Local adaptations and options in your library

[Alex Kyrios]

We'd like to hear about your library's use of local adaptations, alternate arrangements, or any divergence from the standard Dewey. Don't be ashamed! If you've done something to improve your users' experience, we want to know about it. We might even want to adopt it!

Do you use any of the options suggested in the schedules? Have you come up with your own numbers or arrangements? Let us know!

[Jody DeRidder]

I'm wondering whether it would be useful to the Dewey community if we were to establish a centralized location where people could share their local adaptations of the DDC.

Having access to what others have done may make it much easier for folks to adapt to meet their own needs, instead of having to develop a local version from scratch.  On top of that, we could use this venue as a way for people to communicate about what works, and what doesn't, and the challenges encountered in adapting the DDC to local needs.

What do you think?   I would love to hear feedback on this idea.

Thanks!

Jody DeRidder

[Barbara Paciotti]

I love this idea! As a school librarian I often made changes to call numbers so students could find like topics in the same location. By discipline doesn't always work so well for schools.

Perhaps we can have a separate thread in this group that is just for Dewey Adaptations!

Barbara Paciotti

Dallas TX Metroplex

[Barbara Paciotti]

I've done several adaptations for my middle school library. I've written about them in my blog, and here's a post about the main changes I made:

http://lookingbackward.edublogs.org/2019/03/03/changing-dewey/

I have a 17-page e-book that is free for signing up to my blog's email list, but I'm going ahead and attaching it so anyone in this group can have it. 

Barbara Paciotti

Dallas TX Metroplex

[jody]

Wow, Barbara, this is terrific!  Thank you so much for sharing!

I have been wondering what form these local adaptations might take, and how best to share and compare them. Do you think it might make sense to try to capture them in spreadsheets?  Is there a better way to provide quick reference lookups?

In our recent survey, folks indicated that the areas they most often used local adaptations for included literature, special collections, music or sound recordings, picture books, and fiction.  

You have mentioned several very specific implementations that demonstrate the changes you made, and have given some great insight into how those are most useful in your school library.  Are there general areas that you find you focus on most in making adaptations for school libraries?

Thank you so much for sharing.  This is fascinating, and so kind of you to make available so others can leverage your hard work and expertise. I especially love your labels!!

--jody

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[Paraklitos library]

Christian Orthodox biographies in the 200s

Back in 2011, we decided to migrate our theological collection (approx. 30,000 vol. with a focus on Christian Orthodox theology) from our local custom classification to the Dewey Decimal Classification. Initially, we intended to classify Christian biographies (whether saints, monks or clergy) by Christian denomination, down to the specific Orthodox Church. Upon consulting with the dewey editors, we were advised that even though it would not be standard Dewey practice, we might reasonably choose to adopt a local practice in the classification of persons associated with a specific church under 281.9. Thus we proceeded to develop the attached classification table for single or collective Christian biographies, in some cases diverting from standard Dewey practice. 

However, the complexity of building numbers, adding from Orthodox Churches, especially after the improvements of last year’s new manual note, 281.9094-281.9099 and 281.94-281.99 Orthodox churches and geographic treatment, proved such an approach to lead to a dead-end as in the case of Orthodox monks on Mount Athos. Consequently, we resolved to abandon our classifying deviation and return to strict standard Dewey practice, honoring the pertinent instructions under manual note 230-280 Persons associated with Christianity: “Class biographies of members of specific denominations and sects with the main branch of the denomination rather than with the most specific organization or area…”. Of course, that means that we will have to sacrifice depicting any denominational information for Christian biographies, until an optional approach is available.

Having said that, I think Jody DeRidder’s idea of creating a platform where people can share their local adaptations of DDC to meet their collection’s classifying needs, could prove instrumental in DDC’s evolution. I would imagine categorized threads by Dewey class and/or schedule could make the discussion even more focused and targeted.

f. Prodromos Paraklitos library