Hello EDUCATers,
A few weeks ago there was a meeting of the DDC Editorial Policy Committee
(held at OCLC). During that meeting I asked a question about an issue
that several of you have brought up with me from time to time. The issue
is that despite our best teaching, students continue to see "Class
here..." notes in Dewey as scope notes. They, of course, are not scope
notes, and reading them as such can be confusing; the number where such
a note appears is usually quite a bit broader than the concept in the
"Class here" note. I asked at the meeting if the group had suggestions
for handling this problem.
The main response was that the note is so ubiquitous, that it cannot be
changed. However, Giles Martin, one of the assistant editors, made a
comment that I have found to be very helpful. He said that if he were
designing the system today, he would use "Approximates the whole:" where
"Class here" is now used, and he would use "Does not approximate the
whole:" where "Includes" is now used. I don't know if this would be any
easier to get across to students than the current way of teaching, but I
can imagine that if we could get students to substitute those words in
their minds for the words in the notes, they might "get it" better. It
certainly is helpful to me in looking at the Dewey schedules to substitute
those words in my mind. I don't have a class to try it out with; so if
any of you do try this out, please let me know if it works.
Thanks,
Arlene
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Arlene G. Taylor ** Professor Emerita
Library & Information Science Program
School of Information Sciences
University of Pittsburgh ** Pittsburgh, PA 15260
http://www.pitt.edu/~agtaylor
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