A Conversation for The Dewey Decimal System
Major problems with the system
darakat - Now with pockets! Started conversation Jun 28, 2003
It was invented by a
Male
Christian
In the 1870's
All of these are dam easy to spot.
1. Christian comes form the fact that until version 21 the only religions where Christianity and "other".
2. Male. Ie the only thing under female sciences and works is cleaning and cooking and if your lucky perhaps breeding as well.
3. 1870's... No computers, airplanes, radio and so on, a lot of things like this now inevitably come under "Other".
Its not that Library of Congress Subject headings codes are much better but you can probably do more with it in a big library,
Major problems with the system
David B - Singing Librarian Owl Posted Jun 30, 2003
Dewey Decimal is of course revised frequently to make room for new sciences, historical periods, languages, etc. The newest update continues the trend towards removing the Christian bias in the 200s, and makes sure that Computing and Maths (among other things) reflect the advances in those fields.
Library of Congress has exactly the same problem, for although new subject headings are easy to come by, you still need to create a number for the new topics, just as in Dewey.
Major problems with the system
darakat - Now with pockets! Posted Jun 30, 2003
Yes well there's not much you can do about a pescribed and static source, you just have to do it...
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Major problems with the system
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