[LM_NET] HIT: Organizing a separate Biography section (LONG and BORING)

[Katie Day <day.katie@GMAIL.COM>]

[Cross-posted to LM_NET (USA), OZTL_NET (Australia), and SLN (UK)]

Well, I certainly got enough responses (almost 100) to justify a hit -- and
the answers revealed some national patterns about organizing biographies in
libraries.

First of all, many use and recommend distinctive stickers on the spines of
biographies -- no matter where you shelve them -- so they can be easily
spotted.

For collective biographies, 920 was the most common call number used by all
respondents, though a few librarians said they used BC for collective
biographies to complement their use of B for individual biographies and a
few said they classified collective biographies in the respective Dewey
area, e.g., scientists in 509 and artists in 759, even if they had
individual biographies in a separate section.

For individual biographies, most of the librarians (30 Americans, 2 British,
and 2 Australian) use either B or BIO (with many people feeling BIO is
preferable in terms of clarity).

About 20 Americans, 6 British, and 4 Australians use either 921 or 920 for
individual biographies.

Another 20 Americans use 92 for individual biographies (though other people
argued against this because of the confusion of where to shelve, in 092 or
in the 900s).

When B or BIO is used, the biography section is definitely shelved
separately from the main collection, though some people who use 921 or 92
simply gather the biographies in the 920s within the main Dewey collection.


It is important to note that some librarians also choose to keep certain
kinds of biographies in the main Dewey sequence, especially sports and/or
artist biographies in the 700s and writers in the 800s -- with the rest of
individual biographies in the separate section.

All of these librarians indicated they organize their biography sections
alphabetically.  For collective biographies, the author's last name is used
for the Cutter number, while for individual biographies, the biographee's
last name is used, e.g., for a biography of Darwin it might be B/DAR,
BIO/DAR, 921/DAR, or 92/DAR.  Some think the full biographee name is best,
e.g., BIO/DARWIN.  A few others then tack on bits of the author's name, e.g.,
B/DAR/K or 921/DAR/KRA or 92/DARWIN/KRAMER.

Thirteen Australians reported they have a separate biography section which
uses Dewey classification numbers -- so the biographies are grouped by their
Dewey subject area -- with a Cutter number that uses the biographee's name,
NOT the author's name.

A couple of Australian and British librarians wrote to say they intersperse
biographies in their main Dewey collection, but use a Cutter number with the
first three letters of the biographee's name followed by the first three
letters of the author's name.

The official DDC stance is to put biographies in the main Dewey sequence and
use the biographee's name (even if just one letter of the last name) as part
of the Cutter number.  (See, for example, this Powerpoint on "DDC number
building for shelf arrangement" by a Library of Congress DDC editor --
http://www.oclc.org/dewey/news/conferences/dewey_shelf_numbers.ppt -- which
cites a biography of a forester called Emile Grandjean having a call number
of 634.9092/.G764.)

No one who responded uses a Cutter number of just the author's name for
biographies.  So I wondered why my school library has so many individual
biographies (whether in 920 or in the main Dewey sequence) with AUTHOR's
name as Cutter number.

And I was a bit non-plussed by our secondary's "true-life" (not quite
synonymous with biography, but including some biographies) separate section
organized by Dewey classification numbers and author's last name.

I also wondered why so many Australian libraries organize their separate
biography section by Dewey numbers, while so many American libraries
organize it alphabetically by biographee.

These are the answers I've come up with (after reading all your responses
and much checking of online OPACs):

Re our use of author's name for biography Cutter number:  I now believe it
comes from the National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore (
http://www.nlb.gov.sg/).  In their catalog, they put biographies in the
regular Dewey sequence, but -- for some reason -- use the AUTHOR's name in
the Cutter number, e.g., "Mandela: the rebel who led his nation to freedom"
by Ann Kramer has a call number of 968.06 KRA.  And when it comes to copy
cataloging, the NLB is the first port of call, as we are located in
Singapore.

Re our "true-life" section:  A few Australian mentioned they also have a
"true-life" section in their libraries, so I suspect ours was created by the
secondary-librarian-before-last, who happened to be Australian.  And the use
of the author's name for Cutter number is probably explained by the copy
cataloging from the Singapore NLB OPAC.

Re the Australian predilection for organizing their separate biography
collections by Dewey number then by biographee's name, many librarians who
responded said they take their data straight from Australia's very popular
central source of cataloging data for schools, i.e., Schools Cataloging
Information Service, known as SCIS (http://www1.curriculum.edu.au/scis/ ) --
which follows the official DDC line on biographies, e.g., they cite
986.06MAN for the Mandela biography by Kramer mentioned above.  So
librarians with
separate biography collections seem to pick up the SCIS call numbers, but
then just change the overall location code.

Re the American predilection for a separate biography section sorted
alphabetically by biographee despite the official DDC stance, I think it's a
tradition which survives, perhaps aided by the fact that there is no one
authoritative source of DDC data readily available -- in the way that
Australia has SCIS and Singapore has the NLB.

Yes, there's the Library of Congress, but the DDC field is often blank or
doesn't give any alphabetic Cutter character relating to either biographer
or biographee, e.g., it gives 968.06/5/092 B 22 as the Dewey Class No. for
the Mandela biography by Kramer.

And, yes, there's OCLC, the owner of DDC.  But I have never seen what their
Connexion or CatExpress services give you in terms of authoritative data.
How many of you use it?  Or, rather, what do you use for cataloging data?
Follett? Or do you have state authorities that you use?

I often use OCLC's free WorldCat (http://www.worldcat.org/) to see what
other people do, but there you have to pick your own "authority" OPAC to
follow.  (I looked up the Mandela biography in WorldCat, but most of the
catalogs I sampled were either LC or put biographies in a BIO section.)

In the UK, what is the best source of authoritative cataloging data?

Anyway, whoever said cataloging isn't creative....

-- Katie


Katie Day
PYP Teacher-Librarian
United World College of Southeast Asia
Singapore
kda@uwcsea.edu.sg

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