In SBN with Dewey: the classified catalogue of the Pole of the Central National Library of Florence

Abstract

The publication of the Italian Edizione 21, edited by a work group of the Italian National Bibliography (BNI), coordinated by Luigi Crocetti, will contribute to further progress in the diffusion of the culture and practice of Dewey Classification in Italian libraries. I think that this is a particularly opportune moment for providing information and reflection on the situation and development of a classified catalogue in SBN, while making reference to what was elaborated and experimented in the Pole of the National Library of Florence (CNLF Pole).

The CNLF Pole was, together with that of Ravenna the first of SBN and is still an experimental Pole for SBN programmes. Exactly in that initial period of 1985-1986, the group of semantic cataloguers of the BNI had given themselves two objectives: on the one hand the adoption by the BNI of the whole Dewey Classification, with the abandonment of the so-called practice of the BNI models or Tables, on the other the construction in the new SBN of a real classified catalogue, on the basis of the then current full Edizione 19.

The criteria that were defined at the time with regard to the structure of an archive of classes in SBN stood the test of time, even if with subsequent adjustments, with respect both to the growth of the Library database, and also the succession of various editions of the Dewey Classification.

In our opinion, what was needed was first of all to construct a pre-coordinated archive of Dewey classes that would provide the bone structure, the framework for the on-line classified catalogue.

Two preliminary conditions needed to be satisfied however for constructing such an archive. The first was the existence of a suitable SBN programme, which was planned in cooperation with the Data Processing Centre of the CNLF and created by the latter between 1985 and 1987, through the insertion in the classification programmes of the independent functions of creation and cancellation of class, and of modification of vedette. These modifications then flow into the rewriting in masks of the SBN programmes in 1993-1994. The second condition regarded the actual content of the archive, and was that of an Italian translation of the current edition of the DDC, including at least all the headings (or vedette) of the base numbers, that is of those contained in the tables of the classes from 000 to 999. This work of translation was carried out directly within the semantic cataloguing office of the BNI, during 1985-1986.

When, in May 1993, the Italian Edizione 20, that is the first full Italian edition, was published, the BNI decided that it would have adopted it starting from January 1994.
At that time we had a classes archive based on the Edizione 19, that amounted to about 20,000 base numbers provided with vedettes, and of about 16,000 constructed numbers, a good half of which were still without a vedette. These we would in any case have to decode. The bibliographic information, therefore the documents, classified with the Edizione 19 numbered altogether 87,461, of which 70,556 in BNI. We estimated that the classified catalogue of the CNLF was then one of the very few in version SBN, moreover in a library database that was already considerable and in rapid growth. To start from zero with an archive 20 to be completely set up would have involved an inordinate cost of computer programming work and of catalographic management, as against little or no advantages for the user. We thus decided that it was would be better, at that stage, to proceed to a transformation of the archive 19 into a 20, except for the 780 division which had to be closed and completely recreated on the basis of the new edition. A programme was thus invented for the partial adjustment of the archive, through the attribution of various symbols to the numbers. This process involved a development in the SBN programmes relative to the management in the database of other Dewey editions (theoretically already foreseen).

The further change from 20 to 21 involved a new appraisal and reflection, which led to a change of course, basically taking shape in the decision to close this time the entire archive 20 and open an archive 21, even at the cost of duplicating part of the numbers and of suffering a phase of empty vedettes. The direct assumption of the task of the full translation and of the adjustments by the work group of the BNI itself, with the coordination of Luigi Crocetti, involved on the one hand a much deeper knowledge and evaluation of the size and characteristics of the changes contained in the new edition, while on the other it permitted the use by the editorial group of the TINDDC database containing first the Italian 20, then, at the end of the work, the Italian 21.