College Library News

Matthew D’Ancona has been picked from The Sunday Telegraph to be the new editor of The Spectator.

Andrew Neill, The Spectator’s chief executive, and Aidan Barclay, the chairman of the magazine’s owner Press Holdings, are believed to have chosen D’Ancona ahead of Scotland on Sunday editor Iain Martin and The Economist’s US editor John Micklethwait.

Neill described D’Ancona as one of Britain’s foremost political commentators, and said: “He combines the requisite political gravitas and insight with the wit and originality that the post requires.”

The Spectator’s average weekly sale is 68,415 copies, of which 51,274 are in the UK and Ireland (ABC Jul-Dec 2005).

Also, only a few days later, it has been announced that Bill Emmott, editor-in-chief of The Economist, is to step down from the role after 13 years to focus on writing books.

Emmott has been with The Economist for 26 years in total, working his way up from Brussels correspondent in 1980, becoming financial editor in 1986 then business affairs editor in 1989. He took on his current job in March 1993.

He will stay on at the magazine until a new editor is found, but this could be as soon as March 21, according to reports. The appointment will be approved by four trustees of the Economist Group board. Contenders are likely to include: Emma Duncan, who is deputy editor; John Micklethwait, US editor; and Matthew Bishop, American business editor.

The Economist’s average weekly sale is 514,124 copies per week worldwide excluding the Americas of which 166,286 are in UK and Ireland (ABC Jul-Dec 2005).

The Library subscribes to these magazines. Full online access to both is available using our passwords (search for the titles in our catalogue).

From Straight Dope is an interesting article on Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) - which is used by this library - and also Library of Congress (LC) classification.

Quote:

“First, as you acknowledge, it’s a standard. The DDC is by far the most widely used method of organizing books in the U.S, and indeed in the world; it or its offshoot the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) is used in over 130 countries. Somewhere around 95% of all school libraries and public libraries in the U.S. use DDC. Its leading competitor is the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) system which, in contrast, tends to be used by government and academic libraries (that is, colleges and universities). Only 25% of colleges and universities use Dewey Decimal Classification, and around 20% of specialized libraries do.

“Second, and equally important, DDC continues to serve libraries well after more than a century of use, despite the enormous expansion in knowledge during that time. To understand why this is so requires some understanding of DDC’s history, so we’ll start with its inventor, Melvil Dewey.”