The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) is the mother of all modern library and bibliographic classification. Since its publication in 1876 it continues to be the most popular system, used in about 200,000 libraries in 135 countries. Despite some congenital weaknesses, it has always outdone its rivals and is becoming stronger in the electronic age. Accordingly, much has been written on different aspects published regularly in widely varied media. The literature includes journal articles, books, chapters in books, survey and research reports, conference papers and academic dissertations. Audio‐visual materials, electronic products, posters and teaching kits have also begun appearing. It is essential and commendable to provide some sort of bibliographic control of such literature.
The DDC literature is covered by current and retrospective bibliographies and several current awareness services. The DDC forms a sizeable portion of all bibliographies on knowledge organization. Some small, fragmentary, topical bibliographies on the system have been published, especially in 1976 during the DDC centennial celebrations around the world. Susha Gupta’s bibliography furthers this work with some 700 items from 1876 to 1994. It claims to be an almost exhaustive guide culled from major sources such as Library Literature, Library and Information Science Abstracts, databases such as ERIC, library catalogues and indexes up to 1987. Some Indian dissertations have been included, but their source has not been acknowledged. Post‐1987 literature is almost entirely Western. Two other major sources, namely International Classification and Indexing Bibliography edited by Ingetraut Dahlberg (3 vols, Frankfurt: Indeks Verlag, 1985‐1988) and “Knowledge Organization Literature” published regularly in Knowledge Organisation, have been scanned.
Arrangement is chronological by year. Within each year entries are arranged by author or by title, if there is no named author. Each entry provides full bibliographic details, and a few key words indicating its form and subject‐matter. The subject (pp. 107‐15) and author (pp. 117‐22) indexes are useful.
Despite this breadth of coverage, there are numerous omissions ‐ a mere 700 entries in about 120 years of this most popular classification clearly cannot be comprehensive. Also, the work is not free from errors and typos ‐ even its title (“Decimal Classification System”) is a misnomer, as it does not list UDC literature. Despite these limitations, the bibliography has value as an exclusive and large bibliography of the DDC. Its availability on the Internet will enhance its usefulness and help keep the project up‐to‐date http://www.Oclc.org/oclc/fp/ bibl/front.htm
