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.

12 Lost in the Dewey woods: Forestry 634.9

As a forestry professional (recently retired!), I’ve naturally collected a lot of books and reports pertaining to Forestry and Forest Products, in their various manifestations. My struggles with classifying these documents started with the Oxford Decimal Classification (ODC) system, which was my first introduction to this delectable pastime!

I’ve finally relocated my copy of the ODC, from one of the hundred boxes that I brought back from New Delhi to Bangalore on retiring, so let me share something about this classification system just for Forestry. Its original version was devised in large part by Swiss forester Philipp Flury, a member of the Bibliographical Committee of the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO) by 1933, and assigned the decimal notation 634.9F to distinguish it from the head 634.9 in the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC). One of the Chairmen of the Committee was Prof. R.S.Troup (Oxford), which establishes a strong Indian connection, Troup being one of the best known British Indian foresters and author of many volumes on Indian Silviculture from the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun. A completely revised version of the ODC was prepared by a post-war Committee, largely by P.G.Beak, Assistant Director of the Bureau, and presented by Ford Robertson, Director of the Commonwealth Forestry Bureau, Oxford in 1948, and after discussions, was adopted in the IUFRO Congress in Rome in September 1953.

The ODC groups the field of Forestry into ten broad classes, starting with 0, for "General works on forests, forestry and the utilisation of forest products", through 1 (Factors of the environment, Biology), 2 (Silviculture), 3 (Work Science, harvesting), 4 (Forest injuries and protection), 5 (Forest mensuration), 6 (Forest management), 7 (Marketing, economics of forest transport and wood industries), 8 (Forest products and their utilisation), and 9  (Forests and forestry from the national point of view, social economics of forestry). The application of sciences like genetics, botany and ecology are covered under 1.

An interesting aspect is that the UDC (Universal Decimal Classification), the European version of the DDC, now uses 630 for Forestry (rather than Dewey’s 634.9, which fits between 634 Horticulture and 635 Gardening), and recommends the use of ODC numbers (with an interpolated asterisk) to form class numbers: thus, 630*1 for "Environmental factors, forest biology", 630*2 for "Silviculture", and so on. (My source for UDC numbers was the International Medium Edition, FID publication no.571, BS 1000M: Part 1: 1985). This combination of two systems provided fairly detailed heads, but there were confusions still, especially for general works on forest economics and history, which are somewhat repetitious in the ODC.

An interesting feature of UDC is the provision for making composite numbers from two different numbers or concepts, using the colon (:) as the connector or concatenator. This is a neat device that enables you to create new categories to your heart’s content. Thus if you want to make a new heading for the effect of climate on forests, you can just take the numbers for Forestry  and for Climate, and join them with the colon. I found this especially useful in joining Forest Management to Community Participation for documents on Joint Forest Management (JFM), thus 630*6:364.462 – the first number is UDC 630 with ODC 6 for “Forest management”, the latter number UDC 364.462 referring to “Participation of the people in decision-making. Democratization. Grass-roots democracy”, which fits exactly. Instead of 630*6, we could use 630*9, the 9 from ODC representing “Forests and forestry from the national point of view. Social economics of forestry”. There’s no separate category for JFM in the UDC or the DDC, as it is something that has developed only in the last two decades. 

The possible downside of this creative license is that each person can form their own new categories, and standardisation is lost. Dewey doesn’t allow this freedom. Any synthesis of numbers from different parts of the DDC has to be done only where expressly permitted, and then as per the instructions provided. Yes, there is one provision in the Standard Subdivisions, applicable to more or less any number from 000 to 999, which lets you relate the subject to to any scientific aspect by adding 01 as a connector, followed by the number from the Sciences (510 to 590). Thus, "Application of the principles of plant genetics to forestry" 634.9’0158115, from 634.9 Forestry and 581.15 Genetics, under the number 581 Botany (we are talking about DDC 20 here; the corresponding number in DDC 22 would be 581.3, Genetics and evolution, under 581 Specific topics in natural history of plants). Unfortunately this nifty trick isn’t provided for with subjects under Technology (600’s), as 016… introduces "Indexes", not application of 600 subject heads; and 019 is "Psychological principles", not the subject in relation to "Geography and travel"!

There are a few numbers to which the entire gamut of subject headings 001 to 999 can be added, such as 338 Production economics, which allows any subject to be related thus.  Also, the Standard Subdivisions do provide a general rule for appending reference to "Place" from Table 2 to any subject number, with the connector ’09: ’094 is Europe, ’095 Asia and so forth (the apostrophe is just a mark to group digits, and need not be shown in actual numbers). This is probably the most widely used mode of subdivision of a topic, and neatly groups documents by continent and country. In some numbers, the 9 need not even be added, as it is already provided in the main number: for instance, Standard Subdivision ’060’3-9, for Organizations in different countries, leaves out the connecting 9, thus 634.9’0604 Forestry organisations in Europe, and so on.

All such aids are welcome, for the DDC 634.9 Forestry is woefully underpopulated compared to ODC. Further, forestry subjects are scattered between 634.9 (forestry), 639.9 (biodiversity conservation), and 333.75 (forest lands), not to mention "forest ecology" under 577.3 (DDC 22). I will present some of the compound numbers I use to gerrymander forestry topics into the DDC mode in the next section.

01 What this is about

How do we manage our acquisitions of books, papers, magazines, tapes, CDs and other things we just can't bring ourselves to give away? These are the things that in a way define our life experience, our travel through the world. They've kept us company through happy days and sad, through exciting times and dull periods. But left to themselves, they become almost useless as they are all jumbled up, they get tucked away in dusty corners and tattered cardboard boxes in the basement, and they introduce health-threatening clutter and disorder.

This question may not loom very large at the beginning of our acqisitorial lives, but a few years down the line, a few shifts of residence, and the issue of keeping, storing, and retrieving them at our will and convenience, becomes important.

My own response was to take the bull by the horns, grasp the nettle, and organize my books and music using recognized classification schemes like the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), although there are other... especially the one I started with, the Universal Decimal scheme (UDC), and for Forestry (my profession), a modification of it called the Oxford (ODC). Let me share my experiences in the hope that it may be of some help to some blighted soul groaning under the weight of all that rubbish.... but organized even imperfectly, can be enjoyed and used by self and others...