Know Your SFPL Call Numbers - 792.1, 792.5, 791.43

We all love the Dewey Decimal System.  However, just as the world we live in changes, the Dewey Decimal System also changes over time.

At the time of the earliest editions of Melville Dewey's Decimal Classification and Relative Index for Libraries, Clippings, Notes, Etc the medium of motion pictures did not yet exist. Before an actual call number was assigned for this subject, the librarians the San Francisco Public Library invented their own solution, placing them within the Dewey number 792 - Theater, pantomime, opera.

source: Melville Dewey, Decimal Classification and Relativ [sic] Index for Libraries, Clippings, Notes, Etc., edition 9 revized [sic], (Lake Placid Club NY, 1915).

Dewey number 792 was a reasonable choice, especially given that the earliest films without sound had much in common with pantomime. Unfortunately, when the compilers of the Dewey Decimal Classification got around to including film they placed it within the Dewey number 791 - Public entertainment.  Thus the San Francisco Public Library became at odds with the official Dewey Decimal system.

In the days before computers and computer networking, assigning heterodox Dewey decimal numbers was not a terrible thing.  All book cataloging was done in house.  As long as San Francisco Public Library catalogers knew the library's established call numbers for film there was no problem at all.

In time, the San Francisco like nearly all other libraries joined OCLC - originally the Ohio College Library Center, later the Online Computer Library Center - a consortium that created a networked, standardized, communal library catalog.  This meant that member libraries could take advantage of the cataloging work done at other institutions, saving them the time and expense of cataloging each item themselves.  As this happened, the San Francisco Public Library found that many of its long established call numbers were at odds with the accepted standards of the Dewey classification and the Library of Congress (a major contributor of records to OCLC).  Assigning in-house numbers to these materials added to the time and expense of bringing books to the shelves.

In 1992 the Library decided to do away with almost all of our in-house practices for assigning call numbers and to follow the most recent edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification.  This has meant that for many areas, books with a similar subject matter has gotten scattered across more than one call number.

It is an interested question - is film a public performance or a stage presentation?  According to the Dewey system it is the latter. Source: Dewey Dewey Classification Summaries (OCLC website)

One of the emblematic problems we encountered after 1993 was the division of our film collection into two discrete sections. 

The bottom line is: books on motion pictures prior to 1993 used call numbers 792.1 and 792.5.  Books acquired after 1993 have been given the call number 791.43.  (This problem is exacerbated here at the Main Library where was have so many titles, and they happen to be separated by the elevator lobby between ranges 44 and 45).  This is further muddied by the fact that books related to film and video making have been assigned the Dewey number 778.5 ("Fields and Kinds of Photography) and books on the motion picture industry have been assigned the Dewey number 384.8 ("Communication, telecommunication").

The guide below gives the old 792 San Francisco numbers and their translations to current Dewey numbers.  Happy browsing!


792.1 = 791.4302
Film - actors and actresses biographies

792.5 = 791.43 / 791.4309
Film history, criticism

792.5 = 791.4305
Film magazines

792.5 = 791.4306 = 384.8309
Film finance

792.5 = 384.806-384.809
Film studios

792.501 = 791.4301
Film theory

792.502 = 791.4302
Film directors

792.503 = 791.4303
Film dictionaries and encyclopedias

792.507 = 791.4307
Film collections

792.51 = 791.4372 / 791.4375
Screenplays

792.52 = 791.4309
Films - historic treatment

792.53 = 778.535
Film making - editing

792.55 = 778.534
Film making - special effects

792.59 = 791.437
Films

792.59xx - 791.4309
film - geographic presentation

The Most Requested Art, Music and Recreation Center books in December 2013

The books below are listed in order of the number of holds placed on them reflecting their current popularity at the San Francisco Public Library.

The majority of titles are about some aspect of the arts and entertainment. Some are about motion pictures and actors (A Story Lately Told, Coreyography, The Wes Anderson Collection, Moments That Made the Movies), others about are about television (Johnny Carson, Paddle Your Own Canoe, Making Masterpieces). Works by and about comedians also remain popular (Still foolin 'em, Rob Delaney, Furious Cool). There are also a couple of musician's memoirs (Wild Tales, and Simple Dreams), and a biography of Johann Sebastian Bach.  The new biography of choreographer Bob Fosse is also very popular.

There are also a few books relating to creation and creativity, like Lena Corwin's Made By Hand, Remodelista, Daily Rituals.  David Hockney's 2001 book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering The Lost Techniques of The Old Masters is undoubtedly popular because of the current exhibit at the DeYoung Museum.  One surprising entry is a 1996 book Cool, Grey City of Love: A Celebration of San Francisco.  It's likely a very fine book, but I wonder if the people who placed holds on this title meant to request Gary Kamiya's new book Cool Gray City of Love (grey with an "e," versus gray with an "a").

Finally we can't leave out the one sports title, Wheelmen, that chronicles the long Lance Armstrong saga.

The popularity of the books may mean a wait in getting a copy to borrow.  But because we either own or are ordering multiple copies of these books, the wait should not be very long.  Happy reading.

See also:
The Most Requested Art, Music and Recreation Center books in May 2013
 Art, Music and Recreation Center Books in Demand, late December 2012


A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York by Anjelica Huston (Scribner, 2013).

Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin (An Eamon Dolan Book/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013).

Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever by Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O'Connell (Gotham Books, 2013).

Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living by Nick Offerman. New York : Dutton, 2013.

Still foolin' 'em: where i've been, where i'm going, and where the hell are my keys? by Billy Crystal (Henry Holt and Company, 2013).

The Wes Anderson Collection by Matt Zoller Seitz (Abrams, 2013).

Moments That Made The Movies by David Thomson (Thames & Hudson, 2013).

Rob Delaney: Mother, Wife, Sister, Human, Warrior, Falcon, Yardstick, Turban, Cabbage by Rob Delaney (Spiegel & Grau, 2013).

Lena Corwin's Made By Hand / photography by Maria Alexandra Vettese and Stephanie Congdon Barnes (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2013).

Coreyography: A Memoir by Corey Feldman (St. Martin's Press, 2013).

Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering The Lost Techniques of The Old Masters by David Hockney (Viking Studio, 2001).

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013).

Remodelista: A Manual For The Considered Home by Julie Carlson (Artisan, 2013).

Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life by Graham Nash (Crown Archetype, 2013).

Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir by Linda Ronstadt (Simon & Schuster, 2013).

Making Masterpiece: 25 Years Behind the Scenes at Masterpiece and Mystery! on PBS by Rebecca Eaton with Patricia Mulcahy (Viking, 2013).

Fosse by Sam Wasson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013).

Cool, Grey City of Love: A Celebration of San Francisco; drawings by Jane Chamberlin with loving words by some of the city's most beloved poets (Tinkachew Press, 1996).

Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and The World That Made Him by David Henry and Joe Henry (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2013).

Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven by John Eliot Gardiner (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013).

Music Online From Alexander Street Press

There are 51,888 albums and over 760,000 tracks (and growing) of streaming music in Music Online.

Music Online brings together, on a single cross-searchable platform, the entire suite of Alexander Street Press music in the SFPL subscription.  Every sound file in the collection is indexed by subjects, historical events, genres, people, cultural groups, places, time periods, ensembles, and more...

Because this resource is so rich with music and possibility we wanted to tell you all about the streaming music and bring your attention to the ability to create personal accounts in order to create and save playlists from one session to another. And you can even share them!
The quickest way to get to this resource is to click on eResources and then on eMusic.

The five individual databases that make up SFPL’s subscription are listed here and are worth exploring on their own. 

• American Song - 7,141 albums, equaling 122,211 tracksAmerican Song is a history database that allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past.  The database includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests, and more.

 

• Classical Music Library - 14,341 albums, equaling 252,928 tracks This ever growing collection includes recordings from the world's greatest labels including Hyperion, Bridge Records, Sanctuary Classics, Artemis-Vanguard, Hänssler Classic, Vox and many more. Coverage includes music written from the earliest times (e.g. Gregorian Chant) to the present, including many contemporary composers. Repertoire ranges from vocal and choral music, to chamber, orchestral, solo instrumental, and opera.

• Contemporary World Music - 16,701 albums, equaling 209,182 tracks
  This collection delivers the sounds of all regions from every continent. The database contains important genres such as reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music - Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more.

• Jazz Music Library - 10,756 albums, equaling 133,668 tracks Jazz Music Library is the largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online — with thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres.

• Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries - 2,949 albums, equaling 42,405 tracks
  A virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions. The collection provides educators, students, and interested listeners with an unprecedented variety of online resources that support the creation, continuity, and preservation of diverse musical forms.

The help screens are full of useful information about the specific database you are delving into as well as useful tips for searching.  It is possible to search by keyword, browse by genre, labels, people and composers and combine search terms on the "advanced search" screen such as keywords AND limiting by time period.

It is possible to start streaming music using your library card # and PIN immediately.  It is also possible to register for a personal account right in Music Online and create playlists AND share those playlists in different ways!

Icons of Men's Style

How did the Pea Coat get its name? Who designed “Chuck Taylors”? Why do surfers wear shirts designed for lumberjacks? The answers to all of these questions can be found in Icons of Men’s Style by Josh Sims.

Icons of Men’s Style examines how these and many of the other items found in a man’s closet came to be there. While women’s wardrobes tend to chase the whims of fashion, men’s clothing is likely to evolve from functional uses. Details and fabrics from clothing specifically designed for sport, work or the military have become so ubiquitous that the original uses have been long forgotten.

The pea coat’s history explains many of its distinctive features. First of all, the name has nothing to do with farming or vegetables. The original version of the pea coat was designed in 1857 by the British Royal Navy and was adopted with modifications by the United States Navy in about 1881. There are two theories about how the coat got its name. Some historians say that it’s a misspelling of P-jacket, or “pilot’s jacket”, although it was used by all ranks in the military. Alternatively, the name may come from pij “a coarse wool cloth woven in the Netherlands … and used for a typical worker’s jacket called a pijakker.”

Since the pea coat originated in the days of the schooner the details that give it such a stylish design were built into the coat for purely functional purposes. The extra thick wool, double breasted closure and the extra tall collar were made to protect sailors from icy cold winds at sea. By moving the buttons to the side, they were less likely to get caught in the rigging ropes. The length of the coat was carefully calculated. It is long enough to protect against cold and short enough to provide ease of movement. The dark indigo color, now known as navy blue, was chosen for entirely pragmatic reasons. It doesn’t show dirt, and at the time the coat was designed there were no colorfast dyes. Indigo "was the shade most resistant to being faded by sunlight and repeated drenching by rain and by seawater."

Converse Chuck Taylor All Star athletic shoes were named for the famous basketball player Charles “Chuck” Taylor, but any resemblance to Michael Jordan’s endorsement deals ends there. Chuck Taylor approached the Converse Rubber Shoe Company in 1921 looking for a job. He was hired as a salesman. He brought with him suggestions for how to improve their existing All Star basketball shoe. One suggestion was a round patch on the side of the high top to protect a player’s ankles. He sold All Stars for nearly 10 years before his name was added to the shoe. Through his efforts, his namesake shoe became the official physical training shoe for the United States Army. The forerunner of the NBA, the National Basketball League, also adopted Chuck Taylors as their official shoe. The shoes were only offered in black until 1947 when the company added white. It wasn’t until 1966 that seven new colors were added. Taylor sold shoes for Converse until his death in 1969, never receiving any commission for the shoe that bears his name.

The original lumberjack shirt was made in a heavyweight, scratchy wool in plain neutral colors. It wasn’t until 1924 when a family-owned business in Pendleton Oregon made a few key design changes that the lumberjack shirt became popular with non-lumberjacks. The Pendleton shirt was made in a lighter weight, softer virgin wool in colorful plaids. With very few changes it is the same shirt worn today. Surfers in Southern California adopted it in the early 1960s as a warm cover-up at the beach. Later in the 1960s a group called The Pendletones adopted their name in honor of this surf icon. They later changed their name to The Beach Boys.

Other fascinating and sometimes surprising information can be found in the stories of the necktie, the driving shoe, Y-fronts and many other icons of menswear that are defined in Icons of Men’s Style.

Icons of Men's Style by Josh Sims (Laurence King Pub., 2011).

Faith Petric (1915-2013)

I was born in a log cabin on the Clearwater River near Orofino, in northern Idaho, September 13, 1915.  My father, an itinerant preacher, school teacher, farmer, carpenter, and inventor was "musical" -- he played piano organ, harmonica, a variety of wind instruments and a bit of fiddle, and sang in a fine tenor.  My first singing was in church, in one-room schools, and with my father.  About 1925 I discovered cowboy and country songs, followed by the great protest songs of the 1930s.  And I'm still addicted to all of them. (source: Art, Music and Recreation Center Musicians and Performing Artists file).

We sadly note the loss of a woman who was a San Francisco institution.  Faith Petric, who lived to be 98, passed away on October 24, 2013.  In his book, Which Side Are You On, Dick Weissman accurately described her as "a sparkplug of traditional music in the Bay Area."

We knew her as someone who used the library for her research -- she was someone who knew what she was looking for and quietly went about her business of search for folk tunes and their origins.  Over the years she also performed at the library.

Flyer for a Faith Petric performance, Thursday, January 26, 1984, Folk Music in the Lurie Room, Main Library

Since her father was a union carpenter, she became interested at a young age in the songs of the labor movement.  She was later inspired by a concert given by Carl Sandburg at Whitman College in the 1930s where she bought his seminal song collection, An American Songbag.

Faith Petric first came to San Francisco in 1938.  She recalled first arriving into the city aboard a freighter from Seattle passing beneath the recently completed Golden Gate Bridge on the 4th of July.  "Coming here seemed like a homecoming -- the place where I belonged."  She spent her first "three months walking around San Francisco and frequenting such bars as Jacopetti's #1 Columbus, the old Black Cat and the Green Lantern."  Having played music from childhood, she maintained an active interest and joined the San Francisco Folk Music Club in the 1950s.

Faith Petric, social worker, listed in the 1963 Polk's San Francisco City Directory

She earned an M.A. in rehabilitative counseling that qualified her for a stable government job.  After retiring from the California Department of Rehabilitation in 1970, she launched her career as a full-time folksinger, touring all over the United States and the world.

One of her projects was folknik, a bi-monthly newsletter of the San Francisco Folk Music Club that first appeared in 1964 and is published to this day.  In an early issue she reacted to criticism of the newsletter's name and its similarity to "beatnik":

I'll admit the name was my idea and at the time no one objected or came up with anything else. ... In the mean time, I'd like to explain that (in my innocence) I tho't Nik was NICE.  I first heard it when the R_ _ _ _ _ S put up their Sputnik and newspapers explained that this meant 'little friend who travels with us' or something like that... When I saw nik on the end of a word I still thought it meant it was something to love and take care of, like a friend.

And indeed she did love and take care of folk music and folk musicians.  Her home at 885 Clayton Street became the headquarters and meeting place for the San Francisco Folk Music Club and she became the "godmother" of the local folk music scene (as her obituary in Sing Out called her).  "I get credit for what a lot of other people in the club do now, but early on I was indeed the glue that held it together.  All of us do this out of a love for the music."

Home-made mailing information from the folknik newsletter of March / April 1972

Progressive political and social causes were central to her music.  She stated that her goal was to "nudge the world the direction I want it to go, and music is one way to do this."  She remarked at the age of 95 "When I sing a particular song, I'm in that song.  I plan to sing until I can't sing anymore."

For those who want to hear Faith Petric sing, the library has copies of her eponymous L.P. record from 1979 to borrow or to listen to in the San Francisco History Center.  For many years she wrote a column for Sing Out magazine which can be read online through our Music Index online database. (Go to the "Advanced search" page and search for "petric" in author search).


"A.G. Letter from San Francisco," by Hal Glatzer, Acoustic Guitar (October 1997), 32-34.

Aging Artfully: 12 Profiles: Visual & Performing Women Artists Aged 85-105 by Amy Gorman (PAL Pub., 2006).

The American Songbag, compiled by Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace, 1927).

"Around the World in 25 Years or What I Did In My Vacation," Faith [Petric], folknik vol. 9, no. 6 (November-December 1973).

Faith Petric [vinyl LP], by Faith Petric (Bay Records, 1979).

"Faith Petric Passes at 98," by Mark D. Moss, Sing Out (October 25, 2013) [website].

"Folknik is a Bad Word?," by Faith [Petric], folknik vol. 1, no. 3 (March 1965), 3.

"S. F. Folk's Enduring Voice," by Meredith May, San Francisco Chronicle (September 28, 2010), E1; E3.

Which Side Are You On?: An Inside Story of the Folk Music Revival in America  by Dick Weissman (Continuum, 2005).

Ayeshi Nadir Ali Sings Classical Punjabi Poetry

Pakistani singer Ayesha Nadir Ali will present a talk about the tradition of the Punjabi classical poetry and its relationship to Hindustani classical music. Ayesha is a Dhrupad singer connected to the Talwandi Gharana and has learnt khayal and dhrupad singing from Maestro Hafeez Khan Talwandi. She has traveled widely across her native state of Punjab to perform and speak about the poetry.

This program takes place on Sunday, November 10, 2013 at 1:30 PM in the Koret Auditorium at the Main Library.  All Library programs are free and open to the public.

San Francisco Public Library has many recordings of Indian and Pakistani classical and semi-classical music. Those who are interested in listening to recordings of this music should search for titles using subject searches such as:

Hindustani Music.
Music -- India.
Vocal Music -- India.
Vocal Music -- Pakistan.


Some related book and AV titles:

Filigree in Sound: Form and Content in Indian Music by Gopal Sharman (Deutsch, 1970).

Hidden Faces of Ancient Indian Song by Solveig McIntosh (Ashgate, 2005).

The Life of Music in North India: The Organization of An Artistic Tradition by Daniel M. Neuman (Wayne State University Press, 1980).

Music in North India: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture by George E. Ruckert (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Nazir Jairazbhoy Explains the Theory of Classical Hindustani Instrumental Music (Folkways Records, 1955) [streaming audio available through the Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries database].

Raga Unveiled: India's Voice, The History and Essence of North Indian Classical Music; writer/director, Gita Desai (Gita Desai, 2009). [DVD].

Aurora Mandolin Orchestra

The Aurora Mandolin Orchestra returns to the Koret Auditorium on Saturday, November 9th at 2pm.

This is the sixth consective year they will be performing in the Koret. They will play from their varied repertoire, including traditional and semi-classical Italian, Spanish, Russian, specialty ethnic and contemporary orchestral compositions. Both professional and amateur musicians play mandolin, mandola, mandocello, guitar, string bass, accordion, flute and percussion to create their distinctive sound. In addition, award winning soprano Susanna Uher Jimenez will join the Orchestra for several numbers.

All Library programs are free and open to the public.