I'm glad you find these helpful! Yes, I try to call these "versions" rather than "editions" since technically, they're all Edition 23. But clearly we have not always stuck to that!

The recording should be available the week of July 15.

I would recommend consulting with an academic librarian, perhaps one associated with a library and information science school.

Abhishek, this is a good question, but there isn't an easy, quick answer. There is some scholarship surveying use of different classification systems across institutions, but that's not easy work to do, so there isn't as much of it as I'd like. While scholars probably become familiar with "their" part of the library, I'd actually be surprised if academic faculty lean very heavily on library classification systems in curriculum planning. But that's a great example of how library data can be of wider benefit as we open up via linked data.

Thank you, Deb! Looks like that period was accidentally incorporated into the URL. So this one should also work: https://tinyurl.com/optionalDDC220-290

Joy: You can find information on the optional arrangement at the Manual note 220-290, which includes a link to the PDF for the full arrangement as mapped by Rebecca Green. We've also made that PDF freely available at https://tinyurl.com/optionalDDC220-290.

Yes, I believe so, although it's inherently subjective. In theory, every topic already has a place in DDC, whether or not it's explicitly mentioned. It's not always easy to find a place in practice, though, which is one reason why development on the system never ends.

Those are the ideals! But any system created and used by humans will have its biases. The best any of us can do is be aware of them and try to mitigate them. That's certainly something we're trying to do as we develop DDC, and something I recommend classifiers practice as well. A complex topic worthy of its own post!

Well said, Tea. As Kathryn put it, we all agree about the capitalization of Black. It's really just white vs. White that's still an open question. Authoritative sources are very split on it, and there seem to be good arguments for either approach.

Good idea, Judy! I know there's a general interest in more LCSH mappings. While I can't control LCSH as directly, I'm happy to add Relative Index terms for Australian terminology, both for the benefit of our Australian users and for classifiers everywhere cataloging Australian works. You should see both of these changes in WebDewey tomorrow--or tomorrow for me, at least, time zones being what they are. :)

Just see the first link in the post above. Hope to see you there!

Excellent! Best wishes to NPL from this former Moscow resident. :)

Should be fixed now.

That's a very good question, Susan! I think it's at least worth discussing. I'd certainly want to know if libraries would be interested in such a solution, or if the status quo works from them. I know from when I proposed genre-based classification for video games that classifying by genre can sometimes be very difficult. Even once you've decided on the group of genres you'd want to use (e.g., mystery vs. thriller; sci-fi vs. fantasy), you'd need to design a system such that most librarians would agree that this book belongs in this genre. I'd love to hear more from librarians on how the current setup does or doesn't work for them.

Thank you for this feedback, Ann. MAC was scheduled to discuss the paper today, but it's been pushed to tomorrow since we ran out of time. We heard from someone else suggesting a new first indicator value, so that's a good point for us to consider. Regarding specificity of the date, you're absolutely right that any individual Dewey class is unlikely to change much in rapid succession, so I agree that year will be sufficient in most cases. The ISO format we're recommending will allow that, so you might think of the ability to add month and date as a possibility rather than a requirement. Especially for libraries that want to go beyond the year, I anticipate classifiers will make use of macros, Connexion constant data, etc. to fill that in.

Good suggestion, Ann! I suspect it would go at or near 641.46, since it seems accurate to call fermentation a method of chemical preservation. I'll make a note for us to look into this, though I'd encourage you to get in touch if you'd like to get hands on!

We've heard from a few users about the change to how Table numbers are searched, which was not intentional. If you were in the habit of searching without "T2" (etc.), you'll now see that searching 45 or --45 won't return T2--45, for example. You should still be able to find Table notation by specifying the Table, e.g., T2--45, T3B--2. I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "searching with the prime in the number," however. Next week, we intend to have a blog post explaining the new features included in this install, and I'll hope to have an update on this search functionality as well.