Dewey Decimal System

created by xdc

(idea) by Sylvar (1.1 wk) (print) ? (I like it!) Wed Mar 08 2000 at 0:23:26

A popular way of putting works about the same subject in roughly the same place on the shelf. Even if you don't find the book you were looking for, you'll be in the neighborhood of other books on related topics.

The Dewey Decimal System is used to encode the main subject of a work. Other subjects, no matter how important they may be, are not usually represented in the Dewey Decimal System number.

Dewey Decimal trivia: 999 stands for "extraterrestrial worlds".

(idea) by dtobias (5.7 mon) (print) ? (I like it!) Wed May 16 2001 at 23:11:20

The biases of the founders of this system are clearly evident in some of the sections of the numberspace. The religion section is particularly egregious -- it devotes lots of space to one section after another about various aspects of Christianity, then lumps everything else together in the final section, "Other Religions." The language section similarly gives most of its space to languages in the Indo-European group, shoving everything else together in a small remnant space. Fortunately, such biases are not fatal flaws in the system, since the numberspace is infinitely divisible by adding more decimal places on to the right end, allowing a flawed set of original categories to be evolved into something more ecumenical.

(thing) by Gamaliel (4.4 y) (print) ? (I like it!) 2 C!s Fri Oct 25 2002 at 5:01:44

The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system, created by Melvil Dewey and first published in 1876, is the most commonly used library classification system in the world. About 95% of public libraries and public school libraries in the United States use the DDC. While the DDC is thought to not be sufficient for the fine level of detail needed for large academic libraries, which mostly use the Library of Congress Classification System (LC), still about 20% of US college and university libraries employ it.

Structure

Dewey was a strong advocate of the metric system and designed his classification system along those lines. The hierarchical structure of the DDC divides human knowledge into 10 broad classes based on academic disciplines or fields of study. Each of those classes is subdivided into 10 divisions, and each division is further divided into 10 sections. Further subdivisions are made as necessary.

The 10 main classes are:

000 - Generalities
100 - Philosophy & psychology
200 - Religion
300 - Social sciences
400 - Language
500 - Natural sciences & mathematics
600 - Technology (Applied sciences)
700 - The arts
800 - Literature & Rhetoric
900 - Geography & history

Follow the link for each class to find the divisions and sections.

As in every library classification system, each book is assigned a call number. Each call number consists of a three-digit number denoting the class, division, and section. This number is followed by a decimal point and more numbers indicating further subdivisions. For example, the field of Euclidean geometry is assigned the number 516.372. This breaks down as follows:

500 Natural sciences and mathematics
510 Mathematics
516 Geometry
516.3 Analytic geometries
516.37 Metric differential geometries
516.372 Euclidean geometry

Often, the call number is followed by a Cutter number or other form of author notation which distinguishes the book from other titles within the same specific field of study. The use of Cutter numbers, etc. is not limited to the DDC. The author notation is usually an arbitrary number referring to the alphabetical order of the name of the author, or sometimes the letters themselves are used.

Strengths

The proof is in the pudding: the DDC has survived a hundred years of intensive use and its popularity around the world proves that it fulfils its purpose. The metric-based hierarchical system is easy to learn, and children can master it while college educated adults often wander the stacks bewildered by the intricate LC classification system. One can master as much or as little of the DDC as one wants and still be able to navigate the stacks effectively. While it is inadequate for large research libraries, the DDC is probably ideal for the public library and general library patrons.

Weaknesses

The DDC is often accused of being ethnocentric, and, well, it is. The fact that all non-Christian religions are dumped into the 290 section for "other" is proof enough. The design of other classes indicates a clear Anglo-American bias.

The rigid hierarchical system makes it difficult to shoehorn in developing new fields of knowledge (say, computers). The design is often nonsensical, as related disciplines are sometimes separated and unrelated disciples are combined, such as including psychology under philosophy in the 100s. The overall design represents the outmoded world view of the 19th century.

History

Melvil Dewey designed the DDC in 1873 while working at the Amherst College library. Traditionally, libraries had operated using the fixed location method, where you stuck a book on the shelf and your catalog referred to where it was on the shelf. Dewey's great innovation was to organize the books in relationship to one another, by their academic discipline and not by the accident of fate that led them to wherever they ended up on the shelf. It was a common system that could unify libraries, so you could look in the same relative location in different libraries and find the same book, previously an impossibility.

Dewey based the broad division of classes on a 1870 classification system devised by one W.T. Harris, who himself had based it upon the ideas of philosopher Francis Bacon. Bacon divided human knowledge into three broad areas: history, poesy, and philosophy. Harris subdivided those three areas into 12 areas, which Dewey narrowed to 10.

Dewey, who died in 1931, supervised revisions of the DDC up until the 13th. (The ever quirky Dewey was an advocate of simplifying the spelling of English, and published editions reflected his ideas, no doubt much to the frustration of librarians everywhere.) The 15th edition (1951) was almost the last, as drastic changes in the structure and pruning of detailed subdivisions frustrated librarians. Faced with the task of a major overhaul of their catalogs and stacks, many librarians rejected the changes out of hand. Keeping the hard-learned lessons in mind, later revisions of the DDC and other classification systems came at a slower and more manageable pace, at the price of not being able to change as quickly as time and history does.

The DDC is currently in its 21st edition (1996), with the 22nd to come in 2003. The DDC is currently maintained by the Library of Congress and published by Forest Press, a division of OCLC.

The primary source (aside from library school and years of library use) is Cataloging and Classification by Lois Mai Chan, 1994.

printable version
chaos

Library of Congress	Library of Congress Classification System	Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index	I have asked my library to ban a book
God vs. the Library of Congress	Working in a library is never as much fun as you think it might be.	Melvil Dewey	Poesy
ACM Classification Scheme	Dewey Decimal System: 000	Cutter number	Library of Congress Subject Headings
Mares Eat Oats	classification system	Clicksby Decimal System	Dewey Decimal System: 900
Ecumenical	information junkie	cataloging philosophy	Public Library
subject	Catalog record	Dewey Decimal System: 600	Huey Long

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