DEWEY DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION SCHEME (DDC)

By Adimu Nihuka Jr

DDC was devised or published by Melvil Dewey who was born at Adams centre, New York in 1851. He graduated from Amherst in 1874, he served as editor of the library journal. He published first edition of DDC in 1876 also he served as a librarian at Columbia university. He was a dynamic man and advocated for standardization of library procedures, techniques, tools, and equipment as well as education. Equipments are like chairs, tables, shelves and other which are located in the library and used until this decade. Also he was advocated for spelling reform, these spellings are like organization, but he write it as organization.

His full name Melvil Le Louis Kusorth Dewey, he shortened his forename to Melvil dropped his two names and even attempted to change the spelling of his surname to DUI. Throughout his career promoted librarianship by his teaching, writing, and speaking. In 1931 death of Dewey.

BASIC PLAN OF DDC

DDC is both the oldest and the most widely used scheme all over the world. DDC is hierarchical classification scheme proceeding from general to the most specific, and the basic arrangement is by discipline and the specific subject may occurs in any number of classification. For instance;

000-Generalia

100-Psychology and Philosophy

200-Religion

300-Social science

400-Lnguage

500-Pure science and Mathematics

600-Technology

700-The arts

800-Literature

900-Geography and History

This is due to the fact that each aspect of specific subject would go into different discipline, a work on “family”. For example;

173-Family relationship

241.63-Christian family ethics

808.8-Marriage and family

796-Sport for family

Also any discipline must be related to other subject discipline for example the above word “family” you can get too many subjects. There are some subject disciplines which can be located at any discipline it is mostly “neutral subject disciplines”.

The universe of knowledge is divided into ten main classes. These main classes are; 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

First degree of classification

0-Generalia class

1-Philosophy and Psychology

2-Religion

3-Social science

4-Language

5-Pure sciences and Mathematics

6-Technology

7-The arts

8-Literature, Rhetoric, Bulletins, Letters, etc

9-History and Geography

But in the practice, the notation may consist of at least three digits. This is achieved by adding ‘zeroes” with its normal arithmetical value, so that the number becomes three digits. Gap filler is a process of adding one digit to the main class which has only two digits in order to get three digits.

Thus practically the universe of knowledge has been divided into ten main classes as; 000, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, and 900.

The above main class indicated that each main class represents either broad discipline or group of related disciplines. . However, this is not true of the 000 class. This class includes varied subjects such as bibliographies, catalogs, computer science, general encyclopedia and general serials, both above cannot be considered as related discipline.

Each main class is divided into ten divisions. The divisions are the second degree of subdivision in the classification. For example; 722 the underlined digit represents division. In the division there are approximately 100 divisions, these are numbered 0- 9 and occupy the second position in the notation. Division “0” is allocated for the general works on the entire main class and 1- 9 used for subclass of the main class thereof. For example; 700 is used for general work of the Arts. The Arts are classified as follows;

700-The Arts

710-Civil and landscape

720-Architect

730-Plastic arts scripture

740-Drawing, decorative and minor arts

750-Painting

760-Graphic arts print

770-Photography and photographs

780-Music

790-Recreational and performing arts

Each division is divided into ten sections numbered form 0 to 9. A section is a third degree of subdivision of classification. In the sections there are approximately 1000 sections as follows;

720-Archtecture

721-Archtectural construction

722-Ancient architecture

723-Medical architecture

724-Modern architecture

725-Public structure

726-Building for religious purpose

727-Building for educational purpose

728-Residential buildings

729-Design and decoration

DECIMAL SYSTEM

As a name connote, DDC is a decimal classification system, its uses decimal to specify subject terms that are specific which are probably results in digits of long numbers. This allows a number to be expanded indefinitely. A decimal point (dot) it follows the third digit in a class number, the dot is not a decimal point in the real mathematical sense but is a psychology pause to break the monotony of the numerical digits and to ease the transcription and copying of the class number. A number should never end with a “0” to the right of the decimal point. That is; 780 you may write it 78. And digit should never be less than three to the left of the decimal point, that is; -27.678 you should be write it 272.678.