25 Law and the Dewey Order

I just got a jeep-full of my old collection of forestry documents and books from my erstwhile institute, where I had stored them during my tour of duty. I’m now stuck with the task of finding space for them in my already packed shelves! But I was missing too many of my old documents and resources and wishing I had them around; hence this indiscretion!

Someone's been naughty!

But to get to the point of this post: among these documents are a few of the official manuals and legal enactments. Law has always been a difficult field for me, both during my government days, and now in the Dewey system! Let me share my thoughts.

Law is provided for in a very detailed manner in Dewey under 340, that is from 340 to 349; this is followed by Public administration, from 350 to 354 (and Military science, from 355 to 359, which does not concern me here). The law of traditional societies in the modern world, and of the ancient world, are  provided for under 340, international law under 341. The principles of building numbers for the law of a jurisdiction or area are provided in the notes under 342-349.

The number 34 is the base number for Law, and is one of the five elements that are used to build numbers for law subjects. The second element is provided by the digits for specific branches or type of original materials etc.: thus, the eight categories from 342 to 349 are devoted to the following subjects, the third digit (at the level of the thousand Classes) serving as one of the five elements:

342 Constitutional and administrative law

343 Military, defence, public property, public finance, tax, trade (commerce), industrial 

344 Labour, social service, education, cultural law

345 Criminal law

346 Private law

347 Civil procedure and courts

348 Laws (Statutes), regulations, cases not limited to a particular branch

349 Comprehensive works

The facet indicator -0- is a third element (-00- is used for standard subdivisions). This is followed by the fourth element, digits indicating a subject under (subordinate to) the specific branch etc. listed above. The fifth element is the geographical indicator -4 to -9 from Table 2.

This scheme gives us alternative ways of building numbers, depending on the order in which the elements are added. A simple way would be to put the geographical indicator last. Thus, under Criminal law 345, we can have Courts, 345.01, and in Australia, 345.01’94. The order can also be reversed under option C: 345.1, Criminal law, Courts, of Australia 345.1’094. These options however still distribute law of a specified jurisdiction among the different subjects, which may be inconvenient if we wished to group together all the laws of a particular geographical area or jurisdiction (e.g. country) in one place. That is, if we are doing research into the law of a country we are going to start a business in, we would like to have all its laws in the library’s collection  conveniently to hand in one location, rather than having to roam the stacks (shelves) trying to locate the relevant documents under different subjects and subdivisions of subjects.

Two alternatives are available to group all material of a preferred jurisdiction together. One, option A, is to use 343 – 348 for the preferred jurisdiction, e.g. usually the home country, and 349 for all other jurisdictions. The way 349 is built up in this option, is as follows: 349.4-.9 cover different jurisdictions from Table 2, e.g. 349.94 Comprehensive law of Australia. Another option B is actually to put geographical notation first, immediately after 34, thus, Law of Australia 3494 or 349.4, followed by facet indicator 0, then the subdivision of the subject, say Criminal courts 51, thus 349.4051. There is not supposed to be any confusion of this with 349.4, which would indicate Comprehensive Law of Europe! This suggests that further facet addition is not an option if geographical indicator is appended last, as under option A 349.4-.9 (from Table 2).

This description barely scratches the surface, of course, and the relevant pages of DDC must be consulted. However, let us try applying these options to a practical situation. I have certain documents dealing with the forest law of a particular jurisdiction, India. I also have the Wildlife law, Environment law, Land Revenue, Income Tax, etc. applicable to India and to Karnataka state, etc. There are also descriptive or discursive works on the law of forest of other subjects apart from the actual legal enactments and cases.

Now the arrangement I prefer would be to group all the laws pertaining to the country together. Within these, I would much prefer the laws pertaining to each subject to be grouped together, say land revenue, forest, wildlife, etc Let us see what possibilities there will be for such an arrangement.

Suppose we reserve 342-348 for the preferred jurisdiction under option A, but using this for the UK, the erstwhile colonial power, and generally recognized as the ‘mother’ country for law and constitution. Then I would like to put all laws of a specific country under 349, thus 349.54 India. But then there does not seem to be a way of adding facets to this through -0; we would have to put the facet in-between, yielding the sequence Law-Forest-India. To realize the arrangement Law-India-Forest, Law-India-Environment, and so on, we have to resort to option B, appending to Law 34, area indicator 54 (from Table 2), yielding 345.4 Law of India; then appending the facet indicator, 0, and the subject, ‘3076498 Forest products (from 343.076498), thus 345.40’3076498 Law of India-forest. The problem here is that different types of original material on Law of forest would be dispersed: case law, for instance, would have to go under 345.40’8, and it would be difficult to arrange subject-wise.

Dewey does come to the rescue, however, by providing a special development of standard subdivision -026, that can be appended to numbers built up under 342-347, which includes the sector-wise subjects like forest products, 343.076498. The standard subdivision -026 in Table 1 is itself indicated in DDC 22 in parantheses, (026), i.e. not preferred, with numbers under 341-347 shown as preferred. However I personally have found -026 extremely useful to class law of each subject with the subject. This is convenient for shelving books about the subject’s law and policy, e.g. discussions on India’s forest land law and tenure, and suggestions for change, 333.75’026’0954 Forest-law-India or 333.75’0954’026 Forest-India- Law. Perhaps we could use some license and expand -026 the way it is developed under 342-347 Branches of law. Thus, we have ‘02632 Individual and collected laws, ‘02636 Administrative regulations, ‘02643 Court decisions, ‘02646 Rulings of regulatory agencies, and so on.

Coming back to option B, then, we have derived Law-India-forest as 345.40’3076498, and to this we can append -026 to show type of material as per the special development of -026 indicated above: separating the actual acts, rules, case judgements and orders, and so on. What is convenient here is not just the separation of these different materials, but the fact that a standardised arrangement is provided, which will recur under each subject. 

There is always some conflict between filing law matters under each subject separately using standard subdivision -026 (the final option suggested under 342-347), and bringing them to the Law discipline as described above. Since -026 is a standard notation for law (even though it is shown within brackets, i.e. as not a preferred option, in Table 1 of DDC22), perhaps books about law (which may include a general discussion of policy, history, biography, etc.) of a particular field can be kept within the field; 333.75’026 would be preferred for books on forest law, 634.9’026 for regulations on forest management (timber extraction and certification, working plan codes, etc.). There is again a dilemma when a subject is so ambiguously divided between two numbers like forest lands (333.75) and forestry (634.9), not to speak of conservation (333.95 or 639.9). One will have to use one’s discretion and familiarity with the way the users think: forest professionals will gravitate to 634.9, while social scientists will naturally expect books on  forest law to be filed under 333.75, books on environmental law under 333.7 and so on. This is a difficult call, and perhaps to avoid this choice altogether, everything can be filed under law 34-- with either subject or geographical jurisdiction coming second.

Bottom line: I tend to file pure law documents (bare act and rules, case law, court judgements) under 34--, preferring the sequence Law-subject-country-type/origin of document, whereas social environmentalists’ tracts on forest law, tenure, rights, etc. go under 333.75’026, and wildlife law enforcement, intelligence, regulatory bodies, etc. under 639.9’026. A library catering to Law professionals will probably prefer everything under Law 34--, whereas for a collection coming from an applied field like forestry, the expectation would be to file law tracts under different subject heads: law pertaining to forest conservation, law governing forest management, law of environmental conservation, and so on (hence, scattered). On this basis, I like to know that pure law resources (bare acts, case judgments, regulations, etc.) will be found under Law 34--, whereas subject matter tracts which probably discuss law in the context of history, policy, etc. will be found under the relevant subject; this dual approach suits my requirements. 

And I am not above cheating a bit and using the extended -026 development not only under Law numbers, but even under different subject matter numbers using standard subdivision -026 from Table 1… something definitely not recommended by the official schedules! A further (definitely un-standard!) twist is also conceivable if you want to use the 026 addendum twice: Forest lands 333.75-law ’026-country ’0954- court decisions ’02643, for instance, where the final -026 subdivision is expanded using the special schedule provided under 342-347 (not authorised as per Dewey on two counts: the expanded schedule for -026 is not available in Table 1, and moreover -026 is supposed to precede -09 subdivisions if at all permitted!).