30 My country or my profession: basis of classifying

An underlying pattern we can discern in our choice of arrangement of books is the thread of geographical location (country etc.) that can unite different subject classes. The question, in bald terms is: do we group books by subject and sub-subject to the n’th degree, or do we regroup at some level by country? We see this as options in many different classes, such as Law 340, Public administration 350, and the Arts, where we are given the choice to group principally by subject or by country.

What could be the considerations affecting this choice? A basic approach of Dewey (and other systems) is the primacy given to subject or discipline at the level of the ten main Classes or hundred Divisions themselves.  In other words, Dewey has already determined that we will group primarily by subject, not by country. I do not think any librarian would want to separate out all his items by country (barring an institution focused solely on Area studies, perhaps!). This is obvious in the case of the exact (physical) sciences and technology:  physics is physics, wherever it is studied, chemistry is chemistry, genetics is genetics, electronics is electronics.

When we come to the  arts, humanities and the social sciences, however, there is a pause for thought. In religions, for instance, apart from the major ‘world’ religions (Christianity, for example), the schedules consciously provide headings by region (culture):  292 Classical religion (Greek and Roman), 293 Germanic religion, 294 Religions of Indic origin, and under 299, religions of all other regions and ethnic origins. Still, the fact remains that these are all accommodated under the umbrella of 200, Religion.

Philosophy, like Religion, is organized largely by region (or culture) of origin, apart from a list of general categories in the beginning (reflecting, however, the concerns of mainly Western thought): 181 has sub-section numbers for various eastern philosophies, 182-189 has numbers for various schools of ancient and medieval western philosophy, 190 is for modern western philosophies. But not so Psychology: the numbers are provided mostly based on the school, thinker, or functional area or application.

The prominent number which, by definition, is arranged on regional and country lines is, of course History, starting from World history. Geography also is similarly expanded, although there are a larger number of general principles at the start of geography as an art (or science). Other parts of the humanities could also be so arranged, except that the categories are principally based on the western  development of the field, and numbers are provided at the end for parallel development of non-western modes (e.g. 789.9 Nonwestern art music, practically the last number in the range 780-789 Music!).

Where does one introduce the country development? The choice can be made at different levels of the schedule. A broad area of knowledge (say, each of the thousand Sections) may be sub-divided a number of times. Many of the schedules provide a choice of dividing by country right at the outset, and adding numbers from other parts to reproduce the detailed sub-classes, or alternatively doing the country-wise classification at a later stage (see Law, Public Administration). Many schedules provide a way of forming a main number country-wise by appending geographical appellations directly, ’93-99, rather than through standard subdivisions -093-099, which then would permit attachment of further sub-divisions in parallel with the initial number development in that section. The country classification, of course, can always be done at the last by adding numbers from Table 2, -093 to -099. This would give us the choice of expanding in the order either subject-place-topic or facet, or subject-topic-place. One of my grouses is that 789.9 Nonwestern art music does not provide this (explicitly). The schedule doesn’t say explicitly that 789.93-789.99 can be used for different countries. The above choice is then taken away, because you then have to use -009 for standard subdivisions of place: if you make, say, 789.9’00954 Indian music, you have to stop there, and cannot add all the special subdivisions provided under 789.3-789.9 using connectors -01, -1, etc. On the other hand, if you were explicitly allowed to make 789.954 Indian music, or even  789.9548 South Indian music, you could treat it as a main number (not as the standard subdivision of place) and attach -011 to -015 General principles, -016 Stylistic influences, -018 Musical forms and -1 Voices, instruments etc. (but you would need some connector, such as the “special topics” -04,  to distinguish subdivisions of place from subtopic).

Bottom line: I tend to have a large number of books on a few selected topics, and a small number on all the rest (all home libraries are probably similar, with a large collection on the subjects closest to the owner’s profession and a few hobbies or side interests). For the preferred professional subjects, I like to classify down to sub-topic and then introduce the country facet at the end (using standard subdivision -093-099): the reasoning being that it is the subject matter that is the focus, not the country. Thus, if I have ten books on say trees of different countries, ten on animals, and ten on birds, I would go Biology-Trees-country, Animals-country, Birds-country,   and not Biology-UK-trees, UK-animals, UK-birds, China-trees, China-animals, China-birds, Africa-trees, and so on. If I had only a couple of books, I might not even bother to classify down to a sub-topic, but might just put it in the highest (1000 sections) category, and be done with it; e.g. Ecology 577, not subdivided by topic or country.

07 Adding a geographical label to the subject

Here’s an interesting facet of the DDC (and other such schemes of classification). Like I said in the last post, you want a row of books on the birds arranged in a sequence of the major geographical zones or areas, and likewise for books on mammals, or trees, or anything else of universal interest and prevalence.

DDC provides this in some subjects by giving a separate number for each geographical ‘jurisdiction’ (continent, country, region, etc.). If you look at the 900s series for Geography and for History, you will find a similar pattern repeating: starting with 910 (Geography and travel), we have the sequence 913 Ancient world, 914 Europe, 915 Asia, 916 Africa, 917 North America. 918 South America, 919 Other areas. This suggests the coding of numbers 4 to 9 to the continents listed. This pattern in repeated in more detail in the series for History: starting with 930, History of the ancient world, we get numbers corresponding to ancient China 931, ancient Egypt 932, and so on. This suggests that in Geography 913, we could repeat the same sequence but with a decimal point: 913.0 Geography of ancient world (though we never write the zero after a round number, so it’s just 913); 913.1 of ancient China; and so forth.

Extending this pattern, we have 940 History of Europe, followed by 941 of British Isles, 942 of England & Wales, 943 of Central Europe; Germany, and so on. This suggests for Geography & travel, under 914 (914.0) Europe, 914.1 British Isles, 914.2 England & Wales, 914.3 of Central Europe; Germany, and so on. As I said, OCLC don’t provide numbers beyond the decimal point in public media, so I shouldn’t be posting them out here without infringing their copyrights; but since the 3-digit (‘hundreds’) numbers are available free, you can build decimal numbers by analogy without their manual and without stepping on their property rights. It’s interesting to note that even worlds yet to be discovered are provided for, in 999 Extraterrestrial worlds!

But not all subjects are provided with separate numbers for geographical jurisdictions like this. Suppose you want, for instance, to arrange your bird guides: Birds (Aves) is 598 in the DDC Thousand Sections list. Now we want Birds of Europe, Birds of Asia, Birds of Africa, Birds of North America, of South America, and of Other areas. This isn’t done by adding the digits immediately after the decimal, *598.4, *598.5 etc. (the star or asterisk shall be taken to denote a wrong formulation, as in Historical Linguistics). These numbers actually stand for specific, other sub-divisions of the subject Birds, which we can get only from the official DDC book. But never fear, there is one expedient which DDC gives in any number: the provision to attach 09 followed by the geographical place marker. This gives numbers like 598.094 Birds of Europe, 598.095 of Asia, and so on. Just using the 900s numbers, we can go a little further within each continent: 598.0951 Birds of China, 598.0952 of Japan, 598.0953 of Arabia, 598.0954 of South Asia, 598.0955 of Iran, 598.0956 of Middle East, 598.0957 of Siberia (Asiatic Russia), 598.0958 of Central Asia, 598.0959 of Southeast Asia.

Of course if you had the DDC books with you, you could drill right down to country, province and even further in some cases. But we don’t want to abuse OCLC’s generosity, so you get at least a broad sequence of regions which can be repeated for almost any subject by just attaching the ‘connector’ 09 after the number, and then adding the region/country code which is a consistent series.

In doing thus, you will get a serviceable arrangement of your books by geographical region, without having to cheat on the copyright business. It may not be strictly kosher, as DDC sometimes gives a decimal number ending in 9 to which the area codes can be attached without need for an intervening zero: for Birds 598, if I remember rightly, there’s a given number 598.29 for Birds by geographical region, so that instead of *598.094 Birds of Europe and so on, it should strictly be 598.294 Birds of Europe etc. But this is a relatively minor infraction, and if you don’t have an Inspector of Libraries looking over your shoulder, you should be able to get away with it and still have a serviceable arrangement as per *DDC!