The latest rabbit hole I've been lured down: how to organize my academic library.
This is a surprisingly complicated question.
I thought it would be straightforward: pick either Library of Congress or Dewey, then go to WorldCat and find the proper designation for each of my books, then shelve.
Then I discovered that WorldCat doesn't have the official Dewey designation for every book. Then I discovered that it's up to the individual library to assign the Dewey designation. (So, like, one library puts Julian's Revelations under "Christianity, Practical Life" and another under "Christian Mysticism.")
And then I discovered that Library of Congress is actually a pretty clunky and unhelpful system, particularly in the theology and ethics sections where most of my books are.
And then my bibliophile friend told me about the Pettee system, which was developed for theological libraries but which was sadly replaced by the stupid Library of Congress system. (One more thing to blame Congress for.) It even had a category for "theological works of no value whatever," and I have quite a few books in that section! But it is rather elaborate for a library of only a thousand books or so.
And then I thought that maybe my old non-systematic system might not be so bad after all.
Especially since whatever system I come up with will be further complicated by the fact that I only get custody of about half of our academic books. The other half have to go in Stephen's office.
(I'm sure he's comforted by the fact that this rather trivial separation from my books--he's only in the office next door, after all--is distressing enough to me that I've added "Because I might not get all the books" to my list of reason not to divorce him. It's a long list anyway, and the first item is pretty comprehensive: "Because he's Stephen." But no reason not to add stuff.)
So, I'm just going to make up my own system, but, still, I'm having some anxiety about this. If you have any recommendations or thoughts, feel free to comment. Here's what I think I'll do (and remember that this is just for my office books):
Bible
Bibles, then commentaries and studies in canonical order of book(s) treated, then reference and translation materials.
Theology and Ethics
Primary sources arranged chronologically by author's death date (or birth date if living), secondary sources arranged alphabetically by author after the theologian treated.
Ethics Group (not already included in T&E)
Philosophy and philosophical ethics, Religious ethics, Law and Government, and Public Policy, including scientific approaches to ethics topics, arranged by topic, then chronologically.
History and Church History (includes biographies, autobiographies, and secondary sources not already in T&E or Literature.)
Chronological by time period covered.
Church Life
By topic: Liturgy, Preaching, Devotional, Ecclesiology, Church Administration, Popular Works, Christian Art. Alphabetical by author within each topic.
World Religions
General and social science approaches, then by religion, then alphabetical by author. Special section for other religions' approaches to Christianity.
Literature
Primary sources arranged chronologically by author's death date (or
birth date if living), secondary sources arranged alphabetically by
author after the writer treated.
Social and Hard Sciences (not otherwise categorized)
By topic, then alphabetical by author
Current Project Bookshelf
Books for whatever writing project I'm working on, arranged by topic or relevant chapter.
Well. It's a work in progress.
Next step: inventing call numbers!
First, let me say that I think creating your own system, customized to the type of books you have and the way you use them, is a better choice than trying to implement a classification system designed for a library with diverse patronage. I love seeing/reading about the ways that people organize their own books in their own space.
ReplyDeleteThat said, if you DID want to implement Dewey, here are some tips on how one might go about it:
(1) LibraryThing has a field for Dewey classification number; that number has been supplied by a user for more than 80% of the books in my personal library. So if you're willing to just accept some random LT user's judgment of the appropriate DDC number for the bulk of your library, that could get you a long ways toward having a value for each book.
(2) Most libraries engage in some degree of "copy cataloging," recycling catalog records (including call numbers) created by other libraries and shared through Online Computer Library Center membership. You could do the same by looking up your books in the catalog of a library that uses Dewey. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (http://www.library.illinois.edu/catalog/) is the largest library in the US on Dewey Decimal Classification. As a public university, the UIUC library probably has some gaps in its theology coverage, but there are a number of Christian colleges or seminaries that use DDC (including Wheaton College's Buswell Library, http://library.wheaton.edu/) that could help fill in the gaps.
(3) Assigning your own Dewey numbers is actually kind of fun (although admittedly probably not something you want to do for your entire collection). There is likely to be a library near you that has the print edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification Scheme in its reference collection, but that's a hassle to use. Better to use WebDewey, the online edition -- but that costs $267/year. However, you can get a 30-day free trial, which would probably be long enough to complete the classification of a small professional library. (https://www.oclc.org/forms/webdewey-free-trial.en.html)
That is so helpful, Rachel!
ReplyDeleteThat was one of my stumbling blocks--the first three books I entered on LibraryThing had the *wrong* Dewey number.
I mean, I'm sure lots of people think of Hauerwas as Dogmatic Systematics, but his memoir is not a work of systematics. And putting Julian of Norwich in, I don't know, Christian Life Practical Aspects instead of Christian Mystics is just wrong.
Maybe I'll mess around with Wheaton's catalog and see if it has some better classifications than LibraryThing.
Thanks!
Oh, wow. I was part of a really interesting discussion with the head of cataloging at one of the world's largest seminaries a year or so ago; he mentioned that libraries pretty quickly learn which other libraries to trust for copy cataloging. Examples like that confirm why that's so. I'm betting those wrong numbers in LT were cribbed from some library somewhere who had a non-specialist catalog their religion works. The same cataloging librarian shared with us some doozies of inexpert cataloging: my favorite was a book about the Anglican Communion (or maybe it was the World Communion of Reformed Churches?) that was assigned the subject heading "Lord's Supper" because the cataloger wasn't aware of the semantic range of the word "Communion."
ReplyDelete(PS: I didn't notice when I posted before that the free trial of WebDewey is supposed to be for libraries, not just us hoi polloi. So it might not work to try to use it to catalog your own collection. Bummer.)
do either of you suffer from a sheer fear of plagiarizing? Sarah, do you check your own work to make sure that a phrase didn't stick in your head that actually belongs to someone else? I have a sticky memory and when I write (or read and then directly move into writing) it is hard for me to know what I "borrowed" and what is proper to me, or even if there is any difference.
ReplyDelete