Dewey Do It?

 

This week we are talking about library cataloging. We can't really discuss cataloging without talking about one of the hot topics in library land today, genrification. Honestly I am not a fan of library trends. This comes from having to undo a previous library trend. I realized my library was stuck in a trend when I saw a post saying that organizing your library by subject vs standard library organization (fiction, non-fiction, etc) was a great idea (precursor to gentrification).  In theory it's a good idea. These subject bins held mostly paperback books on various subjects teachers might need.  Good idea in theory. In practice...not so much. These bins were also outside the library (for easy access for teachers) and extremely dusty. Which meant, the teachers didn't really use them.  Once I started going through them,  I found a lot of outdated books yes, but I also found books that teachers would have found helpful,  if they had been shelved with the other non-fiction books or even binned with those books.

I like the idea of making displays with bins, but reorganizing your entire library to gentrification scares me.  Is this just a trend that some future librarian will have to "undo" later? What if the gentrification isn't done the way another librarian would do it? Can we still find the books? THIS is the important piece. Our patrons need to find the books they want and need.  As I've mentioned, I work in an elementary library,  it can be a challenge for kids to find books. Getting creative with displays is important. This is why I'd rather a hybrid approach and bin some of the books, create eye catching displays, and why I teach the Dewey Decimal system.

Melvil Dewey was born in 1851 and spent most of his life trying to perfect library organization. "...Dewey's contribution to classification was joining together the strong points of systems developed by others,  not creating something new (Adams)." As we know the Dewey Decimal system is based on a numerical Decimal point system to help find a book. "The main innovation and advantage of DDC is that it's indirect, rather than a direct,  reference to a book's location.  When you look up a book in location relative to the other books...The separation avoids the problems of 'fixed location': if the library adds books,  so that some books are shifted to different shelves,  only the chart of location needs to be changed,  not the whole card catalog (Adams)." In the elementary library we use charts and labels to identify the range of Dewey Decimal numbers on a particular shelf,  and the overall subject of that shelf.  

Genrification is popular as books are easier to find and create a "Barnes & Noble" approach to libraries.  "By doing away with numbers... since libraries are classifying books simply by category and organizing by author - a system they are referring to 'Dewey-lite' (Ainsworth)." Yes, it may be easier for patrons to find books as they would in the book store, but even in 1873, "Dewey wrote in his diary that 'book on the [horse were put] under 'horse' & not under 'zoology'.' (Adams)."  Using a hybrid approach of keeping books in Dewey order but pulling out books to display or even bin can show students books that are interesting in that section,  while once they learn Dewey, they can jump from bins to finding the books they want on the shelves.

Works Cited:
Adams, Cecil. “What’s So Great About the Dewey Decimal System?” The Straight Dope. January 31, 2006. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2238/whats-so-great-about-the-dewey-decimal-system

Ainsworth, Colin. “5 Controversial Facts about Melvil Dewey and the Dewey Decimal System.” Mental Floss.  December 10, 2018. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/566704/melvil-dewey-decimal-system-controversies-facts