What is the Dewey number for 21st-century U.S. history? I see that 973.5 is the comprehensive number for 19th-century U.S. history, and 973.91 the comprehensive number for 20th-century U.S. history.

You may have noticed that we have widespread provisions for the 21st century in Edition 21 throughout the literature and history schedules. What all these provisions have in common is that the periods in question are not expected to have distinctive headings: Most consist of simply "2000- ." In United States history, however, we have a tradition of naming periods after the presidents in office at the time.

Edition 21 was published during an election year, 1996. We could then be sure, because of the regular way we were using subdivisions, that "Administration of Bill Clinton" would be the last one developed in 973.92, but we could not even be sure whether the successor administration would begin in 1997 or 2001 (or some date in between).

Obviously, silence was the best policy. If Dole had won in 1996, we might have rushed out an announcement establishing two entries:

973	.93	1997-
	.931	Administration of Robert Joseph Dole, 1997-

At present we can be reasonably sure that 973.93 and 973.931 will be the next two numbers in the series, and that 973.93 will carry the note "Class here 21st century," but it is far too early to guess who the president will be. Sometime between November 7, 2000, and January 20, 2001, we will rush out a posting confirming these numbers and the winner's name.

Last revised: 06 November 2003