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

[Ambrose Li [CCCGT]]

On Thu, Nov 28, 2002 at 11:30:51AM -0500, Andrew Arensburger
wrote:

>       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?

[...skipped...]

>       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?").

Hmm, I thought that both Dewey and LC have similar functions.
But then I'm not a librarian.

My understanding is that the primary function of both Dewey and
LC is to determine the physical locations of a book; they just
happen to also indicate a "primary" topic (whatever that means).

The "real" classification (assignment of subject headings) use
a list such as Sears (usually used together with Dewey) or the
LC subject headings (usually used together with the LC code).
Multiple subject headings can be assigned, and in the case of
MARC these are placed in the 6XX and 7XX fields. In the case
of having multiple topics in a book (which is usually the case),
the librarian doing the cataloguing would decide which is the
"primary" topic and use that as a basis to assign the call
number.

My two cents' worth (my naive answer); don't know how accruate
it is :P

-- 
Ambrose Li

``A good style should show no sign of effort;
  what is written should seem a happy accident.'' ~ Somerset Maugham