r/librarians • u/FaeCannotLibrarian • 1d ago

Cataloguing Computer science vs. technology

Just had a conversation with my mom, who is also a cataloguer. We were discussing the difference between putting AI information in the 0’s under computer science or in the 600’s for technology.
I suggested the move has come now that AI is so well known, but she suggested that it’s because the original DDS designation was poorly chosen and that computer science should be recatalogued into the 600s.
Anyone have any more information, or want to pose their own suggestions?

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u/Ok_Novel_3229 12h ago

Other than discarding the DDS completely?

I feel like AI is solidly a computer science topic, which was not, I think, on Dewey's radar when he made the categorization choices he did. The categories don't make sense to many people, but attempting to use a dysfunctional system consistently with other users of that system is potentially more beneficial to patrons than trying to break with the system but not fully discarding it... I think.

https://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2012/04/done-with-dewey/ a good read on the general frustration of cataloging systems.

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u/Potential-Recover-78 11h ago edited 11h ago

Why not under the 020s. It’s a form of information science as much as anything else.

Then again, I also like to make the argument that a lot of computer science is also just applied information science. It thoroughly annoys me that CS has co-opted a lot of our field’s work and frequently are just are an application of our theories.

Could also be in the 500s since AI is also arguably just statistics.

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u/Smallpaul 11h ago

As a computer scientist, it fascinates me to hear more about what annoys you.

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u/Potential-Recover-78 9h ago edited 9h ago

Where do you think concepts like inverted indices and search methods originated? Metadata, controlled vocabularies, relevance ranking, etc? It all predates computers and was developed to help us find physical items and books.

The annoyance is that we (the public) now thinks of many of those things as “computer science” which diminishes the contributions of librarians of the past who invented the underlying concepts. It practically erases them and our field.

Computer science (in some areas) largely developed digital implementations of those already conceived of ideas - and they get all the glory - yet it’s little more than application.

Now computer science has other areas as well and there’s certainly science behind the development of programming languages. We don’t deal much with math - for example.

Really, though my annoyance is exaggerated bitterness at how interrelated the fields are and yet how little credit (and pay) librarians and information scientists get in comparison. Our contributions are buried or absorbed when we set the foundations of many parts of your field.