I'll weigh in, since I seem to be riding the DDC hobby horse anyway.
Dewey does have a peculiar bias toward certain classifications and
Christianity is certainly one of them. But it's a very flexible and
extensible system that individual catalogers can use as they see fit to
best serve their users. To speak to your second issue, you could put
American Indian creation stories in 213, which is "Creation," or in 299,
"Other Religions." If you wanted to, you could take over 256, which is
"not assigned or no longer used," and say that in your library that's
"American Indian Creation Stories." It would be non-standard and you'd
create some confusion if you're in a union catalog, but nothing inherent
in the system stops you from doing it.
As to the first issue, all classification is essentially faceted. I
cannot imagine a book that could only be given one classification. It
would surely be a very boring book. But even in a card catalog, you can
have multiple "see also" cards. The automated catalog makes this much
more efficient. The call number was conceived and now endures mostly so
that librarians and users can find out where in the library the book is
located (or should be). They also make for a certain degree of shelf
browsing. But that's no excuse for avoiding a proper subject search.
User tagging will add another level of findability and will
geometrically increase the complexity of subject classification. But
call numbers still are the best way we have of locating discrete
physical resources. They are reductive, but I'm not aware of any way
around that.
I'm certain that somebody could come up with a much better
classification system which is not as broad and unwieldy as LC. Dewey
was developed in the late 19th century and reflects that time in
intellectual history in many ways. But reinventing the wheel is a tall
order and there are very few institutions with the will and the
resources to do it. In addition, so many aspects of librarianship are in
flux right now, it might not be advisable. For now and the immediate
future, I vote for keeping DDC as is, while adapting it to local needs,
accepting that some big changes are doubtless on the way.
---Bob.
/************************************************/
/* Bob Hassett, Head Librarian */
/* Luther Jackson Middle School */
/* 3020 Gallows Road */
/* Falls Church, Virginia 22042 */
/* (703) 204-8133 */
/* Bob.Hassett@fcps.edu */
/************************************************/
See you in the Library!
-----Original Message-----
From: School Library Media & Network Communications
[mailto:LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Judi Moreillon
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 10:00 AM
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: To Dewey or Not to Dewey
Dear Colleagues,
Yesterday, I took a road trip with a teacher-librarian colleague. We
talked about the new Arizona Dewey-less library. After our conversation,
I thought more about two Dewey problems that have been nagging me for
years. These issues make me wonder if it wouldn't be so bad to let the
Dewey system of classification die - a natural or unnatural - death.
To be sure, I am a (real) librarian. I do believe that information must
be organized to be accessible. However, my questions are about Dewey's
classifications. Here goes:
1. There is a proliferation of informational books for children
than
the Library of Congress classifies as fiction. This is frustrating when
we explain the Dewey system to young students. Although it is shelved
with fiction, there is no way that Sandra Markle and Alan Marks' book A
Mother's Journey is a "made-up" story. This "story" is scientific facts
about Emperor penguins told in a narrative format. These penguins are
not in any way anthropomorphized. Is this book classified as fiction
because the illustrations are paintings rather than photographs?
The proliferation of multigenre books adds to the dilemma of accurately
classifying books. Joyce Sidman and Becky Prange's book Song of the
Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems is clearly poetry, but the addition
of factual information about the topic or theme of each poem complicates
the waters.
You may or may not know that publishers have NO input into the
classification of their books. The Library of Congress assigns the
numbers, and there is NO debate.
2. The Judeo-Christian bias of Dewey has always bothered me.
Creation
and other spiritual stories by American Indians and other people are
found in the 398.2 folklore section while Judeo-Christian stories are
classified in religion when they are found in the non-fiction section of
the library.
Perhaps, savvy librarians will develop a new classification system that
better represents the books and other resources and the sensibilities of
21st-century society and library collections.
What do you think?
Best,
Judi
Judi Moreillon, M.L.S., Ph.D.
Literacies and Libraries Consultant
Author: <http://tinyurl.com/yzvy5g> Collaborative Strategies for
Teaching Reading Comprehension: Maximizing Your Impact
<http://storytrail.com/> http://storytrail.com
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