Dewey has been around a long time – since 1876,
when the system was first published as a 42-page pamphlet with less than 1000
classes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Decimal_Classification). Naturally,
there have been a number of revisions – edition 23 was introduced as of mid-2011,
and no doubt the 24th edition is already in the offing. Interestingly,
the 1876 publication has been uploaded at the Gutenberg site (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12513/12513-h/12513-h.htm).
This is the official OCLC Forest Press blog (025.431: The Dewey blog):
http://ddc.typepad.com/ , which may be of
interest.
So what are all main reasons for all these
versions, and how do we respond to periodic revisions and in-between
developments? If you want a learned version, here’s one:
“The evolution of Dewey Decimal
Classification editions illustrates the contextual actions between the
cognitive approach and the operative research which become decisive in the
dynamic of the indexing language.” (Dr. Zenovia Niculescu of the Library and
Information Science Department, University of Bucharest, “Dewey Decimal
Classification Editions”, at http://www.lisr.ro/en13-niculescu.pdf.
If you want a simple account, read on!
Let me recount my own experience. I am on
DDC 22 presently, but started off with DDC 19 a few years back – mainly because
that was the printed version available in the library in book form (not much
internet those days!). This was the “Abridged” edition, incidentally, which
compresses the 4 volumes (or it may have been 2 volumes those days) of the
full-blown version into a single volume for the convenience of small
collections. (The latest full blown version is currently DDC 23 published in
2011, and the latest abridged version is the 15th (Abridged 15), published
in 2012). If I remember rightly, this one didn’t have the detailed expansion
for 333.7, Land and natural resources, which was my main interest, and so I was
forced to graduate to the full version of DDC 20, which I got my office to purchase. I discovered
just now that archive.org has uploaded the entire DDC 20, my main learning
platform, here:
https://archive.org/details/deweydecimalcla01dewe
(and replace 01 in the tag by 02, 03, 04 for the other volumes). And here is
DDC 19: https://archive.org/details/decimal19v1dewe
DDC 20 (published in 1989) was revised to
DDC 21 (1999) and then to DDC 22 in 2003, which is the version I got when I
finally decided to order it online (used) through Abebooks.com, from
London-based bookseller phatphocket.com who charged some 30 BP, that included
around 10 BP for shipping (actually one attempt at getting the 21st
edition misfired, the packet never reached my address!). Some of the numbers
that have been modified include a complete revision and expansion of 780-789 Music,
and a considerable development of Tables such as Standard subdivisions..
Some of the changes in the 21st edition of Dewey
Decimal Classification (from Dr.Niculescu’s aforementioned article: “changes
for the index terms in religion, public administration, scientific life;
developments for groups 296 Judaism, 297 Islam; the introduction of new
subjects in the scheme: Internet, virtual reality, rap music, etc. and resizes
the geographic notations for the ex-soviet area.” The publisher of this
edition, Joan Mitchell specifies that the main changes: “were induced both by
the evolution of some domains such as: Public Administration 350/354; Education
370, as well as by the new socio-political reality (the modification of the
table 2/42 for the ex-soviet states, for instance) or for diminishing the
present lack of balance between different cultures (the modifications of Classes
200 Religion; 296 Judaism; 297 Islam).” Worthy of mention would be the major
revision from DDC 20 to DDC 21 of Biological sciences: 574 Biology is no longer
used, Biological processes having been developed in 570 itself; Ecology of
organisms moved from 574.5 to 577, e.g. Forest ecology 574.5 to 577.3, Desert
ecology from 574.5 to 577.54; some numbers are shifted to 578. A number of taxa
have also been shifted: 589 Fungi etc. to 579, etc. Human evolution and palaeontology
have been shifted wholesale: Human races from 572 to 599.97, 573 Human physical
anthropology to 599.9, 573.2 Human evolution to 599.93, 573.3 Prehistoric man
to 569.9, for example. Thus one can gather that librarians had their work cut
out keeping up with these changes!
DDC 22 (2003) was the first edition to be
produced “in the context of the web environment” (DDC 22, Vol.I, p.xix), although
not the first edition to be provided
alternatively as a computer-based version (the 20th edition
of 1989 was provided as a DOS-based version in 1993, and for Windows in 1996,
as per Dr.Niculescu). Edition 22 contains many new numbers and topics: new
geographic entities, new emerging topics in fields such as computer science and
engineering (Numbers under 004-006 have been updated), sociology, law, medicine,
and history. Table 7 has been removed (Groups of persons), preferring use of
notation already available under Table 1 (-08) and in the schedules. Table 5 has been renamed Ethnic and national
groups, dropping the term “Racial”.
I have not really got into DDC 23 (2011),
as I am still not through with reclassifying and rearranging according to DDC
22, but these are some of the proclaimed changes:
·
new provisions in 004–006
Computer science and elsewhere to reflect changes in technology
·
updates to provisions for the
Orthodox Church and Islam in 200 Religion
·
improved provisions in 340 Law
for legal systems based on civil law
·
updated provisions for food and
clothing
·
updates to 740 Graphic arts and
decorative arts
·
a new location and expanded
development for cinematography and videography at 777
·
significant expansions
throughout 796 Athletic and outdoor sports and games
·
significant expansions in Table
2, with parallel provisions in 930–990, for the ancient world, Italy,
Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam and Canada
·
updated historical periods
throughout 930–990.
A long article is available at: https://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/dewey/versions/print/new_features.pdf
It would obviously be time-consuming to
make all the changes at each revision, and a choice will have to be made
between continuing with the old and rearranging. Personally, I like DDC 22 quite
a lot (as I have the printed volumes – I would expect the web-based version to
be extra tedious, from a brief bout with the simple web-based classifying resource
provided at http://dewey.info/. If one were
starting out, by all means go with the latest (but remember that copies of the
older versions are much cheaper on the used books market!), but if one is
already invested in an older version, it may be smart to adopt the new version
only for specific schedules of especial interest, such as the topics under
computer science and data processing where the field is changing rapidly.
And check out the colour scheme – DDC 22
came in spring green, now DDC 23 is dressed in autumn colours.
Provide the complete changes between
ReplyDelete19 to 23rd edition