Dewey Decimal Classification Session 1 - June 2010

Editor's Notes

• #4: Explain 1.5 hour sessions for next two classes.
• #9: New features include things like the elimination of redundant materials.
• #15: A subject is a narrow construction of what the book is about. “Dogs” is a subject.
• #16: The subject “dogs” could belong in the discipline of zoology or the discipline of animal husbandry.
• #26: There is a note about cryptography for a certain purpose.
• #27: Hotlinks make WebDewey more navigable than the print version.
• #29: There is also an option for cryptography as recreation.
• #31: If you scroll down the page, you will see Relative Index terms and subject headings.
• #33: You can also search all of Dewey instead of the Relative Index. This is obviously a feature not available in the print version. You can do Boolean searches over a number of fields.
• #34: If you searched cryptography over all fields, you might get results that don’t immediately appear to contain the word cryptography, such as the first result, for Systems.
• #35: Cryptography is contained in a note, which directs the user to 652, the numberwe were looking at before.
• #36: Sometimes a book doesn’t fit so easily into a certain discipline. For example, this book could be written from a historical approach. As we’ve seen from searching for “ciphers” and “cryptology”, the results don’t say anything about cryptography in a specific time period.
• #37: You might need to search from a different angle, such as “world war II”.
• #39: A note gives a different number for military history of World War II.
• #41: Since cryptography was used by the military, and there isn’t a more specific number, we could class this book with military history of World War II. As you can see, classification involves some judgment calls.
• #47: There is a scope note that tells us what kinds of crimes go here.
• #48: Computer crimes is listed as a subject heading.
• #49: The second number given in the search results was a subdivision of the first number. You can see that “computer crimes” is a subject heading for this number, too.
• #50: The number would depend on the specific type of crime. If the criminals accessed federal databases, you would use 364.1. If they installed viruses and caused property damage, you could probably use 364.16.Questions?
• #51: If you have more than one subject in the same discipline, more than one number might apply. If you have a book about both cats and dogs, you need to know how to choose a call number.
• #57: Read up and down the hierarchy to make sure you are in the correct discipline. Check for notes and instructions; in this case, the note says to class home schools here.
• #58: Go up a level to check for notes and instructions that might contradict the more specific number.
• #59: Go up one more level; there are no special notes or instructions.
• #60: There are no notes at the highest level.
• #61: Check at 370 – there are some notes, but they do not contradict the note under alternative schools.
• #62: The instructions include a table of preference.
• #63: Let’s verify the numbers for the other kinds of schools talked about in this book. Going back to our original screen, you’ll see that the number for religious schools is 371.07
• #64: Christian schools, or parochial schools, are in 371.071.
• #65: If you click on this number, there are no further subdivisions.
• #66: Private schools is under 371.02
• #67: It also has no further subdivisions.
• #69: Home schools gets the fuller treatment, so the book is classed at 371.04Questions?
• #74: There are more than two major subdivisions under specific forms of energy, so we use the first-of-two rule.
• #75: Sound, at 534, comes before light, at 535, so this book is classified with sound.
• #76: Sometimes, the schedules will have notes that instruct you to handle things differently.
• #78: Notice the note that tells us to class it with the number coming last. There are two possible places to class this book – with etiquette for age groups and sexes, and with social correspondence.
• #79: We see that etiquette for age groups and sexes does include children.
• #81: Because of the instructions, we use the number that comes last, 395.4 for social correspondence.
• #83: Another example of instructions is the table of preference we saw under education.
• #84: If we were trying to decide between crystallography and mineralogy,
• #85: We could see that under crystallography, we are instructed to class crystallographic mineralogy in 549, the number for mineralogy.
• #86: “Two major subdivisions” means that they are the only subdivisions.
• #90: Fourth of July and Bastille Day are the only subdivisions of Holidays of June, July, August.
• #91: When the two topics are the two major subdivisions, classify the book with the category of which they are subdivisions.Questions?
• #92: The rule of three is slightly different than the first of two rule.
• #93: In our example from before, if all of the topics were covered equally, we would treat it differently.
• #94: All three types of schools are contained under Specific kinds of schools.
• #95: Go up one level just to make sure there are no instructions that tell you to do differently.
• #97: Numbers with zero are less specific than ones that end in 1-9. This probably won’t be a situation you will encounter very often.
• #98: If you have a book on eastern philosophy, you should class it at 181 for Eastern philosophy, not at 180 for Ancient, medieval & eastern philosophy.
• #99: Class with the subject being acted on, not the subject doing the influencing.
• #100: The book talks a little bit about how the bomb was developed, but is mostly about how it affected world politics.
• #101: Searching for world politics directs you to world history. You can click on specific historical periods to find the time period you need.
• #103: The atom bomb was developed in the 20th century, so that’s what we’re looking for.
• #108: You should look up both topics – media and children.
• #109: Note tells you to class effects of media here.
• #110: We can add a subdivision to specify children, but we will talk about that next week.
• #111: Questions?