Team efforts keep the DDC nimble

by Brad Gauder

Joan S. Mitchell, Editor in Chief, Dewey Decimal Classification and Libbie Crawford, Dewey Marketing Manager, review drafts of DDC 22 content. The shelves behind them hold copies of all 21 preceding editions of the DDC, including the first, which was published by Melvil Dewey in 1876.

How do you keep a system that’s nearly 130 years old running smoothly? There’s a good answer where the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system is concerned: you work on it every day. Fortunately for Dewey users, highly qualified teams of librarians are entrusted with the daily work of keeping the DDC updated and pertinent for the more than 200,000 libraries around the world that use it.

“One of Dewey’s great strengths is that the system is developed and maintained in a national bibliographic agency, the Library of Congress,” says Joan S. Mitchell, Editor in Chief of the DDC.

According to Ms. Mitchell, the Dewey editorial office has been located in the Decimal Classification Division of the Library of Congress (LC) since 1923. “Having the editorial office within the Decimal Classification Division enables the Dewey editors to detect trends in literature that must be incorporated into the DDC,” she says.

Classification specialists assign over 110,000 DDC numbers each year to records for works cataloged by LC, a practice that began in 1930. They often bring emerging topics to the attention of the Dewey editorial team and suggest new index terms and clarifications to existing records, notes Ms. Mitchell.

The Dewey editorial team, led by Ms. Mitchell, consists of four assistant editors: Julianne Beall, Giles Martin, Winton Matthews and Gregory New. Mr. Martin works from OCLC’s Dublin, Ohio headquarters, while the rest of the editorial staff work at LC in Washington, DC.

The Dewey editorial team works closely with the Decimal Editorial Policy Committee (EPC), a ten-member international board of librarians whose main function is to advise the editors and OCLC on matters relating to changes, innovation and the general development of the DDC to make it work better for library users. These two groups meet formally twice per year—and communicate regularly year-round—to plan the changes needed to keep the DDC current.

Since the world’s body of knowledge never stops changing, work on DDC 22 began as soon as DDC 21 was published in 1996. After seven years and the application of several hundred thousand DDC numbers, these teams—classification specialists, EPC members and the Dewey editorial team—have now completed their work on the first DDC edition of the 21st century. Already, they are at work on the next edition.