ISBN to Dewey Decimal

Hi all! I'm new and I have a quick question. Is there an app or other way to know the DeweyDecimal number for a book from the ISBN? Thanks for your help!

The ISBN does not tell you anything about the subject of a book. If you enter a book from a library source it is likely to have the Dewey number included. If others have done so the Dewey number will be available (in green) on the work.

>1 Mothsmom: MarthaJeanne is technically correct on all points.
To answer your question, though: Go here. http://classify.oclc.org/classify2/
Problem solved. ;-)

Thanks!!

Not always solved, mores the pity. Too often, especially for self-published titles, there is an ISBN but there is: (1) no classification at all or (2) only an LC classification number. :-(

Failing which, this: https://www.oclc.org/en/dewey/features/religion.html
from here: http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/forms/en/dewey-order-americas.pdf

and/or the abridged versions at http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/webdewey/help/100.pdf & http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/webdewey/help/200.pdf

Why is the Dewey number on a library book different from the one LibraryThing assigns to the book when scanned in? I understand many books are a blend of topics, etc. So is there any "official" Dewey numbers? I'm new and noticed our local library sometimes uses a different Dewey numbers, and I think it's because of the "blend" and choosing one based on their own opinion. But, when a book gets an ISBN, does it also get a Dewey number that would be considered official by those in the know on these things?

>8 boyerjh: Nope. I believe the publisher often offers a suggestion, but each library is free to choose their own number.

>8 boyerjh:

Go to https://www.librarything.com/work/2567/workdetails/397 and click on the "show all" by the DDC (Dewey number). You'll see there's more than a dozen DDCs assigned. The truth is that libraries choose their own DDCs to fit their collections. Sometimes it's a matter of something fitting in multiple DDCs, or of differences of opinion. Sometimes it's just length--you assign short DDCs when your library is small, long ones when your library is large.

So, the DDC's I see when adding a book are the suggested publisher's DDC's? If I'm right, then that can be a good starting point. 😀

>11 boyerjh: If your source is a library, it's the DDC that the library assigned to the book, which for a small library may just be the one assigned by the publisher. If your source in Amazon, I'm not sure, but it's probably the one from the publisher.

Not sure what the source is? Where does LibraryThing get its DDC by default? I was not able to find a setting in LT to use specific source? Thanks.

>13 boyerjh: The source has to do with where you are pulling in your book data from when you add the book to your collection. Librarything doesn't put things onto a book.

When I scanned in some books from our library, LT adds a "calculated" Dewey/Melvil number. Our library is totally uncomputerized so it's not from our library. Sometimes the number on our library's label has a different number and that's why I'm asking how LT comes up with the number. It's a bit confusing, but I hope I asked the right question. 😕 Do I define my source in LT?

The green calculated number is determined based on what other people have in their LT libraries for the same book.

Like with tags, DDC's can vary because content is a blend of more than one topic. Thanks! ⭐️

>15 boyerjh: When you scanned books from your library, are you using Amazon to get information or Library of Congress or Overcat or somewhere else? These are what we are referring to as source. Librarything is not the source of the primary data you put in when you enter a book. It's more like the card catalog compiled from outside information. It tries to guess some things, which show up as green, but doesn't actually originate any of the information. It all came from other parts of the internet.

If, when that data is pulled, there is no DDC, Librarything takes the best guess based on all the other books of the same work and puts the most likely in as a green number, which you can then edit. If, however, when the data is pulled and there is a number, that is the number put in.

Ok, I understand that sources come from outside of LT. That makes sense. Are slashes ("/") in a DDC valid? I'm seeing that a lot. What does it mean? Thank you for any explanation on slashes!

It's been a while since I worked in a Dewey library, but I think the slashes indicate places where you can truncate the number. So, if you want you can use an abbreviated form of the number and not use anything after the slash, or you can use the full number. Either way, you wouldn't include the slash.

(If you've got an example of a number with a slash, I can double check that it makes sense as an abbreviated number.)

You could always use worldcat.org to find one library's opinion on the DDC. The US public library's use DDC. University library's use LCC

>20 Katya0133: You are correct - good explanation, too!

>3 davidgn: Yohoo! That was helpful. That is all I need to get the DDC numbers and group my books on shelves; it would be nice to be able to use a barcode reader like the cuecat to the search window on classify.oclc.org webpage. Thanks!

>3 davidgn: Thank you for sharing.