At 320.54 Nationalism, why were standard subdivisions relating to specific places relocated to 320.54093-320.54099? I thought persons took precedence over place.

Persons treatment normally takes preference over area treatment because in most subjects area treatment is simply a description of the subject in a given location, while persons treatment is the subject as related to a specific individual. Thus the biography of an English chemist is classed in 540.92 rather than in 540.942. Chemistry as a discipline or as a subject is about the same in one country as it is in another.

In some subjects, however, place is so integral to the subject that place becomes a substantive division of the subject rather than simply the definition of the area in which a uniform subject is found. In that case, the normal order should be reversed, so that place is given preference over persons treatment. You can then add notation for persons to notation for place. For instance, biography of a historian of any nation who writes about world history or the history of several parts of the world is classed in 907.02 because all history is the subject. In contrast, a historian of any nation who writes about the history of Great Britain is classed in 941.07202 because in a real sense, Great Britain is the subject. Most scholars expect works on historians who work on the history of specific areas to be classed in numbers near where their works are classed.

The normal way to deal with the reversal of preference is to develop area treatment in nonzero subdivisions, so that the rule of zero will lead the user from the standard subdivision for persons treatment to the nonzero subdivisions for area treatment. The history example just given illustrates the point. The rule of zero tells users that the number beginning with 90 yields to the number beginning 94. Numbers in 901-909 yield to numbers in 930-990.

But is not always possible to revise a schedule to place area treatment of a subject in nonzero numbers. When DDC editors discovered that most works on famous nationalists were in fact being classed under the numbers for specific nations, they realized that subordination of persons to nations was the natural order in 320.54. That is, it is quite fitting that famous Zionists should be classed in the number for Zionism, which is identified in the schedule at 320.54095694. It would also be useful to use notation 092 for persons treatment of Zionists, by allowing the number 320.54095694092 to be used for them.

While ideally it would be nice to use nonzero subdivision of 320.54 for nationalism of specific nations, it would require relocation of subject material in among numbers where the DDC already uses two subdivisions (320.546 and 320.54) for specific topics. In order to minimize relocation of material, persons treatment of nationalists of a specific nation was relocated from 320.54092 to the notation for specific nations in 320.54093-.54099 plus notation 092. In effect, however, editors were simply legalizing the preference that most classifiers were already applying in their work. But at the same time, the DDC now allows use of persons notation under each nation. The wording of the relocation refers to all standard subdivisions, but notation for persons treatment is the main standard subdivision at issue.

Submitted by: Thanks to Ross Trotter, British Library (retired) and Gregory New, Library of Congress (newly retired) for developing this tip.
Last revised: 18 January 2005