Most revisions that we talk about on the blog are large changes. The editors draft up formal proposals to revise Dewey; since February 2019, we've made those formal proposals public. (We make announcements about those periodically, but you can always see what we've got in the works at oc.lc/deweyexhibits). But we also make smaller changes nearly every day, which include things like fixing typos or adding new subdivisions for administrative divisions for countries around the world. (For example, last week we published revised class numbers for Norway, which recently went from having 19 counties to 10 counties.) We don't always talk about those changes, but they're important to keeping the DDC current; I wanted to share one of the small but impactful changes we've made recently.

Last week I asked the Editorial Policy Committee to review my proposal to replace the term Mental retardation with Intellectual disabilities where it appears in captions, notes, and/or Relative Index terms. However, to ensure classifiers can find the correct terminology, I suggested leaving the Relative Index entries Mental retardation at 362.3 and People with mental retardation at T1--0874 and 305.9084. These will direct classifiers to the preferred terms Intellectual disabilities and People with intellectual disabilities. EPC approved those changes this week and they're now in WebDewey.

Why did this change take so long? One reason is that we have an international scope for Dewey. ICD-10 (the tenth revision of the World Health Organization's International Statistical Classification of Diseases) still uses Mental retardation, although the terminology will change with ICD-11, which will be in effect worldwide January 2022.

Why not just get rid of the term Mental retardation entirely? Well, because of the international usage in ICD-10, I worry that people won't find the correct place to classify works about intellectual disabilities if I don't provide cross references using the older terminology. In addition, I'm concerned that the Relative Index term People with mental disabilities could be confused for People with mental retardation, so I think it's important to keep both terms to give classifiers a heads up that these are not the same concept. In a few years, we should be able to revisit the decision and determine whether to remove references to Mental retardation entirely.

There is more work to be done in this area! I would welcome assistance from Dewey users to clarify terminology and ensure classifiers have appropriate guidance for the literature that is being published. For more information on contributing to shaping the DDC, please visit oc.lc/deweycontributors and get in touch via email at dewey@oclc.org.