With all due respect to the professionals who have dedicated their lives to creating, refining, upholding, and maintaining these systems, there are whole aspects of DDC / LoC that demonstrably bake in our society's racist, sexist, and colonialist worldviews. Why copy what isn't working?

Any entity seeking to undo that legacy may be better off entirely transforming these classification systems. Any organization could form at any time and start from scratch. If they did take up that mantle, they would benefit not only from re-envisioning how to organize knowledge, but also from the assurance they could do so without risk of litigation. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard, but it could theoretically be done.

Underlying this email thread is, I believe, the awareness that change management from the software development world has influenced expectations of change in other areas, including publishing and organizing information. That is a force that will continue to influence us, our professional organizations, and these legacy systems. So will the changing demographics of the society we serve.

Julia

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Eric Hellman
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2021 12:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] DDC is like an API specification so it can be used freely

[EXTERNAL EMAIL - USE CAUTION]

I doubt that the Oracle v. Google case has any effect on the status of DDC especially since "AMERICAN DENTAL ASSOCIATION V. DELTA DENTAL PLANS ASSOCIATION",  though not a SCOTUS case is a much more relevant precedent.

https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcaselaw.findlaw.com%2Fus-7th-circuit%2F1233610.html&amp;data=04%7C01%7Cjcaffreyhill%40towson.edu%7Cc4b5e80e8cb74495559008d908cfd520%7Ccbf9739249f649dda8a619f710efcc35%7C0%7C0%7C637550510996168108%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&amp;sdata=2BMXCz%2BNPYNzjnK3jPXoiDECU1V0fSrkOpY4XJSOp2Q%3D&amp;reserved=0

> On Apr 26, 2021, at 12:05 PM, Eric Hellman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Also don't forget that versions of the Dewey Decimal System published in 1925 and earlier are are now in the public domain, for example https://archive.org/details/deweydecimal11dewe (enjoy the spelling!)
> 
> Eric
>