13 Building the Dewey Forest by numbers!

As I said in the last post, DDC is rather sparse in its development of 634.9, Forestry. As against Oxford Decimal’s 60 pages of numbers and subject headings, DDC 20 has hardly four. The main subheadings are: 634.92 Forest management, which has sub-headings for  Regulation and for Mensuration as well; 634.93 Access and safety features; 634.95 Silviculture (includes Afforestation, Breeding, etc.); 634.96 Injuries, diseases, pests; 634.97 Kinds of trees; 634.98 Forest exploitation and products; 634.99 Agroforestry etc. Compared with the development of 630 to 633, Agriculture, this is very limiting. Indeed one wishes they had provided for development of Forestry on the same lines by ‘adding numbers following 63 in 630-633’ as is done in many other places in the DDC. Even the subject immediately preceding 634.9, Orchards and fruits (634 to 634.8), has more possibilities for systematic development. As most of the headings have the provision to add the posterior (end) digits numbers from diverse ranges under Agriculture. Rather grudgingly, 634.9 Forestry does have a couple of entries with an “add” instruction from the Agriculture range: there is a provision of adding to the number 634.96 Injuries, diseases, pests from the appropriate range under 632, and under 634.97 Kinds of trees, topics from ranges in Forestry itself.

Mapping numbers from ODC (the most detailed systematic development for Forestry), we obviously have to fall back on different devices to create subject numbers. ODC group 1, for example, has a series of headings for “Factors of the environment, Biology”. One obvious way of catering to these subjects would be a liberal use of the “standard subdivision” with connector -015-, which allows attachment of all the Science numbers (500-599). This can cover application of climate science, soil science, physics, geology, chemistry, zoology, botany, ecology, and so on. Indeed there is already a provision under 634.97 Kinds of trees to add the numbers following 583 for Dicotyledons, or following 584 for Monocots. The suffix -015 allows adding numbers from any heading in the range 500 to 599!

Another suggestive entry is 634.90688 Management of distribution (Marketing). This obviously uses “standard subdivision” connector -068, which actually provides a range --     0681 to -0688 covering management heads parallel to those under 658. Thus, -0681 Financial management mirrors 658.1 Organization and finance, -0682 Plant management mirrors 658.2 Plant management and so on;  -0688 Management of marketing thus parallels 658.8. One wonders why this is not extended throughout the range, so that subheadings under 658.x can also be appended. Well, sometimes I do cheat and do this to reach specific headings; consider this my local extension of -068x!  

Forest economics seems to present some special problems, because different choices can be made. For a start, if we want to stick with 634.9, we could create a number with standard subdivision -0681, maybe even extending it further to subtopics under 658.1 as suggested above. Of course, one may like to put it under 634.92 Forest management, thus 634.92’0681; Dewey (20) recommends putting “comprehensive works on management in forestry in 634.9068”. Another possibility, however, is a totally different number in Economics, such as under 338 Production economics (specifically, 338.1749 Products of forestry) or 333.7 Natural resources, specifically 333.75 Forest lands. The Notes in Dewey 20 explain that 333.75 is “primarily concerned with forest land and uncut timber as present and future resources”, whereas 338 numbers are “primarily concerned with cut timber as a product to be sold”. The tendency seems to be to put discussions on forest resources in general in 333.75, whereas timber (lumber, logs, and other products) would go under 338. This of course will make the forester mad and stomp his boots, so it may be better for everyone’s sanity to put forest products under 634.9 with or without the suffix -068x, keeping 333.75 and its subdivisions for books of forest land policy, such as the discussions on how much forest is required, on how to manage with the community, etc. The question remains, where would standard books on “forest economics” go? My own hunch is that older texts, which look at it mainly from the business management point of view (like the classic Duerr), are best put under 634.9’068,  while 333.75 and subdivisions are suitable for more recent ones, which deal with social and political (economy) issues, including indigenous peoples’ rights, community management, forest conservation policy and strategy, incentives for conservation, and so on. In fact the ‘centered entry’ >15-17 under 333.7-333.9 introduces “Management and control”, with the instruction “Class here citizen participation, planning, policy”, which is appropriate for things like joint forest management (JFM). There is regrettably no separate number for JFM or participatory management; below >15-17 are three subheadings, 15 Development, 16 Conservation and protection, 17 Control of usage. It is anybody’s choice which of these three is best suited to house JFM: I tend to use 153 Reclamation, rehabilitation, restoration, thus giving the number for JFM 333.75’153.  

Another bugbear (for me) has been classifying agro-forestry, social forestry, forestry projects, etc.: they could go under 634.99, but what a jumble! I finally improvised a number-cum-alphabetical system to separate different projects and geographical jurisdictions. Of course, let me also make a note that we have not even started to consider other products technology numbers, such as 676 Pulp & paper technology, 674 Lumber processing, wood products, cork,  684.08 Woodworking (and home workshops, i.e. DIY stuff), 691.1 Timber under 691 Building materials, 694 Wood construction and carpentry, and other products groups that will have an interest for professional foresters.