National Library of Australia

Editorial Policy Committee Meeting October 2006

The Ediitorial Policy Committee held Meeting 126 at the Library of Congress on 11-13 October 2006.

Day One

During Day 1 the Committee considered Exhibits dealing with the 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. These proposals were accepted by the Committee, and updates to the Classification reflecting these changes and developments will be released by Dewey over the next few months.

Time was also spent assessing proposals related to groups of people throughout the Dewey Decimal Classification, and the proposal to change the caption at T1—08 from the current rather convoluted “History and description with respect to kinds of persons” to “Groups of people”. With the top-level plan approved in principle, the editors will investigate naming conventions for groups of people throughout the classification. The caption at T1—092 will be changed from “Persons treatment” to “Biography”, although the category will retain its present scope.

Day Two

Day 2 of the meeting began with a presentation by Professor Ia McIlWaine, Chair of the Universal Decimal Classification Consortium, and former editor-in chief of the UDC, titled ” UDC Harmonization Project: Religion”. Her presentation described efforts to date 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 future revision of 200 Religion ?”. The Committee endorsed the idea of discontinuing the current optional arrangements listed at 290 in favour of a single
chronological /regional alternative framework based on the top-level UDC arrangement, and recommended further exploration of the framework as a possible model for future revision of 200 Religion. Editorial staff will work with colleagues at the OCLC Office of Research to develop a prototype virtual version of the alternative framework.

After Ia McIlwaine’s presentation, Diane Vizine-Goetz (OCLC Office of Research) gave the Committee an overview of current Dewey research projects, including progress being made on automating the provision of Dewey numbers for individual works of fiction. A list of all research projects can be found on the OCLC Website at:
http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/default.htm titled Research Projects. Joan Mitchell and Julianne Beall then presented a plan for Dewey training to the Committee. Dewey has a storehouse of Dewey courses which they would like to make available to library science students, librarians new to Dewey and those in need of a refresher course in Dewey. While it is realized that there is also a need for training materials aimed at a wider circle of current and potential users, the proposal is to begin by making the courses presently electronically archived more widely available for no charge via the Web without much modification. Various strategies to advance this idea are being investigated.

Assistant Editor Giles Martin gave the Committee an update on the redevelopment of the new Editorial Support System (ESS). Data conversion from the proprietary format of the current ESS to an enhanced MARC21 format is being detailed. The conversion is expected to improve data presentation within the system, and make data distribution in XML and other formats much easier. Dewey has employed Pamela Brown, a former ALA representative to the Editorial Policy Committee, as consulting project manager for the new system.

The Committee also further discussed a proposal to add Dewey numbers in Authority Files and endorsed the idea that the guidelines be tested using Canadian Subject Headings (CSH). Joan Mitchell indicated that Library and Artchives Canada had already been approached about this matter.

Day Three

Day 3 began with a presentation by Joan Mitchell and Julianne Beall titled: “DDC Translations: An Overview”, which outlined the principles guiding DDC translations (localization and interoperability) and the role of each party in the process, with the recently published Vietnamese translation being used as a case study. The
presentation was followed by a discussion of how Dewey could work more effectively with its translation partners.

The Committee agreed to extend membership of its private listserv to representatives of each translation partner to allow immediate transfer of draft proposals and to encourage direct feedback to EPC. The Committee also approved the commissioning of a 340 Law Working Group to make specific recommendations on improvements within 340 Law for legal systems based on civil law. There are also plans for dewey editorial staff to work directly with the Arabic translation team to improve provisions for Islamic law.

Beacher Wiggins, LC representative to EPC and Director of Acquisitions and and Bibliographic Access at LC, informed the committee about the proposed reorganization of ABA Divisions in the coming year. Under this plan, the Decimal Classification Division will cease to be a separate division and will become part of US National Imprints Division 3 as a separate team. Beacher assured the Committee of LC’s continuing commitment to Dewey application in its records. EPC then reviewed several proposals for updates to the classification. The Committee approved updates and expansions for crimes in 364 and services to prisoners in 365. These will be distributed for use after some further editorial improvements are made.

Time was spent discussing proposed updates to Table 2 and 945 . These were developed in collaboration with the Italian translation team. There were long discussions 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 and proposed changes to the English language edition to restore interoperability between the Italian translation and the standard edition. Those proposed changes are mainly in the form of expansions for major cities. The T2—37 expansion allows greater specificity for ancient Italy. At present the development for ancient Italy is limited by comparison with that of T2—361-362 British Isles, where notation for modern areas can be added directly to the base ancient geographic number to represent the ancient areas. Both these Table 2 suggestions were approved. A draft 945 Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, Malta was distributed at the meeting. This includes interoperable expansions for historical periods for the Italian regions, but as the Committee had not had sufficient time to consider the Exhibit, a follow-up Teleconference has been scheduled to address the Committee’s questions and concerns. The history schedules are required for inclusion in the Italian translation, but since the meeting the original timeframe has been renegotiated to a later date.

A significant number of Exhibits originally scheduled for this meeting were postponed prior to the meeting, and others could not be addressed because of time constraints, so an additional face to face meeting has been scheduled to be held in Dublin Ohio, in May 2007 .