21 Dewey on the wild side

This one is on classifying Wildlife and related topics in the Dewey Decimal system. Just as with Forests (see posts 12-14), Wildlife also poses the problem of too many choices! And these numbers are situated variously in the Social Sciences (under 333, Land and natural resources), in 639 (Hunting, fishing, conservation, and related technologies), and under various numbers in the Biology sections. Let’s have a closer look.

Say you just got  a copy of a lovely book on the Wildlife of the Indian Subcontinent, about all the richest wildlife habitats and the habits and conservation status of the important animals and birds, their place in history, religion, and culture, and so on. Where would I like to put books on the wildlife of this place or that on my shelves? My first instinct would be to… follow my instinct! I think it would be my instinct to gravitate to the biology shelves… but here we have a problem, because the book can be filed in Animals (590), or in Ecology (577), or in Natural history of organisms (578). The biology numbers like 590 may feel a bit hard-core (in the sense that they are for more scientific or zoological treatises on body parts, for example), whereas we are looking for a place to put works for the animal-lover and watcher of live animals (often the opposite of the biologist!). This is what is called “natural history”, not quite official as far as the hard-core are concerned, but DDC 22 has fortunately provided a nice alternative in the form of 578, Natural history of organisms (which is a relief from DDC 19 which sent you to 508 for Natural history). The strange problem here is that they don’t seem to provide for geographical faceting under this particular number. They prescribe 578.01-578.08 for “standard subdivisions”, then provide only 578.09 for “Historic, geographic, persons treatment”, but don’t mention extensions of -09 for specific locations and jurisdictions (578.093-099, as they usually do in their schedules), but only show one entry, 578.0999 for “Extraterrestrial worlds”! They do have a caution not to use 578.0914 to 578.0919 extensions for general regions, but instead to use 578.73 to 578.77, under which you have various ecological types like forest, grassland, etc. (repeated from 577.3-577.7, under Ecology). I pay no heed to this implied truncation of -09 numbering, and go right ahead and form the numbers like 578.0954 (for the Indian sub-continent, for example). And, naturally, other similar numbers for all “Wildlife of…” type of books which deal with all types of animals and birds, in relation to the climates, habitats etc. of regions and countries in general.

The section 578 also has special subdivisions for other types of natural formations, under 578.7, “Organisms characteristic of specific kinds of environment”: the numbers after 577 from Ecology, 577.3 to 577.7, are added to 578.7. Forests, for instance is 578.73 (from 577.3, Forest ecology). So books on “Rain forests” will go in under 578.734 (from 577.34 Rain forest ecology), and you can always append geographical endings using 09 from standard subdivisions.

The matter doesn’t end there, however (how could it be so straightforward!), as you may like to use numbers under Animals (590) or Mammals (599) or Botany 580 or whatever, for specific “taxonomic groups”. Say you have a book on the “Large mammals of Africa”, that is rhino and elephant and lion and so on: would you like to put it under 578, or would you shift it to its own niche in 599.1, Natural history of animals? Similarly for other groups. You may like to put a book dealing with the botanical aspects of forests under 581.73 (again this repeats the numbers from 577.3 to 577.7), rather than under general natural history. That is, you could choose to differentiate the books depending on their focus, or accent: is it dealing with all sorts of organisms? Does it describe the whole ecosystem or does it talk of each species in particular? The latter would be better off in the narrower number referring to the taxonomic grouping: say, a “Field guide to the mammals of India” would go under 599, rather than 590 or 578, which could be for books dealing with their ecological relationships.

Another type or genre is books on behaviour, ethology. Previously Ecology and Ethology used to be treated pretty closely together. Now the choice would be to put Behaviour under the specific sub-class under the taxonomic group: “Behaviour of mammals” under 599.15, of Birds under 598.15, of Animals under 591.5. You have sub-divisions under them for different aspects of behaviour, such as territory, feeding, mating, nesting, migrating, and so on (they have omitted 581.5 for Behaviour of Plants, presumably expecting us to be happy with 581.7 Plant ecology).

As if this weren’t enough, you have a totally different set-up under Technology, 639.9 (Conservation of biological resources), which comes after Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry, Animal culture, and so on. This suggests a differentiation of techniques of husbandry from basic knowledge of the organisms. Now is wildlife management a form of husbandry or a subset of ecology? Under 639.9, they have headings like 639.92 Habitat improvement, 639.93 Population control, 639.95 Maintenance of reserves and refuges, 639.96 Control of diseases etc., 639.97 Specific kinds of animals, and so on up to 639.979 for Mammals and 639.99 Conservation of plants, which suggests what types of topics go here. I tend to file the more technical books and reports on wildlife here: manuals on census operations, manipulation of habitat, captive breeding, disease management, policing (a part of protection), plans and reports on wildlife parks and congresses, and so on. There is a category of books which I am still vacillating about, puttng them at times under 578, at other times under 639.9: this is books on specific wildlife parks and sanctuaries. The profusely illustrated series of collector’s volumes published by Sanctuary magazine, for instance, on individual wildlife areas (Corbett, Bandhavgarh, Sunderbans, and so on), and some imitators, for instance, treat of the wildlife of the region and should go under 578, but I prefer to have them under 639.95, Wildlife reserves, because they are actually focused on the management of these particular jurisdictions, each with a unique background, history, and set of problems and solutions. I feel these are books primarily useful for the wildlife manager (639.9), although packaged as a table-top picture book for the general wildlife enthusiast (578). I guess either choice would be acceptable. General accounts of wildlife parks (protected areas) in a state or region also go under 639.95, even though they may describe their habitats, give species lists and talk about the habits and ecology of the organisms.

We’re not done yet: there is still the disturbing factor of the social sciences, which we met with 333.75 Forests, and now meet again under 333.95 Biological resources (conservation of). Many CIP (Cataloguing-In-Publications) entries I have noticed, tend to put all multi-disciplinary accounts under 333 (Economics of land and energy) sub-divisions, as recommended by Dewey: especially the types of books published by National Geographic. I tend to avoid this, unless we are dealing specifically with the social or economic aspects. A book on Wildlife economics, for instance, or books dealing with wildlife and tribal rights, or community management, or international conventions, or policy, may prefer this location. On the other hand, there is a tendency to send Nat Geo books equally to Geography & Travels 910 to 919, or Ethnology or Human ecology (indigenous peoples and so on) to 306. There could be other subdivisions on specific aspects like Government and Public administration, Law, International cooperation, Trade, Commerce, Production, Non-governmental or Voluntary organizations, etc., which may receive some of the books and reports, especially boring annual reports and ministry documents. In all this, finally, we may have to choose two (or at the most three) favoured locations, even if there were other tailor-made choices, in the interests of keeping stuff together on the shelves.

20 The physical catalogue on cards

We would all like to have a detailed list of the books and tapes we own. The basic version, of course, is to have a long notebook (a ledger) for each type of possession, and go on entering our acquisitions as they come in, with basic description, title, date of purchase, and price paid. A separate ledger could be maintained for books and other texts, perhaps with separate sections for periodicals and for reprints or ‘grey’ matter (newsletters, mimeographs, occasional documents); and separate ledgers for recorded media (CDs, tapes, etc.), all types of equipment, and what have you. A running serial number may be all that is required to identify each item, and if you put this number on a sticker on or in the item itself, you have a robust and simple system to keep track of their status. When you give an item away, you can record the information and draw a diagonal line through its entry as token of disposal. In fact I use precisely this system to keep track of my financial investments (and significant equipment purchases), as it has the advantage over a computer based system of being always ready to go, robust and physically available at hand, and amenable to all sorts of annotation, on the run, whenever a thought strikes. Of course, it doesn’t produce nicely formatted reports or column totals, and doesn’t send out warning beeps when it’s time for renewal or servicing, which a computer system could do, but I suspect that it will be too late by the time I get round to putting all this on disk. Anyway, the old data will always reside between the covers.

When it comes to books, however, if you plan to have a few thousand, it makes sense to build up a card catalogue from the beginning. My card catalogue started when I was collecting references for my doctoral thesis; my book acquisitions took up steam only sometime after that, so it was a natural extension to enter the books as well on those 3 by 5 inch cards. Now it has become a ritual whenever I get home with any books or reports, whether from the bookshops or from meetings and conferences. They all get entered in the 3 by 5’s, and put into the card tray. Usually I enter the classification number as well, but if I am too bothered with other stuff to do it rightaway, I keep the unclassified cards in a separate holding tray, to be filled in later. I also enter the classification and date of purchase on the first leaf of the book itself (in pencil!), so that I can put it in its due place on the shelf after I have finished reading it (which is falling behind these days!.

What do I put on the card? There are very elaborate conventions on this, the best known being the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2), of which I have a copy of the Concise version, revised 1988, prepared by Michael Gorman, and published jointly by the American Library Association (Chicago), the Canadian Library Association (Ottawa), and The Library Association (London). But I rarely look into it. I have standardized on the following format: leave the top line blank, on the next line enter the author’s name following the usual last name – first name conventions used in citing references, and year of publication; below that, the title of the work and any subtitles or smart one-liners; then other editorial information like series or set name and general editor (if important enough), illustrators, foreword writer (if an eminent person), then edition number, publisher and place, and finally the international book number (and Library of Congress number if available). At the top left, I write the Dewey class number, followed by shelf numbers (usually three letters from the author name, followed by year) to identify it uniquely; on top right, any special Location (Music Records, or Series, or Loft, for example). At bottom left, I pencil in date and price (both original and buying price if needed), and any supplemental information like key words, alternate classification numbers, etc. All this by hand: it takes a couple of minutes, and my record is ready! The cards are physically kept in a metal card cabinet with four sliding trays. You don't even have to go and buy the printed cards: you could do as well with any old paper cut to size (I notice my institute library does this for their internal purposes, although their actual catalogue is on computer, of course). Not pretty, but works well enough!

The official AARC rules are very precise about what each card should contain, and they also have official registers for the correct way of expressing names and so on. For the record, the following areas are prescribed:

Area 1: Title and statement of responsibility

Area 2: Edition

Area 3: Material (or type of publication) specific details (serials, computer files, maps, music etc.)

Area 4: Publication, distribution, etc.

Area 5: Physical description

Area 6: Series

Area 7: Notes

Area 8: Standard number and terms of availability

Area 9: Supplementary items

Area 10: Items made up of more than one type of material

Area 11: Facsimiles, photocopies, other reproductions

One point on which I disagree with the AARC2 is the rule that editors and compilers should not be made the “main entry”. I prefer to stick to only one type of main entry, which is the author or editor, and if this is not available, then sometimes the corporate body itself or even the publisher (like Government, or National Geographic, or Newsweek, or Oxford). AARC2 says that in the absence of a clear author or creator, one should use the title as first entry (leaving out articles at the start, e.g. Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, The). Sometimes I have used the dreaded Anonymous, too, but that is not a happy solution as it may tend to bunch up a lot of stuff at the head; much better to put the organisation name instead.

Actually, I don’t think they expect all the fields to be filled; the main bits, of course, are author, title and identification by edition or book number. If you have the time, by all means fill in some of the other stuff. The class numbers are my favourite, because I arrange both my cards and my shelves according to them; naturally, I favour Dewey Decimal numbers (I’m on DC22 now). This gets the books in order of field of knowledge and subject matter (in the Dewey order with all its idiosyncrasies!), which suits a knowledge-based user better than arranging by author name alone (or by title!). Very occasionally, if a book seems equally at home in two classes, I may put in a card for each DDC number, giving the shelf position on the top line. Of course, if I have two copies (which happens occasionally!), I put one copy in each location.

These other types of catalogue, of course, are also useful sometimes (e.g., if you are making up a short list in a particular discipline). In public libraries, they used to make up two card catalogues, one arranged by Subject (following the DDC or any other system), and the other by Author, called respectively the Subject Index (which could be an Alphabetical or a Classified Index) and the Author Index. Nowadays, of course, catalogues are maintained on computers, and the database software will allow you to list them by almost any of the fields: maybe by year, or publisher, or combinations.

I don’t actually use the card catalogue much, except to keep it up to date. At the back of my mind is the expectation that I will enter it into a computer some day (but I wonder whether that will actually be useful). I do not think it will help my heirs to sort out what is to be thrown or given away, nor do I expect my Maker to call me to account on this matter! I do riffle through it once in a while to see whether I have a certain book already, if I cannot see it anywhere around. Of course, since it is only a classified index, it won’t help me do alternate searches on author or ISBN or title; that will be possible only if it is put on a computer. I did make an experiment with a couple of software packages to do this, and I will talk about this next post.

19 Classify and Catalogue – two sides of a page

One small point that may be worth pointing out here is the distinction between two parts of the process: one is cataloguing, the other is classifying.

A catalogue (catalog) is basically a list of all items: they could be our own possessions, or they could be even a seller’s stock list (or inventory) or our own wish list. When it comes to books, there are usually two basic types of lists used: one is an Author Catalogue, which starts each item with the author’s name, followed by whatever details we feel are needed to identify the item uniquely. The other type of list is a Subject catalogue, where the first entry is the code number or word for the subject. If anybody remembers, our institutional libraries used to have these two types of catalogues written on cards of approximately 3 by 5 inches, stored in sliding trays that formed an impressive piece of furniture near the entrance. Earnest scholars would spend hours thumbing through these cards, trying to locate their particular requirements.

Both types of catalogues have their uses. If we wish to locate records (cards) for books by a particular author, say Dickens, and we do not know where in the library shelves these books will be found, we go the Author Catalogue and pull out the tray for the D’s. Of course, the utility of these cards depends on what else is recorded on each book’s record: usually it includes the serial number of the book in the library’s stock register (the Accession number) which should be a unique identifier, the book title, year of publication, and publisher’s name and edition, and perhaps the international standard book number (ISBN). There are detailed codes written for this (the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules AACR2, for instance) But apart from these, the most useful to locate the book would be a location number or code. In the least ordered library, they could be simply stacked in the order of their accession numbers, as we suggested could be done for reprints of papers, as they don’t have solid spines which will enable them to stand up on their own in the shelves. For most collections, however, it will be nice to have them grouped by subject, which is where the Classification scheme comes in.

Commercial bookshops usually do not adhere to a very strict code of classification, and generally group books by broad subjects, like Physics, Chemistry, Sociology, Politics, History, Current Affairs, and so on, maybe even under further subdivisions if it is a campus bookshop, say different branches of Chemistry or Physics or whatever (usually following the university syllabus). Meticulous (let’s face it: somewhat obsessive-compulsive) documentation experts like Dewey (or to a greater degree, Ranganathan of the Colon Classification) like to reduce these non-standard subject headings to a standard code with a consistent system of labeling. Dewey, of course, uses mainly numbers: the 3-digit numbers stand for the one thousand subject headings (Sections), which are then expanded by adding on further digits to the right after a decimal point (the successive digits show the hierarchical position, rather than a value). The Colon Classification system follows a different philosophy, which I won’t even try presenting here (maybe another day!). It is my impression that the Dewey Decimal system is more popular because it has a strong management backup with the OCLC Online Computer Library Centre, Inc. (obviously), is constantly being developed by specialists at the Library of Congress, and more than anything has an infinitely more friendly and common-sense approach as against the Colon’s (let us face it) somewhat dry language, exaggeratedly punctilious rules and cryptic terminology (well, one has to admit that it lives up to its rather unfortunate name).

The Dewey number locates the book under the broad discipline (more or less the 3-digit Section heads, but also maybe under further subdivisions where there are distinct areas), and then under the most appropriate specific subject according to the entries in the schedules. However, for large collections, one can go even further, by adding various suffixes from the half-dozen Tables provided in Volume I. These enable various aspects or facets to be specified: a favourite is the geographical or regional coverage, for instance, from Table 2. The Standard Subdivisions in Table 1 provide tags for various aspects: the suffix -01, “Philosophy and theory”, for example, is the first subdivision provided in many numbers in the schedules (it could be used for Policy as well). The suffix -09 introduces the geographical locations, persons, and periods from Table 2, and so on. Table 3A and 3B provide tags for different numbers of authors and so on (for collections and anthologies, for instance). Table 3C provides “Additional Notation for Arts and Literature” to be added “where instructed”. Table 4 provides “Subdivisions of Individual Languages and Language Families” (from 400), Table 5 “Ethnic and National Groups”, Table 6  provides tags for “Languages”, while Table 7 for types of persons has been deleted.