As a counterpoint, I was recently browsing in a bookstore that uses
(and prominently displays) Dewey numbers (as opposed to terms) to
categorize its stock: http://www.portersquarebooks.com/
Shirley
On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 2:52 PM, Simpkins, Terry
<tsimpkin_at_middlebury.edu> wrote:
> Tongue only slightly in cheek, I submit that this sentence actually sums up the LJ article in a nutshell:
>
> "They [Frankfort Public Library District] chronicled their progress on Twitter, finally posting on September 10 that 'our Adults Colls r officially DEWEY FREE.'"
>
> & prbly btr off 4 it, 2.
>
> Terry
>
> Terry Simpkins
> Director of Collection Management
> Music Library/CFA
> 72 Porter Field Rd.
> Middlebury College
> Middlebury, VT 05753
> (802) 443-5045 (o)
> (802) 443-2332 (fax)
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of B.G. Sloan
> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 2:17 PM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] The Dewey Dilemma
>
>
> This little snippet of a sentence sums up the LJ article in a nutshell: "...the issue isn't which system is superior; it's about the user's experience".
>
> Bernie Sloan
>
> --- On Wed, 11/11/09, Miksa, Shawne <SMiksa_at_UNT.EDU> wrote:
>
>
> From: Miksa, Shawne <SMiksa_at_UNT.EDU>
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] The Dewey Dilemma
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 11:14 AM
>
>
> Once again, let me play my broken record---there is demonstrated by many professional librarians a sad lack of understanding of the purpose of knowledge classification systems--how to build/construct numbers for representing the intellectual content of a resource in order to show how that content is related to other resources in the collection (i.e., fits into the collection). How would the user know how to read the numbers if the librarian doesn't even understand it?
>
> DDC, LCC, etc., are knowledge classification systems first, not physical arrangement devices. Physical arrangement is a by-product; using the class #s for shelf-arrangement is optional. I only hope these libraries that have switched to something like BISAC (sp?) haven't stripped the DDC numbers completely from the record.
>
>
> **************************************************************
> Shawne D. Miksa, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor
> Department of Library and Information Sciences
> College of Information
> University of North Texas
> email: Shawne.Miksa_at_unt.edu
> http://courses.unt.edu/smiksa/index.htm
> office 940-565-3560 fax 940-565-3101
> **************************************************************
> ________________________________________
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle [lists_at_KCOYLE.NET]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 9:29 AM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] The Dewey Dilemma
>
> Quoting Tim Spalding <tim_at_LIBRARYTHING.COM>:
>
>
>>
>> In LT's case, the problem was that a core of us, and the people I
>> asked to lead it, agreed on a high number of top-level categories. We
>> felt that "container categories"--categories that really only existed
>> to hold a number of other ones, and which weren't concepts people
>> really glommed onto-should be kept to a minimum. The model here was
>> bookstores, which are okay with putting "games" and "sports" somewhere
>> near each other, without having a "recreation" category you need to
>> navigate first. A lot of "systemmatizers" didn't like this-they kept
>> fighting for a small number of top level categories a la Dewey, and
>> wanted to find low-level slots for what are, in bookstores, top-level
>> concerns (ie., putting the "pets" section way down the chain in some
>> science > biology section).
>
> It's actually comforting how universal this disagreement is. :-)
>
> It was this tension between Dewey (an inveterate systematizer) and the
> "give it to me now" folks that gave us the weird world of classified
> books on shelves that could only be found using LC subject headings in
> the online catalog. Dewey's idea was that the catalog was to be
> classified, and the entry to that was his "Relativ Index", which is an
> index of terms. So you would look something up in the Relativ Index
> then go to that place in the catalog. There you would discover what
> the library had under that topic, and could browse up (broader) or
> down (narrower). Of course, in Dewey's day, stacks were closed. I
> don't know how this became a book-on-the-bookshelf ordering system.
>
> But we don't have an index to the classification we use for the
> shelves, we use an entirely different system for the "give it to me
> now" index function: LCSH. The upshot is that we have two different
> ordering systems that have pretty much nothing to do with each other
> (either DDC + LCSH, or LCC + LCSH), and I can understand why the users
> are confused.
>
> BTW, I have recently run into this tension with the re-working of the
> W3C web pages. It used to be that the home page had everything on it
> in a long, alphabetical list (RDF, SKOS, OWL, XML, etc.) and you could
> go directly there. Now the home page gives you categories (Web
> Design, Semantic Web, Web of Services...) and you have to guess which
> one has what you are looking for. If you want RDF you have to go to
> Semantic Web, then Linked Data ... The systematizers have hijacked the
> web site, and now I can't find anything. *sigh*
>
> kc
>
> --
> Karen Coyle
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Wed Nov 11 2009 - 15:25:31 EST