> Ahhh, yes. But if you think Dewey is bad, take a look at LC. Even though not shoehorned into tens, it has the same issue of lack of room for expansion, for insertion of materials on new topics, and so forth. That will necessarily be true of ANY system that classifies. Even if you invent the Spalding system, how will you know how much room (in whatever notation) for Alpha Centaurian Culture, Alpha Centaurian Biology, The Alternative Universe that is Inside of Black Holes, and on and on.
No, I completely agree with you. The problem is not solveable. But I
think there are better and worse answers, both initially and in
development. Rigid decimalization strikes me as a bad answer either
way—the same sort of hare-brained consistency that had Dewey spelling
his name Dui and promoting Roa, an artificial language in which every
word communicated its place on the great tree of knowledge—but we
can't escape these limitations.
Dewey also supported the metric system, which requires a link to the
"who keeps the metric system" song from the Simpsons (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-cCfZrkCFI&mode=related&search= ).
> Any system will be the product of its times. Yes, any system can be modified and adapted to new information and topics, but changing it for materials that have to be marked, shelved, and so forth, makes change very difficult. Ask any public librarian who has had to deal with changes in classes for information science and technology, or many other topics.
All true. Maybe the right system would learn from what tattoo artists
know--that it's easier to change a 3 into an 8 than the reverse? :)
> Sure, you can't fit everything into ten categories, but neither can you fit everything into 17, 43, or any other number.
This might be an argument for not deciding on a single number right
off the bat. (I'd love to see number like 12.143.45645.12.24.) But
it's a trade-off. Decimalization (or using the 26 of the alphabet) has
concision advantages. I think that, in general, this matters less
today, but it still matters.
> Of course then we get to the real issue....the fact that the notation is nothing but a place to put the damn book. Period. It makes (or may make) it more convenient for browsers, but other than that doesn't mean a hell of a lot. Even in areas where DDC "makes sense", do you put a book on "Best Southern Fried Chicken Recipes" under cooking subclassed by method of cooking, or cooking subclassed by food being cooked. Or maybe even regional cooking? You sure aren't going to buy three copies and put one under each number. And I can assure you that wherever you put it, someone won't like it.
I agree with you. That's what it ought to be. The whole argument here
is whether you and I are right, or whether something else is going on.
The idea that DDC is a very good representation of knowledge, and
indeed "educative" is not compatible with the "place to put the damn
book" idea.
Received on Tue Jun 05 2007 - 10:55:44 EDT