My colleague Michael Panzer discusses issues involved in the 'webification' of Dewey in a recent presentation [ppt].

The presentation will briefly introduce a series of major principles for bringing subject terminology to the network level. A closer look at one KOS in particular, the Dewey Decimal Classification, should help to gain more insight into the perceived difficulties and potential benefits of building taxonomy services out and on top of classic large-scale vocabularies or taxonomies. [DLIST - Towards the “webification” of controlled subject vocabulary: A case study involving the Dewey Decimal Classification]

This is part of an ongoing investigation of what it means to release more of the value of "classic large-scale vocabularies" in a web environment.

Here is the introductory slide:

• Well-known problem, why does it resurface every other year without much change?
• Large scale projects dealing with KO vocabularies are started without adhering to common fundamentals on the operational and strategic level
• Project results are often unsustainable and do not outlive the specific use case (if any) that they were build to support
• Currently, the DDC is facing such a challenge and chance for transition to the “network level”

• “Network level”: Infrastructural improvements to make a KOS web-scale accessible, to make sharing, syndicating, leveraging of its data feasible

• Main project goal: Improving accessibility and visibility of the scheme to stimulate association with resources

Via Eric Childress.