HIT: Help with 398.2xxxx?

[Jody Newman <newjody@massed.net>]

Hi folks!

I really appreciate all your input on this. Here are the ideas that came
so far. I will send more if they come.

Have a happy weekend.

Jody Newman
Library Aide
Center School
Stow MA
newjody@massed.net (school)
jcnewma@attglobal.net (home)

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I once carried number out 6-7 digits to best classify books (indians,
animals, holidays) then noticed that my public library (one of the
largest in the state) often uses an interim line.

Thus, you could use:
398.2
AFR  (or whatever you want to designate the country of origin, or type
of tale)
XXX   (author's last name letters)

I did this with indian tribes and holidays at an elementary school, and
had targeted animals before I left.  After all, isn't our main purpose
to easily find books (for students, staff, and self)?
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OK, here is what I have gleaned from the unabridged Dewey:
base number is 398.209, then add the country number (or region or
continent, depending on whether the collection reflects one country, a
region, or a continent).
Thus:
398.20981 for folklore of Brazil
398.20973 for folklore of the U.S.

It makes for long Deweys, though!

and it get much worse when the collection is of tales of a specific
type,
i.e. a Hatian version of a French folktale  398.20944097294  (the
numbers
for France and Haiti together with the base number)!

p. 853-860 in the DDC21 coves this in agonizing detail.

The numbers change if the tale is one that is about paranormals in human
or
semi human form 398.21xxxx, legendary persons 398.22, folktales about
real
places 398.232, etc.

In general, collections of a variety of folk tales use the number
398.209
pluse the region or country number.  Use the others only if all the
tales
in the collection are about ghosts for example, or about werewolves;
without regard to country of origin.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What we've done in our elementary library is extend the folklore Dewey
to four places beyond the decimal ? that puts it by Continent.  398.2094
= Europe, .2095 = Asia, .2096 = Africa, .2097 = North American, .2098 =
South America, etc.  Then, for the cutter, I use the name of the peoples
or country from where the folklore originated.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I don't think that Dewey will do what you want in any reasonable length,

but I've been impressed with our public library's system.  They use
398.2
for every folktale.  Then under that, they put the name of the country
fully
spelled out in capital letters.  The third line is the first three
letters
of the author's last name.  The only issues that arise are the
collections
which may be Africa, for example.  You have to know to look at 398.2
AFRICA
as well as 398.2 KENYA.  As a storyteller, I've found this system
especially
useful, although I haven't gotten up the energy to do it in my school
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yes, you can run out the after decimal numbers and thereby separate your

collection of folk literature.

Easier and more workable for mylibrary was to put all into 398.  Next
line
on the spine and call number was in CAPS for the country.  The next line

was open and the 4th line was the author's name.   When there was a mix
we
used WORLD.     The spine labels read:   398      398      398      398
                                         FRANCE   KOREA    KOREA
WORLD

                                         Smith     Jones   Walker
Hughes
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I also have a very large folklore section.  What I do is non-standard
but works well.  Remember that your classification system is full of
local decisions (ie, fic - not 800s, Bio - not 920s, etc.)  As long as
you are consistant a local classification system is fine. What I do,
is add the country code from table 2 right after the .2.  For example
US folklore is 398.273, Chinese is 398.251, German is 398.243.
Once again, this is not standard.  I think the correct way to do it
would be 398.20973
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When I was at the public library, we cataloged our folk tales like this:

    398.2097 (the nine seven stands for the continent of origin, i.e.
North
            America)
    United States (the country of origin)
    FOR       (the author cutter)

It was very helpful because we were still following dewey in a form, but
the
collection was managable.  You could find all of the Russia books or
Kenya
books together.  We also did use African American instead of United
States.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to e-mail me.
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