Dewey Decimal Classification: A Study Manual and Number Building Guide, 21st Edition - Hardcover

Every library buys material requiring classification "from scratch" without help from CIP, OCLC, etc. In many libraries, the task falls to a nonspecialist who dreads facing Dewey alone. Scott, a former head of SANAD Support Technologies Inc.'s technical services division and now a school library media specialist, furnishes relief with this manual, covering the Dewey Decimal Classification's (DDC) history, principles, and content. Ten chapters cover the ten main classes, 000s-900s, and include exercises, preceded by four chapters on history and current status, general aspects, principles of number building, and the tables. A final chapter explaining book numbers is very useful since many catalogers need help in turning DDC numbers into full shelf addresses. A bibliography, answers to the exercises, and an index complete the book. Scott highlights features of the 21st edition that differ from previous ones, assuming most readers need special help here. Other manuals exist?the printed DDC has one; Lois M. Chan and others did one for Forest Press (Dewey Decimal Classification: A Practical Guide, 1996. 2d ed.); there is Pat Sifton's Workbook for DDC 21 (Canadian Library Association, 1998); and every cataloging textbook has a chapter on it?but Scott moves a student or novice through DDC more slowly and completely than the cataloging texts, her language is simpler and more understandable than DDC's guides, and the Canadian text is more of a workbook. Scott's manual is recommended for formal library school courses and on-the-job training.?Sheila S. Intner, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston
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