Abortion, pregnancy and childbirth in Dewey Decimal Classification : The representation of women in a normative system

Classifications are a crucial part of Library and Information Science (LIS). Classifications aim to organize information, making it easy to retrieve and access. Scholars have criticized the practice of organizing knowledge and the construction of classification systems, claiming it represents some phenomenon while leaving others out. According to some scholars, the practice of classification will always be bias, since it builds upon a subjective kind of worldview. This thesis – Abortion, pregnancy and childbirth in Dewey Decimal Classification – The representation of women in a normative system - focuses on the Dewey decimal classification system (DDC) and its representation of women, in relation to social and medical aspects. Three terms, traditionally linked to women, have been chosen; Abortion, Pregnancy and Childbirth. The three terms have been analyzed in three editions of the DDC to give an overview of a linear development of the representation of women in DDC. The editions are the 8th from the year 1913, the 12th abridged version from the year 1990 and finally the current upgraded version of the 23rd Swedish WebDewey. The question this thesis aims to answer is 1) How does the representation of women manifest in the chosen editions of DDC, in relation to terms linked to social and medical aspects? and 2) What kind of differences appear in the transfer of the international versions of the DDC to a Swedish social context? The editions of DDC are analyzed with the theoretical concept of the Swedish historian Yvonne Hirdman and the method of critical text analysis. Based on this, this thesis concludes that 1) the representation of women in DDC is inadequate and 2) the social aspects of the representation of women has undergone the greatest change in the transfer of the international version of the DDC to the current Swedish version