National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 64 | August 2003


Dewey Director and Editor-in-Chief Visits Australia

NLA Director-General Jan Fullerton, with Joan Mitchell—Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of the DDC system—in the Library’s bookplate café

NLA Director-General Jan Fullerton, with Joan Mitchell—Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of the DDC system—in the Library’s bookplate café

Joan Mitchell, Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system visited Australia during July. Ms Mitchell was the keynote speaker at the Aiming for Access Seminar organised by the Australian Committee on Cataloguing in Sydney on 25 July. She also spent a day visiting the National Library in Canberra.

Ms Mitchell has been closely involved with the DDC since 1985, when she became a member of the Decimal Classification Editorial Policy Committee. She chaired the committee from 1992 until her appointment as Dewey editor in 1993. Ms Mitchell has also been a member or chair of various American Library Association committees working in cataloguing and classification. She recently completed work as the chair of the IFLA Working Group on the UNIMARC Classification Format. Prior to joining the Online Computer Library Centre (OCLC), Ms Mitchell was director of educational technology at Carnegie Mellon University and an adjunct professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. She has also held various positions in technical and public services in academic and special libraries, and has written and spoken extensively in the area of knowledge organisation.

Ms Mitchell’s visit coincided with the launch of DDC 22, the new edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification system. Ms Mitchell said that this edition, perhaps more than any before, has been shaped by the needs and recommendations of DDC users around the world. DDC 22 includes substantial updates to several disciplines, and many new numbers and topics across the system. It also features some fundamental structural changes that have been introduced with the goals of promoting classifier efficiency and improving the DDC for a variety of uses in the web environment. The role of the print edition is in transition with respect to the role of its electronic counterpart, WebDewey. The DDC itself is in transition in response to current and emerging needs for an up-to-date knowledge organisation tool that represents concepts in a language-independent system. Australian librarians have an important role in shaping the future of the DDC.

During her visit to the National Library, Ms Mitchell met with senior library staff and provided a presentation for all staff on the new DDC 22 and other developments. In presentations and meetings in Sydney and Canberra Ms Mitchell highlighted opportunities for increased collaboration between DDC and Australian libraries, especially opportunities for Australian libraries to contribute built numbers and index terms for Australian topics, to propose updates and vocabulary mappings, and to participate in the review and testing of changes.
Robert Walls, Director, Database Services

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: pcliff@nla.gov.au