Dear Barbara
Here in the public sector, well, here in Somerset anyway, we've only
ever classified to no more than 3 places in Dewey. But public libraries
are a bit more rough'n'ready than you scholars and you may feel that our
situation is so far removed from yours that you can just delete this
message. Feel free to do so!
The - possibly unjustified - feeling is that the public don't understand
Dewey and just want to know which shelf to check for the gardening
books.
Anyway, truncated Dewey doesn't seem to cause major problems to our
users, and 3 places is certainly easy to type on the spine labels.
Cataloguers who went to library school & have certificates & everything
(including me) can get a bit twitchy at omitting facets or even severing
them - it's not long before you find that 3 places cuts the number off
in its prime. We don't have all that many cataloguers, so it's quite
easy to share best practice among ourselves to maintain consistency;
plus, economic factors dictate that we accept the class number given by
Nielsen. One of my jobs, consequently, is amending the class number
when someone notices that a new edition of a work has a different number
from the previous edition, or that vol.2 is in a different place from
vol.1.
However, it's horses for courses, and our job is to be pragmatic, get
the new stock out on to the shelves and give the staff and public a
fighting chance of finding it again.
I'm sure, once you've got over the initial shock of not classifying
"properly", that you and your users will settle down with the new
system. Incidentally, I note you say you've "been asked" to make this
change. Asked by whom, I'd be interested to learn. Let me guess - an
accountant? A senior manager who doesn't know where the library is? A
consultant (Lord help us)??
Best wishes
Regards
Sue G.
(Deputy Manager, Bib.Services, Somerset Heritage & Libraries)
-----Original Message-----
From: Bibliographic standards in UK libraries
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Barbara Thompson
Sent: 18 August 2010 08:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Dewey classification to 6 decimal places
Good morning everyone
We, at the University of Sheffield Library, have been asked to begin
classifying our stock to (no more than) 6 decimal places, using Dewey 22
(we have previously had a limit of 10 decimal places).
To give us an idea of how this would work in practice, we would like to
hear from cataloguers/metadata specialists in other University Libraries
who already do this. How has it affected your working practices? Are
there any problems we would need to look out for? Anything else you
think we need to know?
Thank you all in anticipation.
Regards, Barbara
Barbara Thompson
Metadata & eTechnologies Section (MeTS)
University of Sheffield Library
St. George's Library
Mappin Street
Sheffield S1 4DT
Ext 27259
Tel +44 (0)114 222 7259
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