Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- About the authors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 A Brief History of the Dewey Decimal Classification
- 2 Governance and Revision of the DDC
- 3 Introduction to the Text
- 4 Basic Plan and Structure
- 5 Subject Analysis and Locating Class Numbers
- 6 Tables and Rules for Precedence and Citation Order
- 7 Number Building
- 8 Use of Table 1 Standard Subdivisions
- 9 Use of Table 2 Geographic Areas, Historical Periods, Biography
- 10 Use of Table 4 Subdivisions of Individual Languages and Table 6 Languages
- 11 Use of Table 3 Subdivisions for the Arts, for Individual Literatures, for Specific Literary Forms
- 12 Use of Table 5 Ethnic and National Groups
- 13 Multiple Synthesis: Deeper Subject Analysis
- 14 Classification of General Statistics, Law, Geology, Geography and History
- 15 Using the Relative Index
- 16 WebDewey
- 17 Options and Local Adaptations
- 18 Current Developments in the DDC and Future Trends
- Appendix 1 A Broad Chronology of the DDC, 1851–2022
- Appendix 2 History of Other Versions of the DDC
- Appendix 3 Table of DDC Editors
- Appendix 4 Editors of the DDC
- Appendix 5 Takeaways
- Further resources
- Glossary
- Index
12 - Use of Table 5 Ethnic and National Groups
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- About the authors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 A Brief History of the Dewey Decimal Classification
- 2 Governance and Revision of the DDC
- 3 Introduction to the Text
- 4 Basic Plan and Structure
- 5 Subject Analysis and Locating Class Numbers
- 6 Tables and Rules for Precedence and Citation Order
- 7 Number Building
- 8 Use of Table 1 Standard Subdivisions
- 9 Use of Table 2 Geographic Areas, Historical Periods, Biography
- 10 Use of Table 4 Subdivisions of Individual Languages and Table 6 Languages
- 11 Use of Table 3 Subdivisions for the Arts, for Individual Literatures, for Specific Literary Forms
- 12 Use of Table 5 Ethnic and National Groups
- 13 Multiple Synthesis: Deeper Subject Analysis
- 14 Classification of General Statistics, Law, Geology, Geography and History
- 15 Using the Relative Index
- 16 WebDewey
- 17 Options and Local Adaptations
- 18 Current Developments in the DDC and Future Trends
- Appendix 1 A Broad Chronology of the DDC, 1851–2022
- Appendix 2 History of Other Versions of the DDC
- Appendix 3 Table of DDC Editors
- Appendix 4 Editors of the DDC
- Appendix 5 Takeaways
- Further resources
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Table 5 lists groups of people systematically according to ethnic and national origin. An ethnic group normally refers to a group with linguistic bonds; it can also mean a group with cultural or racial ties. From its origin in the 18th Edition through to the 21st, Table 5 was named ‘Racial, Ethnic, National groups’. As of the 22nd Edition, ‘racial’ was dropped, since the idea of racial classification can be quite charged. As the beginning of the Table (T5–0) states:
Concepts of race vary. A work that emphasizes race should be classed with the ethnic group that most closely matches the concept of race described in the work.
Like most external tables, Table 5 is only used when instructed, but like Table 2, there is a helpful loophole. The standard subdivision T1–089 has instructions to add notation from Table 5, allowing building of numbers to represent ethnic and national groups in relation to any topic. Here the standard subdivision works as a facet indicator. However, adding Table 5 notation directly to a base number, if allowed, is preferred over using T1–089.
The first summary of Table 5 is reproduced below:
–05 Persons of mixed ancestry with ethnic origins from more than one continent
–09 Europeans and people of European descent
–1 North Americans
–2 British, English, Anglo-Saxons
–3 Germanic peoples
–4 Modern Latin peoples
–5 Italians, Romanians, related groups
–6 People who speak, or whose ancestors spoke, Spanish, Portuguese, Galician
–7 Other Italic peoples
–8 Greeks and related groups
–9 Other ethnic and national groups
The divisions closely resemble the organization of Main Classes 4 and 8 and Table 6. In fact, many numbers in Table 5 are explicitly organized by language groups, e.g. those with captions starting with ‘Peoples who speak, or whose ancestors speak’. Each division listed above is further divided hierarchically. The name of each ethnic and national group enumerated in the table is indexed in the Relative Index.
Because some people can be categorized by more than one characteristic, as in the case of national groups of foreign origins and non-citizen residents, a citation order (sequence of facets in a multiple-faceted subject) and order of preference (when numbers cannot be combined and a choice must be made between two or more numbers) are needed to maintain consistency in treatment. In Table 5, the generally preferred citation order is ethnic group over nationality.
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- A Handbook of History, Theory and Practice of the Dewey Decimal Classification System , pp. 111 - 118Publisher: FacetPrint publication year: 2023