THE DEWEY DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION - OCLC

Mitchell and Vizine-Goetz: The Dewey Decimal ClassificationDDC 22, the latest English-language full edition of the DDC, was published in print in2003 12 ; Abridged Edition 14, an abridged version of the full edition, was published thefollowing year 13 . The current full edition database contains nearly 27,000 numbersenumerated in the schedules, plus more than 13,000 additional synthesized numbers inthe index. There are over 9,000 table numbers listed in Tables 1-6; an additional 600synthesized table numbers are included in the index 14 . As mentioned previously,additional notation beyond that explicitly provided in the schedules, tables, and index canbe synthesized to reflect a particular aspect of a topic.The abridged edition is a logical truncation of the notational and structural hierarchy ofthe corresponding full edition. It is much smaller than the full edition—in print, it is onevolume instead of four, and is aimed at collections of 20,000 titles or less. It alsocontains fewer tables than the full edition—Tables 1-4 instead of Tables 1-6. There arestill opportunities for notational synthesis, but they are more limited than the full editionprovisions for number building. The current abridged edition database contains nearly5,000 numbers enumerated in the schedules, plus an additional 400 synthesized numbersin the index. There are over 500 table numbers listed in Tables 1-4, plus nine additionalsynthesized table numbers in the index15.ELECTRONIC VERSIONS OF THE DDCThe conversion of DDC to electronic form began in 1979 with the use of a computerbasedphotocomposition system to produce DDC 19. Five years later in 1984, ForestPress commissioned Inforonics Inc. to develop a database and online system to supportthe continuing development and publication of the DDC 16 . The project and resultingsystem become known as the Editorial Support System, or ESS. John Finni, the chiefhttp://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2009/mitchell-dvg-elis.pdf Page 12 of 36.