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.

29 Public administration in the Dewey Decimal

As a government servant (public official), I tend to collect a lot of reports and documents pertaining to public administration and government work. These are not exactly good for bedtime reading (or maybe they are… they do put you to sleep!), but they are  nevertheless useful as a source of official policy statements, progress reports, and statistics in general. They are also difficult to get outside of the official routines: collect them when you can, where you can, and don’t throw them away, because chances are you won’t find them in any collections. In fact, there are occasions when the ministry people will be approaching you for a copy of some old (but seminal!) report, especially if they are not in printed form (what is known as ‘grey literature’).

Now there is always a choice of locations for these types of documents. One appropriate place for many of these reports would be with the subject matter concerned, so that they will be a supplement and a complement to the other books and reports you have. I happen to be in the field of forestry and natural resources myself, so naturally I tend to collect a lot of reports of government departments on these subjects. Since I have a shelf full of stuff on ‘forestry of …’, the natural thing would be to put them in there with a standard subdivision to denote government reports or statistical compendiums. The standard subdivisions that I use (with 634.9 Forestry, or 333.75 Forest lands) tend to be the following: -021 Tabulated and related materials (including statistics, statistical graphs), which is very good for statistical compilations; and various sub-divisions of -021. The standard subdivision -025 Directories of persons and organizations is also useful, especially as you can directly append place names 1-9 from Table 2. The standard subdivision -05 Serial publications may be useful, as well as -06 Organizations an management. Indeed government reports can be safely lodged under -0601 International organizations (you can give a letter code for well-known bodies like the WB, WWF, and so on); then we have -0603-0609 for National, state, provincial, local organizations where we can put government departments and ministries (though these numbers are meant for actual organizations and government is supposed to go to 350 Public admin.). The country code is built in directly, so we need not use -09 numbers for these separately. For educational and research, I prefer -0701-0709, or -07101-07109 Education, or 0711 Higher education/ -0712 Secondary education/ -0715 Adult education and on-the-job-training (append place numbers directly to all these), or -07201-07209 Research (here again, numbers of place are already built in). Thus, forestry research in the FRI, India, 634.9’072’054 FRI.

Incidentally, the prescribed order of appending these subdivisions is given in Volume I at the start of Table 1 Standard Subdivisions. For the numbers I have been referring to above, the order of preference is as follows (only selected numbers cited here!):

-07 Education, research, related topics

-0601-0609 Organizations

-093-099 Treatment by specific continents, countries, etc.

-021 Tabulated and related materials

-05 Serial publications

This is actually the order of preference, meaning that we should choose between them in this order, rather than an order of precedence which would be the term to use for the order in which these numbers could be appended one after the other. Dewey states that these standard subdivisions should not be added one to the other “unless specially instructed”, but the temptation is too strong to resist sometimes! The problem arises because the second subdivision may be misinterpreted as a part of the first subdivision appended. Thus, if I want to specify research institutions separately from research itself, I might try to use both -07 and -06 subdivisions:  report of (or on) the Forest Research Institute in India (as distinguished from a report on the results of the research itself), 634.9’072’06054 FRI. But this could be read as ’07206, which obviously is research in Africa! Then the final appendage ’054 may not have any meaning (or could be read as a time period).

There is another instruction of relevance here, that is to use -00 to introduce the standard subdivisions, if -0 is already used in the (main) number for other purposes, or even -000, if -00 is already used. But whether this can be stretched to a number already having one appended subdivision is moot (in the above example, 634.9’072’006054, for instance). The rules do not seem to provide for such concatenations!

So much for the first alternative, which is to file government and institutional reports together under the concerned subject. The advantage is obvious, as the person interested in a specific discipline or topic is served more efficiently in one location. However, there is another possibility: that is to group together all the official government reports under Public Administration, 350-359. This is a complex range of numbers, similar to law 340-349, as it provides for various ways of slicing up the facets of country, subject, level, etc.

Let me take the example of the Forest Code of Karnataka State, issued by the Government of Karnataka, as official-sounding a document as can be imagined. It’s the ‘Blue Book’ for the public forest officials (I suppose you could then call it a ‘Green Book’!). I have four things to convey: Public administration, Forest department, Karnataka state, Code of procedure.  Or I might prefer the state (jurisdiction) before the department. I could even prefer in some cases the type of document (Code) to come before the other two. Dewey gives various options for expressing these facets in the classification number.

Option A is to use 351.3-.9 Public administration in specific countries, thus 351.5487 Public administration in Karnataka, to which can be added further subdivision -02-04 Specific topics of public administration. The last are taken from the digits following 35 in the range 352-354, which cover the different “specific topics”. Since I want forest administration, I take from the number 354.55 Forestry, the digits following 35, and add these to the previous number (through the connector -0-), so that Karnataka forest administration becomes 351.5487’0455. There is an even longer concatenation possible, because 354.55 Pub. Adm. Forestry itself can take more appendages, through connector -2-, as provided under 352-354: from 352.2 Organization of administration, I could take the digits 2, and form 351.5487’0455’22 Karnataka forest administration – organization of administration; or to be narrower, from 352.28 Internal organization, I could take the digits 28, giving me 351.5487’0455’228,  Karnataka forest administration - internal organization. Or I could choose 352.283 Distribution and delegation of authority, giving the number 351.5487’0455’2283; or 352.3 Executive management, giving 351.5487’0455’23. The Karnataka Forest Accounts Code could go under 351.5487’0455’24, using 352.4 Financial administration and budgets. Indeed even the number from which we borrow can itself have concatenated appendages, which gives the possibility of making the process more or less an endless loop.

As if this were not enough, we could take the “preferred” Option B, which is to use the main numbers 352-354, and add facets as we go along. Thus, 354.55 Pub. adm. - forest, to which geographic facet is added through -09, thus 354.55’095487 Pub. Adm. forest in Karnataka. Now the notes permit us to add to each geographical subdivision in the identical manner as provided under option A: 354.55’095487’023 Pub. Adm. of forests in Karnataka, executive management, 354.55’095487’024 Pub. Adm. of forests in Karnataka, financial adm. and budgets. And so on! And obviously, these subdivisions are not to be confused with the standard subdivision -023 or -024, which only goes to reinforce Dewey’s prohibition of stringing standard subdivisions together in a string.

Now to the bottom line: which is the preferable option? Dewey likes option B, which is to distribute a country’s public reports by topic of administration. All forest departments will be in one place, all education in another, all legal in a third. If however you would like a particular country’s reports to be grouped together, option A may be preferred. I suspect it comes down to the nature of the collection: if it has a large number of countries with few topics, I might like option A (country-wise arrangement), since country may become the basis of search; whereas if it has a large number of topics, with very few countries, I may like the reverse, as country does not become that much of an issue. Since I have reports mostly about my country (and maybe a few international reports), I guess I would like to use the topic-wise arrangement, option B.     

28 Cost Benefit Analysis in the Dewey

Here’s a case of a strange hole in the Dewey listing: cost benefit analysis, which could be financial, economic, or social. Usually, we think of CBA in the sphere of public projects: this is where ‘social’ or ‘economic’ prices come in (shadow prices, as they are called). For private proposals, we would talk of investment analysis, break-even, and so on. But the general topic of CBA seems to have been missed in the DDC.

Let’s start with the Index, which gives the following suggestions for ‘cost-benefit analysis’: 658.1554, and a sub-entry in ‘public administration’, 352.43 (there’s also ‘cost control’, 352.85). The first number, 658.1554, is of course in the domain of business management, and is repeated under the index entry ‘cost effectiveness; financial management’ 658.1554, ‘cost reduction’ 658.1552, ‘cost-volume-profit analysis’ 658.1554. If we go to the DDC entry, we find these numbers under 658.15 Financial management, then 658.155Management of income and expense, which has 658.1552 Cost analysis and control, 658.1553 Kinds of costs, and 658.1554 Income (Revenue), with the note “Including break-even analysis, cost-benefit analysis, cost-volume-profit analysis”. If this is what we are looking for, we’re home and dry: the very phrase CBA is reproduced here, so it should fit.

But what if we are looking for a more general, strategic, conceptual sort of slot where the theoretical stuff can be put? What about extension to all types of costs and returns, not just financial? If we want to stick with 658 management, we can try in 658.4 Executive management, especially where project management or decision tools are provided for. A promising heading would be 658.401 Planning, policy making, control, quality management, but it has general themes like strategic management, and not CBA specifically. Another entry may be at 658.403 Decision making and information management, since CBA is, after all, a decision tool for choosing between options. Again, it doesn’t quite answer: there’s Mathematical techniques, Systems theory, Operations research, Group decision making, but not CBA. Perhaps we may have to settle for a generic 658.404 Project management, but we are actually looking for CBA as a tool of analysis even before choosing a project alternative, so it doesn’t quite fit.

Let’s look at the other location suggested in the Index, 352.43 or 352.85. This is not even in Economics, but under 352-354 Specific topics of public administration, 352.4 Financial administration and budgets. 352.43 is Financial control, including non-financial managerial accounting, performance auditing, etc. This again is too narrowly focused, as is 352.85, Price and cost controls. We want something more generalised, broader, more conceptual and theoretical. We would like to see such a slot under Economics, rather than in the applied (techniques) parts of the schedules. According to E.J. Mishan (Cost-Benefit Analysis, 3^rd edition), it is not enough to judge projects merely by financial profitability because “…what counts as a benefit or a loss to one part of the economy – to on or more persons or groups – does not necessarily count as a benefit or a loss to the economy as a whole. And in cost-benefit analysis we are concerned with the economy as a whole, with the welfare of a defined society, and not any smaller part of it.”

One hint is that CBA is especially relevant in the case of public projects, where costs or benefits (not necessarily financial) accrue to a wide range of persons, most of whom are not even remotely concerned with the project or its objectives (bystanders, in a way, who are willy-nilly dragged into the process). So we may expect to see some slot in parts of Economics like Investment, Public expenditure or Welfare economics. There is no alternative, then, to scanning through the entire schedule under Economics to see if there is a likely slot missed out by the Index.

Starting with 332.6 Investment, we find these numbers are more narrowly focused on the mechanics of investing finances, rather than on conceptual treatises on what constitutes costs and returns and how to compare unlike items accruing to non-identical persons. We do have 332.678 Investment guides, but these are not about different criteria (of which CBA might be one), but information for different types of investors (private, individual, institutional etc.), or different types of industry.

This brings us to 336 Public finance, which really should be the home of CBA and assessment criteria for public projects. Much of it, however, deals with the actual inflow of funds (Public finance as a species, not as a subject of study!), then specifically Revenue, Taxes, etc. The section 336.3 Public debt and expenditure looks promising, especially 336.39 Public expenditure, but this has no subdivisions at all to cater to CBA as a decision tool.

The next possibility is under 338 Production (economics), where costs and returns should surely be treated in a general fashion. There are some promising locations: 338.06 Production efficiency (including cost-output ration, which may be taken as the obverse of B/C ratio which is another way of expressing the results of CBA); and similar subclass numbers for ‘Production efficiency’ under different sectors, such as 338.16 under Agriculture, 338.26 Extraction of minerals, 338.3 Other extractive industries (strangely, no 338.36), 338.45 under Secondary industries and services (why not 338.46?). This brings us to 338.5 General production economics, which refers actually to microeconomics (economics of the firm), but I suppose we could extend it to society as a large firm! We have 338.51 Costs, 338.516 Profits (which is the closest they get to C/B!) 338.52 Prices, 338.521 Price theories (class here law of supply and demand, theories of value), but no CBA as a criterion. There doesn’t seem to be any number for the field of Welfare Economics, unless you count this one in macroeconomics, 339.2 Distribution of income and wealth, or the Index entry 330.1556 Welfare economics school. There are some other numbers for economic theory, such as 330.157 Marginal utility school (neoclassical school, utility theory), 330.16 Theories of wealth, 330.17 Theories of property, but no specific number for theories of value, especially for “unpriced” values where there are no market transactions (so important for a social CBA; but see 338.521 cited above, which includes theories of value).

So there are cases where you may not find a suitable slot; I wonder whether this reflects some underlying ideological bias in the founders of the DDC! Bottom line: where have CIP (cataloguing-in-publication) entries slotted CBA books? The Mishan volume I cited above has been put by CIP (by the Library of Congress) under the business management class 658.1554 Income (Revenue), which has the note “Including break-even analysis, cost-benefit analysis, cost-volume-profit analysis”, as already quoted.

Looking over my shelves, I find that I have put all my books on CBA under 350.1556 Welfare economics school, since most of them go on to deal with the social costs and benefits (not just the returns to the investing institution or entity), and these are for the most part treatises on theory and concept, rather than descriptions of the economy. There is, of course, another underlying consideration in this, as in all my classification decisions: it is more useful to group together items on a broad area of interest, even if some should have strictly gone to some other location. Especially in a smallish home collection, it may be better to sacrifice a theoretical precision for the sake of convenience in usage. On the other hand, where the treatise deals with a particular sector, I have tended to class it under that subject, with the nearest standard subdivision to approximate the subject of CBA. Thus, books on forest economics, including those dealing with social costs and benefits (SCBA, the subject of my PhD) have gone to the location 333.75’0681 Forest lands – Organization and financial management, even though the exact slot should have provided for economic or social rather than financial, analysis rather than management. Books on the financial and business economics of forest management, however, have gone to 634.92 Forest management (or, if they are heavy on financial management, such as the classic Forest Planning by Johnston, Grayson and Bradley, 1967, to 634.92’0681), if they are not much concerned about social and welfare aspects. I guess I have still to sort out my ideas on 634.9 (left-brain) versus 333.75 (right-brain) for forestry!  

27 Psychology, philosophy and self-help in Dewey

Another area in which there seems to be too much choice of numbers is psychology and philosophy, with self-help or self-improvement thrown in. As in the case of natural history, there is  a pretty basic divide between the humanities and the sciences.

To start with, the 100’s have the core topics of Philosophy, parapsychology and occultism, and psychology. These are not exactly happy bed-fellows for a discerning lot. Then we have the 110’s, Metaphysics, the 120’s, Epistemology, causation, humankind, the 130’s  Parapsychology and occultism, then the 140’s Specific philosophical schools and viewpoints. Then come the 150’s Psychology, the 160’s Logic, the 170’s Ethics (Moral philosophy), then the 180’s Ancient, medieval, eastern philosophy. This is where you have the great classical age thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicureans, and one section 181 for Eastern philosophy (yes, in singular!). The last is 190’s for modern western philosophy.

One problem with this arrangement is that philosophy books tend to get split up on the shelves. Apart from the rather odd interpolation of paranormal and fringe pursuits, there is the problem that books on general philosophy, world philosophy, theory of philosophy, or abstract subjects under Metaphysics and Epistemology etc. are bunched in the start, while Logic and Ethics and the entire gamut of ancient philosophies go to the end, with Psychology forming a broad wedge in-between. This is bound to confuse the searcher in any case, leave alone resolving the perplexities of life and living!

A second difficulty was experienced by me, at least, in the treatment of eastern philosophies (181). While there are numbers for philosophies of different places, starting with 181.1 Far East and South Asia, there is a specific list for India 181.4 (as here is for China and Korea 181.11). The six traditional schools are provided their individual numbers from 181.41 onwards; but Buddhist philosophy is at 181.043, Jainist at 181.044. The confusion sometimes comes because philosophy and religion are so closely intertwined, and there are separate numbers for all the main religions in the 200’s. Thus we have this interesting effect that much of Buddhist thought (philosophy) goes off to the religion numbers; while much of Hindu religion may happen to come into philosophy, especially if you think of Vedanta as a religious (or at least a spiritual) rather than a philosophical pursuit. On the other hand, many philosophical works are classed under religion, such as the Upanishads (294.592’18), which may better be studied as philosophy, in fact very similar to the precepts of say the Stoics (188).

A subject head that seems to mirror the last mentioned philosophy is in 158 Applied psychology. It is worth spelling out the note under this heading:

 “Class here application of individual psychology in general; comprehensive works on how to better oneself and how to get along with other people; comprehensive works on psychological and parapsychological or occult techniques for achieving personal well-being, happiness, success.”  

This looks like a tall order; even more specific is 158.1 Personal improvement and analysis:

“Class here works intended to make one a better person (!) or to stave off failure, to solve problems or to adjust to a life that does not meet one’s expectations; works on specific systems and schools of applied psychology written for persons who wish to be improved or analyzed.” 

No mention of 'believe it and you’ll see it', 'awaken the giant', 'you can be great', and so on!

Of course there are only a limited set of original books on psychology itself (think of Freud, Jung, and a few others), but a veritable flood of self-help and improvement books that could claim a place in 158.1. If you wouldn’t like to clutter (I was about to use the word foul!) your ‘serious’ psychology shelves with these other genre of slightly doubtful vintage (if you have a person in the household that has done a college course on psychology, you may have this situation), there is a completely different slot for the latter: this is in the technology 600’s, to be precise under 646 Sewing, clothing, management of personal and family life (it looks like Dewey was of the conviction that 'a stitch in time saves nine'!).  You could put most of the self-improvement works under 646.7 Management of personal and family life, which has 646.76 Social skills, 646.77 Dating and choice of mate, 646.78 Family life (“Class here guides to harmonious family relations”, essential if you have teenagers around!), 646.79 Guides for persons in late adulthood (“Class here guides to retirement”).

On the other hand, if you look at success in a more corporate world, you have 650.1 Personal success in business (“Class here interdisciplinary works on success, formerly 646.7"), which includes 650.11 Time management (also at 640.43 Management of time, in home and family management), 650.12 Financial success, 650.13 Personal improvement and success in business relationships, 650.14 Success in obtaining jobs and promotions, and  a few more; and 658.409 Personal aspects of executive management (“Class here success as an executive”). So do not think there is any dearth of choice, for classifying or for life strategies!

Another useful location for self-help in the sense of physical and mental fitness comes in at 613.7 Physical fitness, which includes not only exercises of different genres, but also techniques (hence in the 600’s!) of yoga and so forth. The spiritual side of yoga, of course, is in religion: at 204.3 Worship, meditation, yoga, or in Hinduism: 294.543 Worship, meditation, yoga, or in philosophy: 181.45 Yoga in Indian philosophy.

So you can imagine that your practical psychology and philosophy books are going to be scattered around. And don’t forget to cover your 'unusual' psychology books in plain paper!

  

26 When you have too many choices in Dewey

There are often situations where a book will fit into any of a number of places in the Dewey Decimal Classification system. I have a couple of suggestions, or tricks, if you will, to find your way in such situations.  I’ll take a couple of examples to make my suggestions clear.

Take a simple straightforward title like America’s Wild Woodlands, a National Geographic Society (NatGeo) publication from 1985. Now this could be filed under Forests and forestry, if such a number existed in Dewey; or under Forests alone, or Forestry alone. It could, however, also go under Wildlife, if such a number existed, as it deals with the flora and fauna of the country’s forest areas. It could of course also go into the subjects under Ecology, if the approach adopted were their inter-relationships and the way they interact with and in their habitat and environment. It could, of course, be classed under Natural history (which has been generously endowed in DDC 22 in comparison to earlier versions), or under Environment and Natural resources. It could of course be put with outdoor pursuits like Walking, trekking or hiking, outdoor camping, even Geography and travel in and of the region. I am almost certain there could be a few more numbers which could plausibly accommodate such a title.

For a small home library, it may not be that crucial to get the Dewey class numbers exactly right: what is more important is probably to put together the relatively few books on a topic all together at the place one would most usually expect hem to be. As I have suggested many times, it is important to arrive at a grouping that gives you to hand, at one place, all your books on the subject, rather than spreading them sparsely throughout the shelves. The subject is more important, in my consideration. If you make the country the main criterion, then you would have to search through all the shelves country by country to locate books on a particular subject (starting from World, then by Continent, and so on). As far as possible, therefore, I put Country last in the number-building exercise.

This does not, of course, answer the question of which subject (Classes) to put each title under. Now is when I try to visualize where I would like to have all books with such an approach or slant. Since forests and forestry are the subject in which what I have a lot of titles, I feel I have to exercise a little more discretion and split up my collection judiciously.

The basic distinction I try to make is between science/technology and … non-science! That is, the social sciences and humanities. Titles that talk of the sociology, politics or economics of forests go into the latter category, to be assigned to the 300’s in the DDC. Even within science/technology, I like to separate the purely technical books, reports and manuals out, and put them under the 600’s. Those titles which deal with the science aspects would go to the 500’s. Of course, those which contain a travelogue, or talk about the geography and history could go to the 900’s, but I would perhaps not mind having them with the titles in the other categories depending on the accent or coverage.

These are admittedly somewhat vague distinctions, and one can decided only by scanning the book and judging where the main emphasis lies. The book decidedly seems to me to be about the forest as habitat, about its trees and plants and animals, the changes in ecology over time, etc., although there is one picture of a bearded bloke with a home-made guitar (dulcimer) as a nod to the human denizens. In the present case, I feel ‘forest as a habitat’ would sum up the subject of the book. On the whole, I get the sense that the book is about the natural history of North America’s wild (natural) forests, rather than about the forest economy or managed (planted) crops. I will be happy to put this book in the natural history section, to join a number of others about the forests of various regions and places.

Natural history has been given a good deal in dc22, as we no longer have to isolate all these nature books in 508 Natural history, to be followed by all the mathematical and physical sciences before coming back to biology, botany, ecology etc. Instead, dc22 advices us to go to 578  ‘Natural history of organisms and related subjects’, and we have a nice entry in 578.7 ‘Organisms characteristic of specific kinds of environments’, with the note “Class here biology of specific kinds of environment”. This is right up our path in the woods, and 578.73-.75 gives us a mechanisms to bring in digits from 577.3-577.5 for nonaquatic environments, and 578.76-.77, from 577.6-577.7 aquatic environments. In our example, 577.3 is Forest ecology, and we can take the last digit and attach it to 578.7, thus giving us 578.73 Natural history of organisms in forest environments, thank you and welcome! Now it is a simple job to add the place code, -0973 for America, 578.730973.

The number 578 refers to natural history of all types of organisms in different environments, but there are separate classes for the natural history of limited groups of organisms: 579 Microorganisms etc., 580 Plants (or more specifically, 581 Specific topics in natural history of plants), similarly 590 Animals or 591 Specific topics in natural history of animals, 598 Birds and finally 599 Mammals, where there are no special numbers for natural history as such (I suppose the whole field is about natural history!), but you can attach sub-numbers for specific topics from 591.3-59.7 and so on to mix and match for a narrower focus. Of course, for a small collection, it may not be necessary to go down to that level of detail; put all elephant books together arranged alphabetically by author, rather than trying to distinguish sub-topics like ecology or behaviour or diseases or reproduction and so on.

It would be interesting to check our choice with CIP (cataloguing-in-publication) if it’s available; NatGeo are particularly meticulous in providing this for all their publications at the back, usually after the Index. I was surprised to see that they chose to classify America’s Wild Woodlands under 917.3’09152, Geography of and travels in, American forest, rather than in Ecology which is listed as the subject matter! I guess NatGeo cannot but give primacy to the Geography aspect. However, for me it is nice to have this book close to titles like American Rainforest and Rainforests of Australia, not to speak of Wild India and Silent Valley. And followed by Deserts of…, Wetlands…, Grasslands… and so on.

Where was natural history provided for in dc20? The number 508 Natural history was meant for “description and survey of phenomena in nature”; for “natural history of organisms” you were packed off to 574 Biology! The closest you could get would be 574.5 Ecology, which was more technically oriented to topics like “adaptations, behaviour, biomes, ecosystems, ecological succession”: no picture books here! Subclass 574.5264 was for land environments, including 574.52642 Forests, jungles, woodlands. You could skip to 581.5 Ecology of plants, or 591.5 Ecology of animals, to which you could attach similar digits from sub-numbers under 574.5. The number 578 was for Microscopy in biology, 581 just Botany (and not the more interesting dc22 Specific topics in natural history of plants), and likewise for Zoology (Animals).  

The reverse tack would be to ask, what do I not put in the 500’s to do with nature/ wildlife? I feel that documents on the management of wildlife reserves, for example, are better put in the technology section, 639.9 Conservation of biological resources, which has a special sub-class 639.95 Maintenance of reserves and refuges. So reports of the tiger conservation project, for instance, go there. So do picture books on individual reserves, or even on many reserves (although the last could equally well go to Natural history 578). The reasoning is that these are narrowly focused on the conservation aspect, and not on the general biology and ecology of the habitat or group of organisms. Thus the equally colourful and lavishly produced NatGeo book Wild Lands for Wildlife. America’s National Refuges goes into 639.95. So I do split up my books between biological accounts and applied or technology books, even if they are glossy and colourful!

Similarly, books of forest management are sent off to 634.9 Forestry, even if they may be picture books or dealing with the same American woodlands. Forest resource surveys, forest products, economics and business, and statistics are all sent to the technical class 634.9. There is a problem with 333 class numbers (dc20 had 333 Land economics, 333.7-.9 Natural resources and energy, whereas dc22 calls it  333 Economics of land and energy, 333.7-.9 as in dc20), because there are classes that include forest, wetland, recreational and wilderness areas, biological resources and organisms, and so on. I guess you’ll have to take a call whether a title goes with the science/technology sections or with the social sciences (economics being somewhere in-between because it tries harder!). I prefer to put all policy and polemics under 333, while honest accounts of some poor naturalist will be best kept in the 500’s! I have this problem with a title like Kenneth Brower’s American  Legacy: Our National Forests, another NatGeo publication that can be fairly said to be not so much about the natural history alone, but about policy issues: “exploring the multifaceted problems of overcutting, watershed protection, erosion control, wildlife conservation, and more”. I find that I have put it under 333.75, but I could have put it under 634.9 Forestry; the only consideration is that it is written for a general audience, by a non-forester, and is more concerned with public perceptions and aspirations, public policy, and trade-offs, and not just with maximizing forestry returns (from forest products). Incidentally, CIP has it under 333.75’16 Forest lands, Conservation and protection; and the previous example, Wild Lands, under 333.95’16 Biological resources, Conservation and protection. On the other hand, another NatGeo book, America's Hidden Wilderness: Lands of Seclusion, has been put in 917; so go figure!   

This is, of course, just one example. My next post will consider the Psychology-Philosophy-Self improvement gamut on similar lines.   

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!).     

24 Dewey versions and changes – DDC 19 to 23

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 24^th 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 15^th (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 21^st 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 20^th 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.