DEWEY JOINS THE JET AGE

THE APPEARANCE OF A NEW EDITION of the Decimal Classification is always an event of some importance in the library world. It is perhaps viewed with apprehension by the library administrator who foresees the consequent alterations of numbers on books and records resulting from ‘relocations’ as an added burden to be borne, while it is hopefully viewed by the classifier as possibly a more adequate instrument for dealing with the literature that comes to his desk. Both may get some satisfaction from DC 17, the administrator in the fact that there are only 746 relocations as compared with the 1,603 in edition 16, while the classifier will be partially satisfied by some of the new features. In other words DC 17 presents the familiar compromise between ‘Keeping pace with knowledge’ and ‘Integrity of numbers’.