Page 101 - Cataloging and Classification for Library Technicians, 2nd Edition

Classification 87

Volume four is ti tled Rel a tive In dex. Man ual. The Rel a tive In dex
is the first place the cat aloger will go to find the ap proximate sched-
ule of details. For ex ample, if the ma terial is about the li brary’s role in
higher ed ucation, look ing in this vol ume un der the head ing Ed u ca -
tion, one would find 021.24 for this sub ject. If us ing vol ume two di -
rectly and checking un der Ed u ca tion in the so cial sci ence cat egory,
one would be hard-pressed to find the ap propriate num ber. Ref erence
notes will guide the DDC 21 users to the cor rect num ber. The sec ond
part, Man ual, explains the policies and prac tices of how the sched -
ules are de signed, up dated, and changed. Also, notes on the ta bles of -
fer help and sug gestions so that stu dents of cat aloging can get a clear
idea of how to per form the challenging task of as signing Dewey num -
bers to the ma terial at hand.
Be gin ner li brary tech ni cians should ad here to the fol low ing pro ce -
dures in clas si fy ing ma te ri als. First, de ter mine the dis ci pline. Then
the Dewey summaries are checked to de termine the ap propriate
three-digit num ber to match the dis cipline. After that, the Sched ules,
either vol ume two or vol ume three, are con sulted to find the ex act
decimal num bers to use after the ini tial three-digit num ber. De-
pending on the topic and the ex planation fol lowing the num ber, a fur -
ther dec imal num ber from the ta ble may have to be added to com plete
the Dewey num ber. If un sure of the ap propriate num ber for the dis ci-
pline, one can al ways check the Rel a tive In dex of vol ume four, which
provides a guide to the ex act num ber in the main sched ules. Pay spe -
cial attention to the co pious notes that are included in the sched ules,
giving ex planations and di rections on how to build the num ber, how
to use the ta bles, and other important in structions.
A shorter ver sion of DDC 21, ti tled Abridged Edi tion 13: Dewey
Dec i mal Clas si fi ca tion, is sim pler and is de signed for small li braries
with small col lections. The thirteenth edi tion, pub lished in 1997, is
based on the con tents of the DDC 21.
DDC 21 is also avail able in a CD-ROM for mat called Dewey for
Win dows. Au tomated libraries may use this ver sion, which of fers full-
text in dexing, full-text sched ules, a per sonal note pad, and Li brary of
Congress sub ject headings linked to Dewey num bers. The search for
Dewey num bers is made faster and more ef ficient when us ing Dewey for
Win dows because the cataloger can search by words, phrases, num bers, in -