THE DEWEY DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION - OCLC

Mitchell and Vizine-Goetz: The Dewey Decimal Classificationlocated in the Dewey Section 25 . Dewey numbers have been assigned to works catalogedby the Library of Congress since 1930; classifiers in the Dewey Section are the primaryassigners of Dewey numbers at the Library of Congress. Having the editorial office inclose proximity to a key user group assists the editors in detecting emerging topics andshifts in viewpoints and terminology.The DDC is continuously developed and updated by an editor in chief and four assistanteditors. The editors study the distribution of topics in WorldCat to determine literarywarrant (the existence of a certain level of literature on a topic) for updates—they alsomonitor the subject literature, news feeds, and other information resources, plus consultwith users.All changes to the DDC are reviewed by the Decimal Classification Editorial PolicyCommittee (EPC), a ten-member international advisory board whose main function is toadvise the DDC editors and OCLC on matters relating to changes, innovation, and thegeneral development of the DDC. The committee is a joint committee of the AmericanLibrary Association and OCLC and has been in continuous existence in its present formsince the early 1950s. Current EPC members represent academic, national, public,school, and special libraries and come from Australia, Canada, South Africa, the UnitedKingdom, and the United States. In addition, current translation partners serve ascorresponding members of EPC—they receive all draft proposals for comment at thesame time as EPC members.http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2009/mitchell-dvg-elis.pdf Page 16 of 36.