Page 78 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Unit 4: Colon Classification and Dewey Decimal Classification

Medical journalism 070.44961 Notes
(070.449 Journalism in specific subjects + notation 61 from 610 Medicine and health [it is a
convention in Dewey to drop the final zero after the decimal point])
Elementary mathematics curricula 372.7043
(372.7 Elementary education in mathematics + notation 043 Curricula from the add table under
372.3-372.8 Elementary education in specific subjects)
The DDC notations interrelate with hierarchy and structure in the following way: “Hierarchy in
the DDC is expressed through structure and notation. ... Structural hierarchy means that all
topics (aside from the ten main classes) are part of all the broader topics above them. The
corollary is also true: whatever is true of the whole is true of the parts. This important concept
is called hierarchical force. ... Notational hierarchy is expressed by length of notation. Numbers
at any given level are usually subordinate to a class whose notation is one digit shorter; coordinate
with a class whose notation has the same number of significant digits; and superordinate to a
class with numbers one or more digits longer.”
In compliance with the DDC system, the automatic analysis of notations (numbers) of the DDC
is carried out in the VZG (Verbundzentrale des Gemeinsamen Bibliotheksverbundes) project
Colibri (Context generation and Linguistic tools for Bibliographic Retrieval Interfaces).
The goal of this project is to enrich title records on the basis of the DDC to improve retrieval.
The analysis of DDC notations is conducted under the following research questions:

Q1: Is it possible to automatically decompose molecular DDC notations into atomic DDC
notations?

Q2: Is it possible to improve automatic classification and retrieval by means of atomic DDC
notations?
We define the terms “atomic DDC notation” and “molecular DDC notation” (while a DDC
notation is considered as a string, i.e., an ordered sequence of symbols) as follows:

Atomic DDC notation: An atomic DDC notation is a semantically indecomposable string
that represents a DDC class.

Molecular DDC notation: A molecular DDC notation is a string that is syntactically
decomposable into DNA atoms.

4.7.1 Properties of Decimal Fractions

All decimal fractions follow a whole number preceded by a decimal point, as an indicator. For
example in 10.5, read as ten point five, 5 is a decimal fraction and are preceded by a decimal
point. Similarly 092 is read as zero point nine two or simply as decimal nine two. Decimal
fractions have some mathematical properties (qualities) which are not possessed by integral
(whole) numbers that we ordinarily use in our day to day routine. The properties of decimal
fractions are discussed below:

Constant Place Value of the Digits 1, 2 and 3

If we add any digit to the right end of any decimal fraction, the place value of the already present
figures does not change. For example, if a decimal fraction 52 is extended by 5 to make it 525, the
original place value of the first two digits, viz., 52 remains unaltered. This is due to the fact that

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