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30 October 2006

Honeybee Genome

Scientists have sequenced the genome of the honeybee. Information about the genome is being used to study many aspects of honeybees, including their origins and evolution, their sense of smell, how they protect themselves from disease, and their social behavior. To learn more, explore this site.

General works about the honeybee genome are classed in 572.8615799 DNA of bees (built with 572.86 DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) plus 1 from 571.1 Animals, as instructed at 572.5-572.8 Specific biochemicals and biochemical genetics, plus 5799 from 595.799 Apoidea (Bees), as instructed at 571.1).

Works that focus on the details of the honeybee genome structure and the processes of mapping it are classed in 572.863315799 Molecular structure of DNA of bees (built with 572.86 DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) plus 3 from table at 572.5-572.8 Specific biochemicals and biochemical genetics plus 3 from 572.33 Molecular structure plus 1 from 571.1 Animals, as instructed under 571-572 General internal processes common to all organisms, plus 5799 from 595.799 Apoidea (Bees), as instructed at 571.1).

Posted by Juli at 01:41 PM in 500-599 Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

27 October 2006

Dewey Web Services

Diane Vizine-Goetz, Andrew Houghton, and I had a meeting earlier this week to brainstorm about Dewey web services (for an explanation of web services and some current examples from the Office of Research, see Lorcan Dempsey’s recent article in NextSpace).

We have two basic “what” and “how” questions: “What do users want in terms of Dewey web services?” and “How would they use the data?” We decided to take the discussion directly to you, dear 025.431 readers. First, here’s a brief reminder about the Dewey data already available for experimentation on the ResearchWorks web site. We have the top three levels of the DDC available in several languages in the DeweyBrowser. The DeweyBrowser points to three databases, one of which is the abr14 database, which is a subset of Abridged Edition 14 database. The subset includes the numbers, captions, Relative Index terms, and mapped terminology associated with schedule numbers 000-999. The schedule notes (class definitions, number-building instructions, and references to other classes), Manual, and Tables 1-4 are not included in the subset. Using the DeweyBrowser browse box, you can feed a term to the abr14 database, and see where the term falls in Dewey. A click on a particular category at the third level displays the numbers and captions associated with the term in that section of Dewey. Similarly, you can feed a Dewey number to the database, and see the number and caption. In either case, you can click on a number in the results set, and see the Relative Index terms and mapped terminology associated with each number.

So we need some information on use cases (the How question) and what you need in terms of Dewey web services to address those cases (the What question). For example, you might say, I would like a Dewey number resolver that I could access from my catalog to deliver the caption associated with a number back to my users (or the caption plus associated terminology). But let’s not put words in your mouth—please tell us what you want to do. We’d love to get a discussion started here, but you can also contact one of us directly.

Posted by Dewey at 04:22 PM in DDC in the research lab, DDC in the weird and wonderful web-world | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

24 October 2006

United Nations Day

Today is United Nations Day. Happy 341.23!

Interdisciplinary works on the United Nations are classed with the law of nations in 341.23 United Nations. Works on the internal administration of the United Nations are classed with the public administration of intergovernmental organizations in 352.113 United Nations. General works on United Nations forces are classed in 355.357 International forces. Works on United Nations forces in a specific conflict are classed with the conflict, e.g., UN peacekeeping forces in Somalia in the early 1990s 967.73053 (the number for History of Somalia, 1990- ).

Today is also the day we are celebrating “Welcome Back to Work, Winton!” (Remember, Winton broke his arm two weeks ago and had to have an operation last week.) We celebrate Winton’s homecoming to Dewey Manor in 025.431 Dewey Decimal Classification.

Posted by Dewey at 03:20 PM in 000-099 Computer science, information & general works, 300-399 Social sciences, 900-999 History & geography | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

23 October 2006

Ozone Hole

Scientists report the largest ozone hole on record, according to an October 19 press release from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA):

NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists report this year's ozone hole in the polar region of the Southern Hemisphere has broken records for area and depth.

The ozone layer acts to protect life on Earth by blocking harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. The "ozone hole" is a severe depletion of the ozone layer high above Antarctica. It is primarily caused by human-produced compounds that release chlorine and bromine gases in the stratosphere.

"From September 21 to 30, the average area of the ozone hole was the largest ever observed, at 10.6 million square miles," said Paul Newman, atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. If the stratospheric weather conditions had been normal, the ozone hole would be expected to reach a size of about 8.9 to 9.3 million square miles, about the surface area of North America.

Interdisciplinary works on ozone layer depletion are classed in 363.73875 Gases contributing to ozone layer depletion. Changes in the ozone layer in the context of meteorology are classed in 551.5142 Stratosphere. The effect of ozone layer depletion on ecology is classed in 577.276 Air pollution.

Posted by Juli at 03:36 PM in 300-399 Social sciences, 500-599 Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

20 October 2006

The Noble Ununoctium

Earlier this week it was announced that some atoms of Element 118 (Ununoctium -- Uuo) had been created at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia. Physicists only created three atoms of Uuo, and the average lifetime is less than a millisecond, so don't put in your order for a litre of the stuff at your chemical supply store quite yet. However, part of the significance of this is that Uuo belongs in Group 18 of the periodic table, i.e., if it is a gas at normal temperatures, it is a noble gas. So Dewey would put the chemistry of Element 118 in standing room at 546.75 Noble gases (Group 18).

Posted by Giles at 01:52 PM in 500-599 Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

19 October 2006

Classification décimale Dewey

Yesterday, Louis Cabral (executive director of ASTED) and Raymonde Couture-Lafleur (coordinator of DDC translations at ASTED) visited OCLC for a daylong planning meeting on the French print and web versions of DDC 22. ASTED recently published a French translation of Abridged Edition 14. As it did for the French translation of DDC 21, ASTED will coordinate and publish the translation of an updated version of DDC 22 on behalf of the French translation partners ASTED, Library and Archives Canada, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, and Bibliothèque nationale de France. ASTED's immediate focus is on the print edition, which will be published in second quarter 2007. We discussed several updates approved by EPC last week that should be included in the French print edition (e.g., political parties of Austria and Switzerland, T2—45). We also agreed upon a tentative editorial review schedule that will make it possible for the print edition to be ready in eight months.

The same file used for the French print version of DDC 22 will form the basis for a French web version (of course, with subsequent DDC changes and updates added). We explored the possible inclusion of mappings from French subject headings and some expansions from other translations. We also discussed the general question “How can we all work together?” from editorial and technical viewpoints.

Posted by Dewey at 07:08 PM in DDC translations | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

18 October 2006

EPC Day 3: Highlights

Juli and I kicked off Day 3 with DDC Translations: An Overview, a presentation in which we described the principles guiding DDC translations (localization and interoperability), and the role of each party in the translation process. We used the recently published Vietnamese translation as a case study, and ended with a lively discussion on how we might work more effectively with our translation partners. EPC agreed to extend membership in the committee’s private listserve to representatives of each translation partner in order to facilitate the immediate transfer of draft proposals, and to encourage direct feedback to EPC. EPC also approved the commissioning of a 340 Law Working Group to make specific recommendations to EPC and the Dewey editorial team on improvements to 340 Law for legal systems rooted in civil law. We also plan to work directly with the Arabic translation team to improve provisions for Islamic law. (Translation partners, if you are reading this, I’ll be in touch with you directly on these matters in a few days.)

Beacher Wiggins, LC representative to EPC and director of Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access (ABA) at LC, briefed EPC on the proposed reorganization of ABA divisions in the coming year. In the proposed plan, the Decimal Classification Division will cease to be a separate division and will join the proposed U.S. National Imprints Division 3 as a team within the new division. Beacher assured EPC of LC’s ongoing commitment to Dewey application.

After Beacher’s presentation, the committee returned to reviewing several proposals for updates to the DDC. The committee approved updates and expansions for crimes in 364 and services to prisoners in 365—after some editorial work, we’ll be rolling out these new and changed entries to users. Winton stopped in (with his broken arm in a sling) for a few hours in the afternoon to present the proposed updates to Table 2 and 945 that we developed in collaboration with the Italian translation team. We had a long discussion about the proposed expansions in T2—45 Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, Malta and T2—37 Italian Peninsula and adjacent territories. The T2—45 draft includes provisions for several new Italian provinces plus proposed changes in the English-language edition to restore interoperability between the standard edition and the Italian translation. The latter proposed changes are primarily in the form of expansions for major cities—for example, T2—45511 Florence instead of the current DDC 22 entry T2—4551 Florence (Firenze) and Prato provinces (where Florence appears in a class-here note). The T2—37 expansion provides for greater specificity of ancient Italy and surrounding areas. The development for ancient Italy is limited right now in comparison with that of T2—361-362 British Isles, where notation for modern areas of the British Isles can be added directly to the base ancient geographic number to represent the ancient areas. EPC approved the T2—45 and T2—37 proposals, with a few suggestions for additions to T2—37. We also presented the draft of 945 Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, Malta. The draft includes interoperable expansions for historical periods of Italian regions, plus the aforementioned changes in T2—45. Since the committee did not see the new 945 development until Meeting 126, we scheduled a follow-up teleconference on November 14 to address some of the committee’s questions and concerns. We need to deliver the approved history schedule to the Italian team by mid-November in order to permit inclusion of the new development in the Italian translation of DDC 22.

Posted by Dewey at 07:05 PM in 900-999 History & geography, DDC editorial projects, DDC tables, DDC translations | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

17 October 2006

EPC Day 2: Highlights

Professor Ia McIlwaine (pictured left), chair of the Universal Decimal Classification Consortium and former editor-in-chief of the UDC, kicked off Day 2 of EPC Meeting 126 with UDC Harmonization Project: Religion, a presentation in which she described our efforts to date in exploring the question, “Can we use UDC’s Class 2 (Religion. Theology) as the framework for an alternative view of religion in the DDC and as a model for the future revision of 200 Religion?” (See here and here for earlier discussions on 200 Religion in the blog.) EPC endorsed the concept of discontinuing the current optional arrangements listed at 290 Religion (Options A-E) in favor of a single chronological/regional alternative framework based on the top-level UDC arrangement, and recommended exploring the framework as a model for a future revision of 200 Religion. We’d like to prototype a virtual version of the alternative framework, and will be working with our colleagues in the OCLC Office of Research on this project.

Diane Vizine-Goetz (OCLC Office of Research) followed Ia McIlwaine with an overview of current Dewey research projects. Juli and I then presented a plan for Dewey training. We have a storehouse of Dewey courses, and would like to make these available to LIS students, librarians new to Dewey, and librarians needing a refresher in Dewey application. We realize that there’s also a need for training materials aimed at a broader circle of current and potential users, but we’d like to start with making the courses from our electronic archive of presentations more widely available (i.e., for free on the web) without a lot of modifications. Libbie Crawford is looking into various strategies to make this happen—stay tuned.

Giles gave an update on the status of our new editorial support system. We are working out the details of data conversion from the current ESS proprietary format to an enhanced version of the MARC 21 Format for Classification Data (and to an enhanced version of the MARC 21 Format for Authority Data for the Relative Index). The format conversion will facilitate improved data representation within the system, and easy distribution of data in XML and other formats. Pamela Brown, former ALA representative to EPC, has been working with us as consulting product manager for the new system.

We also discussed Dewey Numbers in Authority Files. EPC urged us to test the guidelines using Canadian Subject Headings (CSH)—we’ve already approached Library and Archives Canada on this matter. We currently map Dewey numbers to CSH based on the “likelihood of co-occurrence” model for mappings; we would need to reconsider those mappings in the context of the proposed guidelines before adding Dewey numbers to CSH authority records. EPC also agreed that we need to specify the relationships between topical Relative Index terms and Dewey numbers in Dewey records in which those relationships are not explicitly specified. We are studying the broader question of whether there should be additional specifications of relationships in Dewey records beyond the current equals/approximates the whole and standing room relationships.

During the evening of Day 2, we feted outgoing ALA representative Jessica MacPhail (Racine Public Library), whose committee service will end in December 2006. Jessica (pictured left) joined the committee in January 2001, and will be succeeded as ALA representative by Migell Acosta (County of Los Angeles Public Library), who attended Meeting 126 as a guest. Jessica’s citation from the committee reads in part: Whereas Jessica MacPhail ably served as the official ALA representative to EPC 2001-2006 and reported regularly to the Subject Analysis Committee of the Cataloging and Classification Section of ALCTS; . . . represented the needs of ALA members in the development of Edition 22 (2003) and Abridged Edition 14 (2004) of the Dewey Decimal Classification, and in the publication of ongoing updates in WebDewey and Abridged WebDewey; . . . participated in the EPC planning retreat, “The Future of the Dewey Decimal Classification,” March 15-18, 2004, at OCLC; . . . moved for acceptance the exhibit on 150 Psychology (EPC 116-11) at her very first meeting and also moved for acceptance portions of the exhibit on 150 Psychology (EPC 126-15) at her last face-to-face meeting; . . . enlivened many earnest exhibit discussions with her gentle humor (“just raising the question” for consideration by the committee prior to a vote); . . . brought commitment to committee membership to a new level by participating in a committee teleconference by cell phone from a campground; . . . shared openly her deep affection for notation 782.421660922 when applied to the Rolling Stones, and even skipped a concert in T2—77311 to attend an EPC meeting; . . . contributed the wonderful phrase “Dewey on Dewey” to the training discussion at Meeting 126 as a popular title for training modules, thereby leaving the committee with a flourish, just as she had joined it; Be it resolved that the members of the Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee, the DDC editors, and staff at the Library of Congress Decimal Classification Division and OCLC express to Jessica MacPhail their deep gratitude and appreciation for her service and commitment to the Committee and the Classification, their regret that she will no longer be one of their number, and their wishes for her continued success and happiness now that she has retired from the Committee.

In my report on highlights of Day 1 yesterday, I neglected to mention the lowlight of the week—the night before Meeting 126 started, Winton fell and broke his arm. He missed most of the meeting (he stopped by for two hours on the afternoon of Day 3), and is scheduled to have an operation on his arm tomorrow (it’s his right arm and he’s right handed).

Posted by Dewey at 04:33 PM in 200-299 Religion, DDC editorial projects, DDC in the classroom, DDC mappings from CSH | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

16 October 2006

EPC Day 1: Highlights

The Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee (EPC) held Meeting 126 at the Library of Congress October 11-13. On October 11, the first item of business was the election of vice chair. In an action EPC chair Deane Zeeman (Library and Archives Canada) called “the Commonwealth strikes back,” Anne Robertson (Australian Committee on Cataloguing) was re-elected to a two-year term as vice chair.

I doubt that there is any meeting in the world that includes the following items for consideration in one six-hour period: Semantic Web, Internet telephony and VOIP, GIS and GPS, political parties of Austria and Switzerland, fountains and cloisters, Sardinian and Corsican languages and literatures, qi gong, and sarcoidosis. We’ll be releasing updates to records associated with these topics (and some new numbers) to users over the next few months.

We spent a lot of time reviewing proposals related to groups of people throughout the DDC. EPC heartily endorsed our proposal to transform the caption at T1—08 from the mouthful “History and description with respect to kinds of persons” simply to “Groups of people.” Now that the top-level plan has been approved in principle, we plan to address the naming conventions for groups of people throughout the DDC. We also plan to change the caption at T1—092 from “Persons treatment” to “Biography” (the category itself will retain its current scope).

Posted by Dewey at 12:26 PM in DDC editorial projects, DDC tables | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

10 October 2006

Peter J. Paulson, 1928-2006

Peter J. Paulson, former executive director of Forest Press, died on September 29, 2006. Upon his retirement as director of the State Library of New York in 1985, Peter became executive director of Forest Press, the publisher of the Dewey Decimal Classification. In 1988, OCLC acquired Forest Press from the Lake Placid Education Foundation, and Forest Press became a division of OCLC. Peter continued in the role of executive director until his retirement from OCLC in 1998. Peter also served on the Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee (EPC) 1983-1998.

During Peter’s tenure as executive director of Forest Press, he focused on preparing Dewey for use in the electronic environment. Peter spearheaded the development of the first database management system to support Dewey editorial operations. In 1988, he helped to organize a groundbreaking summit on classification in the electronic environment, Classification Theory in the Computer Age: Conversations across the Disciplines. Peter worked with the OCLC Office of Research to bring the first end-user version of a classification system to market, Electronic Dewey (1993), and championed the development of its successor, Dewey for Windows (1996).

Peter was also a strong supporter of Dewey translations and a tireless promoter of the worldwide use of Dewey. Under his leadership, OCLC Forest Press worked with the IFLA Section on Classification and Indexing to hold three workshops on international perspectives on the use of the DDC over a ten-year period at IFLA conferences in Paris, Beijing, and Amsterdam, respectively: Dewey: An International Perspective (IFLA 1989, Paris); Dewey Decimal Classification: Edition 21 and International Perspectives (IFLA 1996, Beijing); and Dewey Decimal Classification: Francophone Perspectives/Classification Décimale Dewey: Perspectives Francophones (IFLA 1998, Amsterdam).

In addition to his many professional contributions, we will remember Peter as a kind and gentle colleague. The Dewey world has lost a great friend and visionary.

Posted by Dewey at 06:25 PM in DDC in history | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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