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
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
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.
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