Re: [Koha-devel] Some thoughts about the "Dewey" field (was: What's a "Dewey"?)

[Andrew Arensburger]

On Thu, Nov 28, 2002 at 09:02:32AM -0500, Ambrose Li wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 28, 2002 at 11:58:49AM +0100, paul POULAIN wrote:
> > He is the creator of... the dewey decimal classification.  A
> > dewey number is xxx.yyy If you assign a dewey num=004.716, you
> > mean the notice is about "PC peripheral"
> 
> I think this is also related to someone asking about using LC
> classification instead of Dewey. ("My" library also uses LC. I
> never really started inputting any substantial amount of test
> data... sorry.)

        Naive question: does LC indicate the topic, just like Dewey?
Or is it more generally a code that tells you where to find a given
book?

> Regarding that question, would the meaning of the Dewey field
> be changed so that it would hold any local call number? Or would
> there be separate fields for Dewey and LC? (In that case what
> if the library uses something else? Some Chinese libraries
> use some standard that could be translated as the "Chinese book
> classification system"; it looks like Dewey but is not.)

        My two cents' worth: I suspect it'd be better to support both
Dewey and the local call number (and Paul hinted that this should be
fairly easy). The obvious reason for this is that libraries are human
constructs, humans live in a messy world, and therefore there will
doubtless be times when it's convenient to have both classification
schemes.
        If the LC ultimately determines the physical location of a
given book, then its purpose is different from the Dewey code: books
with similar call numbers would be close to each other on the shelf,
whereas books with similar Dewey numbers would be close to each other
in the catalog.

        I have a somewhat extreme example to help me visualize the
problem: say there's a geographic library that mainly has maps, with
some random number of books. This library might be organized
geographically, with "Geological map of England" and "Tourist's Guide
to London" on the same bookshelf. Perhaps this library uses longitude
and latitude as the local call number.
        In this library, it could be useful to be able to search both
by local call number ("What do you have about New York?") and by
topic/Dewey ("Which political atlases do you have?").
        As a general principle, I believe it's best when software
tools give users the means to do what they want, and not force them to
do things a certain way. Then they can surprise and delight you with
the uses to which they've put your creation.

-- 
Andrew Arensburger                      This message *does* represent the
address@hidden                      views of ooblick.com
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