrower focus. Of course, for a small collection, it may not be necessary to go down to that level of detail; put all elephant books together arranged alphabetically by author, rather than trying to distinguish sub-topics like ecology or behaviour or diseases or reproduction and so on.

It would be interesting to check our choice with CIP (cataloguing-in-publication) if it’s available; NatGeo are particularly meticulous in providing this for all their publications at the back, usually after the Index. I was surprised to see that they chose to classify America’s Wild Woodlands under 917.3’09152, Geography of and travels in, American forest, rather than in Ecology which is listed as the subject matter! I guess NatGeo cannot but give primacy to the Geography aspect. However, for me it is nice to have this book close to titles like American Rainforest and Rainforests of Australia, not to speak of Wild India and Silent Valley. And followed by Deserts of…, Wetlands…, Grasslands… and so on.

Where was natural history provided for in dc20? The number 508 Natural history was meant for “description and survey of phenomena in nature”; for “natural history of organisms” you were packed off to 574 Biology! The closest you could get would be 574.5 Ecology, which was more technically oriented to topics like “adaptations, behaviour, biomes, ecosystems, ecological succession”: no picture books here! Subclass 574.5264 was for land environments, including 574.52642 Forests, jungles, woodlands. You could skip to 581.5 Ecology of plants, or 591.5 Ecology of animals, to which you could attach similar digits from sub-numbers under 574.5. The number 578 was for Microscopy in biology, 581 just Botany (and not the more interesting dc22 Specific topics in natural history of plants), and likewise for Zoology (Animals).  

The reverse tack would be to ask, what do I not put in the 500’s to do with nature/ wildlife? I feel that documents on the management of wildlife reserves, for example, are better put in the technology section, 639.9 Conservation of biological resources, which has a special sub-class 639.95 Maintenance of reserves and refuges. So reports of the tiger conservation project, for instance, go there. So do picture books on individual reserves, or even on many reserves (although the last could equally well go to Natural history 578). The reasoning is that these are narrowly focused on the conservation aspect, and not on the general biology and ecology of the habitat or group of organisms. Thus the equally colourful and lavishly produced NatGeo book Wild Lands for Wildlife. America’s National Refuges goes into 639.95. So I do split up my books between biological accounts and applied or technology books, even if they are glossy and colourful!

Similarly, books of forest management are sent off to 634.9 Forestry, even if they may be picture books or dealing with the same American woodlands. Forest resource surveys, forest products, economics and business, and statistics are all sent to the technical class 634.9. There is a problem with 333 class numbers (dc20 had 333 Land economics, 333.7-.9 Natural resources and energy, whereas dc22 calls it  333 Economics of land and energy, 333.7-.9 as in dc20), because there are classes that include forest, wetland, recreational and wilderness areas, biological resources and organisms, and so on. I guess you’ll have to take a call whether a title goes with the science/technology sections or with the social sciences (economics being somewhere in-between because it tries harder!). I prefer to put all policy and polemics under 333, while honest accounts of some poor naturalist will be best kept in the 500’s! I have this problem with a title like Kenneth Brower’s American  Legacy: Our National Forests, another NatGeo publication that can be fairly said to be not so much about the natural history alone, but about policy issues: “exploring the multifaceted problems of overcutting, watershed protection, erosion control, wildlife conservation, and more”. I find that I have put it under 333.75, but I could have put it under 634.9 Forestry; the only consideration is that it is written for a general audience, by a non-forester, and is more concerned with public perceptions and aspirations, public policy, and trade-offs, and not just with maximizing forestry returns (from forest products). Incidentally, CIP has it under 333.75’16 Forest lands, Conservation and protection; and the previous example, Wild Lands, under 333.95’16 Biological resources, Conservation and protection. On the other hand, another NatGeo book, America's Hidden Wilderness: Lands of Seclusion, has been put in 917; so go figure!   

This is, of course, just one example. My next post will consider the Psychology-Philosophy-Self improvement gamut on similar lines.