For starters, here's a good place to learn how Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) works: http://www.oclc.org/oclc/fp/about/about_the_ddc.htm If you look at this URL and the ones Rob sent, it looks like DDC always fits on one line, while LC can run to as many as five lines. That's true in a theoretical world. In the real world, libraries muck around and add other stuff, to help the people who have to stick the books back on the shelves. Here's an example. The copy of The Chicago Manual of Style I have beside me has the Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication (CIP) data printed inside the fly leaf. It says that the "official" classifications are as follows: LC would be - Z253 U69 1993 DDC would be - 808 or 808.027 or 808.0270973 if I'm really picky. Looks like 3 lines for LC and 1 line for DDC. But in practice, it's hard for humans to keep a long string of numbers straight and in order when re-shelving books, so most libraries that use DDC do what my library does -- add an extra line with the first two letters of the title or the author's name under a _short_ Dewey number. So the spine label on this particular book reads: 808 Ch instead of 808.0270973 Now it gets really fun! Many libraries also add stuff _before_ the Dewey number, like AB for audiobooks or YA for young adult or J for juvenile or junior. (LC libraries sometimes do this, too.) Yeah, they're really categories and shouldn't be part of the call number. But again, they help humans find, retrieve, and replace stuff on library shelves. Practice supercedes theory once again! But to get to the point, five lines should be quite enough for most purposes, for either LC or DDC. I'm sure someone will disagree, but any library that thinks it has to have six lines probably needs some discipline! Stephen Hedges (Nelsonville Public Library)
I've been working on SQL phrasebooks to enable multiple backend DB support. I would be happy to help with changing these fields around.
Since my knowledge of library science is pretty much limited to what I've learned off of this list, could someone step up to the plate to do some research on the type and number of fields needed?
----- Original Message ----- From: Chris Cormack <chris@katipo.co.nz> Date: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 1:29 pm Subject: Re: [Koha] More questions - another 2 cents worth
I think there may be some confusion between a lccn number (library of congress control number) and library of congress call numbers. If I understand correctly, a lccn number is single unique number used to identify a specific title, kind of like a serial number. However, (librarians, please correct me if I'm wrong) lccn numbers are not used for cataloging and shelving books in a library that used the LC system. Instead there are a series of four or five lines of call numbers that are used instead.
Rather than try to explain it, let me refer you to
http://www.lib.ksu.edu/instructional/understanding lccn/webcall2.html or
explanation and samples of LC call numbers.
The problem is that koha doesn't currently have adequate fields of the proper type for storing these four or five
database (I think there are such fields in the MARC tables, but not in the basic koha tables). I agree that accommodating
catalogingsystems is a template issue, but feel
fields need to be in place in the database tables first. I had actually emailed the development list on this same issue a couple weeks ago (subject: inflexiblefield types for call numbers).
My recommendation would be that we survey as many knowledgeable librariansas possible to find out how many fields are necessary for storing call numbers under the various systems, what the maximum length of each needs to be, and then add those fields to the database
http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/education/hcc/library/ca llno.html for some lines of information in the the different that the necessary tables (unless the
programmerscould suggest existing fields that can be used). I think if there were four or five flexible fields for storing call number information, then indeedkoha could be adapted to almost any cataloging system by reworking the templates.
Rob
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Cormack" <chris@katipo.co.nz> Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 1:20 AM Subject: Re: [Koha] More questions - another 2 cents worth
We do have an lccn field in the koha database. And you can load data into it, its currently not displaying or searchable yet though. This is a templating issue, im sure we could change it quite fast.
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