Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- About the authors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 A Brief History of the Dewey Decimal Classification
- 2 Governance and Revision of the DDC
- 3 Introduction to the Text
- 4 Basic Plan and Structure
- 5 Subject Analysis and Locating Class Numbers
- 6 Tables and Rules for Precedence and Citation Order
- 7 Number Building
- 8 Use of Table 1 Standard Subdivisions
- 9 Use of Table 2 Geographic Areas, Historical Periods, Biography
- 10 Use of Table 4 Subdivisions of Individual Languages and Table 6 Languages
- 11 Use of Table 3 Subdivisions for the Arts, for Individual Literatures, for Specific Literary Forms
- 12 Use of Table 5 Ethnic and National Groups
- 13 Multiple Synthesis: Deeper Subject Analysis
- 14 Classification of General Statistics, Law, Geology, Geography and History
- 15 Using the Relative Index
- 16 WebDewey
- 17 Options and Local Adaptations
- 18 Current Developments in the DDC and Future Trends
- Appendix 1 A Broad Chronology of the DDC, 1851–2022
- Appendix 2 History of Other Versions of the DDC
- Appendix 3 Table of DDC Editors
- Appendix 4 Editors of the DDC
- Appendix 5 Takeaways
- Further resources
- Glossary
- Index
16 - WebDewey
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- About the authors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 A Brief History of the Dewey Decimal Classification
- 2 Governance and Revision of the DDC
- 3 Introduction to the Text
- 4 Basic Plan and Structure
- 5 Subject Analysis and Locating Class Numbers
- 6 Tables and Rules for Precedence and Citation Order
- 7 Number Building
- 8 Use of Table 1 Standard Subdivisions
- 9 Use of Table 2 Geographic Areas, Historical Periods, Biography
- 10 Use of Table 4 Subdivisions of Individual Languages and Table 6 Languages
- 11 Use of Table 3 Subdivisions for the Arts, for Individual Literatures, for Specific Literary Forms
- 12 Use of Table 5 Ethnic and National Groups
- 13 Multiple Synthesis: Deeper Subject Analysis
- 14 Classification of General Statistics, Law, Geology, Geography and History
- 15 Using the Relative Index
- 16 WebDewey
- 17 Options and Local Adaptations
- 18 Current Developments in the DDC and Future Trends
- Appendix 1 A Broad Chronology of the DDC, 1851–2022
- Appendix 2 History of Other Versions of the DDC
- Appendix 3 Table of DDC Editors
- Appendix 4 Editors of the DDC
- Appendix 5 Takeaways
- Further resources
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
Introduction
WebDewey is the most current and complete version of the DDC. It is a web service that can be separately subscribed to or bundled with other OCLC cataloging utilities. WebDewey is maintained and revised continuously by the editors. Updates can be as frequent as daily; it is rare to have a week without some sort of change.
When it was first released, WebDewey was seen more as an electronic complement to the core print product; now that ordering has reversed. New printed products are derived from WebDewey and the DDC has become a ‘digital native’. Without the constraints of print, WebDewey has expanded tremendously in sheer volume, not to mention the extra features and search capabilities that would be impossible in print.
History
WebDewey can trace its ‘heritage’ to the first electronic DDC product, titled simply Electronic Dewey, which was released in 1993. The content of Electronic Dewey came from the most recent print version at the time, the 20th Edition (1989). It was succeeded by Dewey for Windows, a CD product, in 1996, the same year the print 21st Edition was released. Both Electronic Dewey and Dewey for Windows were updated annually. The first iteration of WebDewey was released in 2000, still a few years prior to the print 22nd Edition (2003). In 2011, along with the release of the print 23rd Edition, an enhanced ‘WebDewey 2.0’ was released. Today's WebDewey is functionally an evolution of WebDewey 2.0, but the ‘2.0’ name is not used in current branding. Contemporary references to ‘WebDewey 2.0’ do not refer to a future product, nor is a ‘3.0’ planned. In this regard, it is similar to modern printed DDC, whose print-on-demand versions do not have separate edition numbers.
Though an OCLC product, WebDewey was developed by Pansoft, a German software company that continues to maintain it under agreement with OCLC. Pansoft also developed and maintains the active WebDewey translations: French, German, Italian, Norwegian and Swedish, with Arabic in the works as of this writing. This provides continuity across different language versions.
Functionality
The core purpose of WebDewey is to make the full classification accessible and navigable via the web. Its interface is designed to be intuitive, such that a user already familiar with the DDC in print formats can make sense of it with little to no instruction.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Handbook of History, Theory and Practice of the Dewey Decimal Classification System , pp. 151 - 162Publisher: FacetPrint publication year: 2023