Dewey
decimal classification.
The Dewey
Decimal Classification (DDC),
or Dewey Decimal System,
is a proprietary library classification system first published in the United States
by Melvil Dewey in 1876. It has been revised and expanded
through 23 major editions, the latest issued in 2011, and has grown from a
four-page pamphlet in 1876 with fewer than 1,000 classes to a four volume set.
It is also available in an abridged version suitable for smaller libraries. It
is currently maintained by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), a non-profit cooperative that
serves libraries. The number makes it possible to find any book and to return
it to its proper place on the library shelves. The classification system is used in
200,000 libraries in at least 135 countries.The major competing classification
system to the Dewey Decimal system is the Library of Congress Classification system created by the U.S. Library of Congress.
Dewy decimal
classification
Notation
A notation is a
code commonly used in classification schemes to represent a class, i.e. a
subject and its position in the hierarchy, to enable mechanical sorting and
filing of subjects. UDC uses Arabic numerals arranged
decimally. Every number is thought of as a decimal fraction with the initial
decimal point omitted, which determines the filing order. An advantage of
decimal notational systems is that they are infinitely extensible, and when new
subdivisions are introduced, they need not disturb the existing allocation of
numbers. For ease of reading, a UDC notation is usually punctuated after every
third digit:
I.
Flexibility:
It is a flexible and
effective system fororganizing bibliographic records for all kinds of
information in any medium.UDC is highly flexible to allow for constant revision
in order to keep pacewith development of knowledge. Flexibility of UDC for
responding to
complex interrelationship among subjects is more than DDC and
LC.
ii
Hierarchy
The number of digits that form the UDC number indicates the
sequence of subjects from general to specific.
Precision:
Precision is one of
the most important merits of use of
UDC on Internet. When any searcher retrieves the information
through the
classified websites from WWW then the precision will be high.
Classified
websites has better precision than search engines such as
Google, Yahoo,
Infoseek, etc
Synthetic
Principle:
The synthetic principle is one of the main
reasons for the widespread use of UDC in preference to other
systems. It
extended the use of common tables, geographical subdivisions
and
viewpoints, all of which were established to different
degrees in previous
classifications, and added the ‘colon principle’ whereby
every part of the
classification became divisible by every other part. This,
with the growing
complexity of knowledge, was an invaluable invention
Relativ Index
The "Relativ Index" is an alphabetical index to
the classification, for use both by classifiers but also by library users when
seeking books by topic. The index was "relative" because the index
entries pointed to the class numbers, not to the page numbers of the printed
classification schedule. In this way, the Dewey Decimal Classification itself
had the same relative positioning as the library shelf and could be used either
as an entry point to the classification, by catalogers, or as an index to the
Dewey-classed library itself.
Relative
location
The Decimal Classification introduced the concepts of relative location and relative
index which allow new books
to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject.
Libraries previously had given books permanent shelf locations that were
related to the order of acquisition rather than topic.
Summary
000 Computer science, information & general works
100 Philosophy & psychology
200 Religion
300 Social sciences
400 Language
500 Science
600 Technology
700 Arts & recreation
800 Literature
900 History & geography
