DDC and collection-level description

Ritchie Thomson and Gordon Dunsire

Presented to the Cataloguing and Indexing Group in Scotland following the Annual General Meeting, 6 April 2006, at the

National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

Contents

• Sticking jelly to walls with six inch nails, or contextual subject/discipline analysis of SCONE database via the assignation of DDC notation … (Ritchie Thomson)

• With an introduction and epilogue: Collection-level description and subject retrieval (Gordon Dunsire)

Collection-level description and subject retrieval

Collection-level description

Metadata describing a collection as a wholeNot in terms of its constituent items

That’s what a library catalogue does

Applied to collections of all types, shapes and sizes, e.g.National Library of Scotland collectionAberdeen Harbour Board photographic

archiveEdward Clark collection

Subject retrieval

Subject retrieval at the collection level is required to “landscape” information environments by topic, before item searching is carried out

Which collections should I search to find items on my subject of interest?I do not want to waste time looking in a

collection of 19th century literature for items about quantum mechanics!

SCONE

Scottish Collections Networkhttp://scone.strath.ac.uk/Service/index.cfmEstablished in 20005400+ descriptions of collections located in

Scotland or about ScotlandArchives, libraries, museums, digital

Subject landscaping important from the startBut unknown territory

Subject retrieval in SCONE

3 methods of subject retrievalConspectus for general collections

Based on Library of Congress ClassificationVerbal headings“Map” of subject strength for each heading

Old and modern Scottish universities + NLSLibrary of Congress Subject Headings

Text retrieval of controlled “keywords”Dewey Decimal Classification …

Sticking jelly to walls with six inch nails …

or …

Contextual subject/discipline analysis of SCONE database via the assignation of DDC notation …

Simple!

DDC provides for good subject/discipline analysis for general and specific collections of art via the 708s:

708 Galleries, museums, private collections of fine and decorative arts

• Geographic treatment Class here guidebooks and catalogs of

specific galleries, museums, private collections

Therefore the notation for art gallery collections in Edinburgh is 708.29134 …

But …

What if it’s not so simple?

General collections problem

At what point does a collection become so general so as to render any attempt at subject/discipline analysis meaningless?

What is the tipping-point of a collection-level record?

Value judgement? Yes, but isn’t that always the case in cataloguing and classification to some extent?

Once we have decided a collection isn’t too general some sort of analysis has to be made …

Stuff and things …

“Burns Cottage”Is it simply a cottage?What’s in the collection?Manuscripts,Personal and family

objects,Archival material, Art work …

Analyse this? Analyse what?

What aspects of the collection must the cataloguer take into consideration?

Physical content?Cultural content? Context?All these and more …

The problem with collection-level description …

The problem is we are dealing with collections of stuff …

… and collections of stuff that might include a wide and diverse selection of subjects attributes at that!

… collections of “stuff and things” …

The Dewey problem

Problems with DDC itself … designed primarily for item level description …

…and!

DDC actually provides for collection-level analysis in the 026/027s!

From the DDC schedules

026 Class here information organizations and

library departments and collections in specific disciplines and subjects; comprehensive works on special libraries

For special libraries not devoted to specific disciplines and subjects , see the kind of library in 027.6 , e.g., general museum libraries 027.68 , general libraries in newspaper offices 027.69 .

026s not fit for purpose!

It is conceivable that every library and archival collection would be assigned a 026 or 027 classmark … though qualified by a subject/discipline qualifier i.e. medical libraries 026.61 …

Assigning practically every collection-level record a classmark in the 026 area seems particularly useless …

Breaking the rules …

Break the rules … but don’t panic! Assign a DDC that best reflects the

purpose and context of the collection as a whole …

… and in a way so as to maintain the contextual integrity of the collection in order to give the collection real meaning …

A new methodology A contextual approach involving a

subject/discipline analysis of collections …

Ask yourself, “why does this collection exist?”, “what does this collection say to me?”, “what is this collection about?”

Resolve various aspects of a collection into one singular DDC notation which reflects the collection as a whole …

Sum of parts?

A collection title may very well masquerade as a country house, or general museum collection, or collection of objects directly related to an important aspect of our history, or an important figure from our history …

Thus a collection of objects must constitute more than just the sum of the parts as a whole!

Collection values and context

Collection strengths, collection subjects, collection disciplines …

A way of thinking that encapsulates a methodology of conceptualising about what the collection is about and what it exists for in the first place …

What is the collection’s purpose in the context of the wider culture of the nation?

A quasi-archival methodology?

Yes it is …

Related to what practitioners in the archival field term provenance, i.e. the contextual integrity of a collection needs to be maintained in order to give the collection any real meaning

It is the collection we are concerned with not the items per say … and the context in which the items are brought together in the context of the collection!

Context

Strict adherence to the rules would result in assigning the classmark 026.61 for medical libraries …

As stated this is not fit for purpose … Contextual subject/discipline analysis

of a medical library collection translates to classmark 610.

In some ways like the editorial mapping process used in Web Dewey … but in reverse …

What if …

What if the context of a collection *shouts* biography?

What if by assigning a biographical classmark to a collection-level record we can maintain the contextual integrity of the collection in a meaningful sense?

Name as subject/discipline

Collection strengths in antiques, antiquities, historic relics, weapons and armour, and rare books collected by Sir Walter Scott …

The assigned DDC for this record is 928.21 …

From the DDC schedules

(928) *Persons in literature, history biography, genealogy

Including historians, writers and critics of belles-lettres

(.2-9.) Writers in literature, history, biography, genealogy by language

Add to base number 928 notation 2-9 from Table 6 for language in which person has written …

Why choose biography?

LCSH assigned to the give access to collection subject strengths … including a name-as-subject entry …

However, the purpose of this collection is to attempt to represent the life and work of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)!

The context of the collection is the life of Sir Walter Scott. People travel to the Abbotsford because it’s the site of collections intimately connected with his life and work and his one time home …

Value judgement?

To some extent yes, but cataloguers make these sort of judgements all the time …

It should not be beyond our abilities as cataloguers, to come up with some way to classifying items at the collection level … after all, every work has it’s place and place it’s work …

Can this not be the same for collections?

Possibly …

Summary

So, ask why do people value a collection, what is the cultural context that what gives a collection meaning?

To give meaning to a collection we must analyse and resolve the important, strengths, subjects, disciplines, and cultural context of a collection into a coherent number that reflects the collection as a whole ...

This approach maintains the contextual integrity of a collection needed to give the collection any real meaning …

In context …

Ritchie Thomson

slic3@slainte.org.uk

… DDC and HILT

High-Level ThesaurusJISC/RSLP project, 2001 onwardsNow in phase 3

Developing a m(achine)2m(achine) demonstrator

Interoperability between different subject vocabularies

Recommended use of DDC as a “spine” or common mapping bridge

Use of DDC in HILT

Subject term input by userCorresponding DDC number(s) identified

User presented with verbal hierarchies and asked to select one (“disambiguate”)

Collection-level descriptions give subject scheme used in item finding-aid (catalogue)LCSH, MESH, Unesco, AAT, etc.

Corresponding term(s) found from inverse DDC mappingUsed to search finding-aids

Utility of decimal notation

DDC number corresponding to user subject term can identify (landscape) collections automaticallyBy exploiting decimal notation of DDC

Subject term can be broadened by truncating the DDC numberTeeth (human physiology) = 612.311 Broader 61(0) = Medicine and health

Automatic landscaping

Teeth = 612.311Any collections with this DDC? If no:Any collections with 612.31?612.3? 612? 610? Yes!

29 in SCONEAberdeen University Medical Library

collection, etc.LCSH for (item) catalogue612.311 = “teeth” or “dentition”

Links

SCONEhttp://scone.strath.ac.uk/Service/index.cfm

HILThttp://hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/index.html

Centre for Digital Library Researchhttp://cdlr.strath.ac.uk/

SLAINTE website of SLIC and CILIPShttp://www.slainte.org.uk/