The Dewey Consortium in Iceland and the use of Dewey in the National Union Catalogue Ragna Steinarsdóttir Director of Acquisitons and Cataloging National and University Library of Iceland

Overview Library environment in Iceland  Library consortium DDC classification in the Union catalog  Icelandic exceptions  Problems – tasks Dewey Consortium in Iceland / Ragna 2

Union Catalog Gegnir / Aleph 500, version 22 Two OPACs: Gegnir.is and Leitir.isGegnir.isLeitir.is Gegnir is the catalog of the National and University Library Gegnir is also a catalog of 300 other libraries  More than 200 catalogers One union catalog, one library catalog Gegnir hosts the National bibliograpy of IcelandNational bibliograpy of Iceland / Ragna 3

Consortium Gegnir (the system) is run by the systems office Consortium of Icelandic Libararies  Six staff members  Independant  The board is represented by public and university libraries as well as government and municipal authorities / Ragna 4

Standards and rules MARC 21 AACR2 Icelandic translation of abridged version RDA before too long, hopefully Catalogers handbook / Ragna 5

Quality control Quality control is the big issue in a single, national bibliographic database Quality control effective in Gegnir, we do not have much control over other databases in Leitir.is DDC numbers are not subject to quality control / Ragna 6

Quality control Quality manager for Gegnir is employed at the National and University Library of Iceland  Some authority control in other databases managed by the library:  Skemman (repository of academic and research documents, students’ thesis) Skemman  Rafhladan (digital arhive)Rafhladan Authority files for personal names and topical terms analogous to Gegnir‘s authority database, Lykilskrá Lykilskrá / Ragna 7

What do we do? Cataloging council, subject headings council and the quality team are the managing bodies of the bibliographic database There are strict regulations as to who gets permission to catalog We try to make sure that metadata for the databases NULI controls is in compliance with the metadata in Gegnir / Ragna 8

Authority file in Gegnir The authority file includes:  Icelandic personal names with some cross references  Subject headings according to a thesaurus that was used by school and public libraries and has been extended to serve as a thesaurus for Gegnir / Ragna 9

Cooperation - responsibility Co-operation is the key to success  Everyone needs to change their practices when becoming a member in Gegnir  Gegnir depends on responsible staff 200 catalogers that have permission to do almost anything with the bibliographic records Co-operation takes time  Patience, flexibility... Specialization is difficult in Iceland  There are not enough people to do the job, dive into the details, but the tasks are the same as elsewhere / Ragna 10

Dewey in the consortium Dewey Decimal Classification is predominant classification system in Icelandic libraries Different classification traditions in the University library and National library that merged in 1994  Effects can still be seen in the catalog / Ragna 11

Icelandic exceptions Icelandic language, literature, history and the geography of Iceland  810 for Icelandic literature,  823 for literature in English  910 for Icelandic geography (+ Table 2)  for Icelandic history (+ Table 2)  We do not use -092 for biographies, we use 92* – biography of a geologist 927* - artists 928* - writers / Ragna 12

Languages The most difficult exceptions are for languages 410 is used for Icelandic linguistics 401 is used for general linguistics  We added an extra 0 after 4* Language acquistion is  DDC: Translating and interpreting is  DDC: / Ragna 13

Table 2. Geographic areas The number in the full edition for Iceland:  in the full editon  -491 in the Icelandic edition How do we tackle that in WebDewey? / Ragna 14

Table 2 for Icelandic areal numbers / Ragna 15

Problems - tasks Decisions made by a small university library long time ago are in effect now in a much larger library system  F.ex not to use periodic tables for literature We use our own number for Old Icelandic (Norse) literature – before / Ragna 16

More... Dewey numbers are not easily searchable in the OPACs They can only be seached in Advanced search in Gegnir.is, not in Leitir.is This is one side effect of being in a consortium with many other libraries  Too many numbers in the records / Ragna 17

Numbers in records / Ragna 18

Numbers in records / Ragna 19

Dewey Consortium Contract signed 2011  6 libraries including The National and University Library of Iceland  Managed at NULI (Rósa) 14 libraries now participate in the Dewey Consortium  2 public libraries  5 university libraries  1 school library  6 government and institutional libraries / Ragna 20

Advantages of WebDewey WebDewey ensures more conformity in classification Searching is quicker and easier You always have the latest version readily available at your computer Comments can be added – available for all users / Ragna 21

Web Dewey - comments / Ragna 22

Web Dewey - comments / Ragna 23

Web Dewey - comments / Ragna 24

Thank you / Ragna 25

/ Ragna 26