New features: Use the "Free Decimal System"?

Tangent from http://www.librarything.com/topic/96986

Librarian John Mark Ockerbloom pointed me to a system he developed, based on Dewey numbers but without reference to modern Dewey schedules. He called it the "Free Decimal Correspondence" and has released it into the public domain. It is, I think, a better base for the higher tiers than the 1922 version.

http://everybodyslibraries.com/free-decimal-correspondence/

I wish I had remembered about it.

I suggest that we allow the FDC to anchor our modern wordings, as his system includes modern concepts as well.

Okay, that's good enough for me. So, let us take liberal advantage of it. Unless there's a good reason, let's use its wording, and extend it as necessary.

I'm going to change where changes need to be made in the text.

So, what's the difference with Dewey, just the naming? Or are there bigger differences?

Basically Ockerbloom reverse-engineered Dewey. He used the old system and the current numbering applied by librarians, both of which are in the public domain.

The point is to have something useful—words are MUCH more useful than numbers. But also not to get sued.

Ok, that makes sense. I just voted yes.

So why can't we do that ourselves? The information is encoded in our database.

Do what?

Reverse-engineer Dewey from the books in the catalog.

Ah. We could. I think Mark did a good job of it, though.

8: That's what I've been doing for some of the lower decimals.

What's in the group? Those. Label the group "Those".

Is this new system updated? I looked at the 1922 version you had so far, and it is woefully outdated as far as science is concerned (I didn't check other categories). For example, "thermodynamics" has something on "mechanical equivalent of heat", which was a hot topic in 1830 or so, but is now so mainstream that it will probably take up no more than a chapter in a modern thermo book. On the other hand, not much on statistical mechanics, for example, which was quite new in 1922.

Also, it is tough to find books in interdisciplinary areas, like "biophysics".

How can we fix this?

Ok, just had a look at the new system. It doesn't list subcategories under 'heat and thermodynamics' for example, so I'm not sure how updated it is.

But it definitely has a problem with interdisciplinary topics, like "astrophysics", "biophysics" etc. It doesn't even have "molecular biology". Basically the science categories are based on science in 1890 or so.

The point is that the existing numbers in our catalogs are (mostly) based on the modern Dewey Decimal Numbers (although not necessarily the latest revision). While the MDS and FDS are good places to start with category names, ultimately the category names chosen should be based on what books are in those categories and not what some outdated system says they should be.

The FDS is newer though, so it at least has some things.