[solved] Small library catalogue

JMartinR · February 23, 2021

I'm cataloguing a small (10k+) library with the following goals:
(1) Get the books into Dewey order
(2) Get the books catalogued in order to produce the traditional Author and Class number based indices.
(3) (later) open the electronic version for notes.

I've been getting the basic entries from ISBN where possible (though around a third of the books are pre-SBN) and adding the classification in the call number field by hand. So the questions are:
(A) is there a reliable source for Dewey numbers? I known I'll always need to check them, but a first stab would be helpful
(B) what would be a suitable style for generating the bibliography? Note that call numbers need to be included so that others can find the books!

Thanks all.

adamsmith · February 23, 2021

a) not that I know of. The only thing I could think of would be to look at large libraries that use Dewey -- unfortunately for you, most large libraries tend to not use Dewey. The two I can think of that do are Northwestern University and NY Public Library -- maybe that helps?

b) I think there's only one public style that includes call numbers: https://www.zotero.org/styles?q=id:chicago-library-list
But it'd be simple enough to edit any other style to include call numbers.

JMartinR · February 23, 2021

Thanks for the reply. (A) is pretty much as I expected, it's really annoying that both the BL and LoC are unreliable in what they store in MARC data. I'll try the two you suggest. I'll investigate (B). I just didn't want to waste time reinventing the wheel when no externally defined format is mandated.
Regards,
Martin

DWL-SDCA · February 23, 2021

See:
https://www.library.illinois.edu/infosci/research/guides/dewey/

A very detailed complete guide to Dewey assignment.

See also the OCLC service where you can enter a book title & author or an ISBN and get the Dewey classification number(s), LOC catalog number, and other things. I don't know how many you can get before there is a fee.
http://classify.oclc.org/classify2/

JMartinR · February 23, 2021

Thanks for the suggestions. The Illinois site is just the first 1,000 divisions which are freely available. I use the (by now somewhat dated) Abridged 13 for more detail. The reason for looking online is for the corner cases, when the decisions of a profession help.

The OCLC classify trial may well prove useful when I can't make up my mind though.

Following Adam's suggestion I've managed to get the call number first, but am having a bit of a problem getting the sorting done correctly. Once again, thanks all for your assistance.

JMartinR · February 23, 2021

Final result. I've now got the Chicago Library List and the modified variant thereof working. Thanks all.