DDC German– The Project, the Aims, the Methods: New Ideas for a Well-Established Traditional Classification System

The paper will give a short outline of the project DDC German. The project is not limited to a mere translation of DDC 22, but aims at the implementation of Dewey in the library networks of the Ger-man-language countries. Use of DDC mainly for retrieval purposes, not for shelving, leads to certain new approaches in classifying with Dewey which are described in detail and presented together with the German web service Melvil. Based on the German experience of cooperation and data exchange in the field of verbal indexing, the paper develops some ideas on future Dewey cooperation between European and American libraries.