A Little Something about Library Arrangement

Or Why Things Are the Way They Are

In the beginning●There were not many books, because

there was no efficient way to make books.

●Monks would copy books by hand.●Few people could read or write.●Only rich people, political or religious

leaders could read and had books.

Therefore…●How books were arranged wasn’t a big

concern.

However, once movable type was invented

●More books were published.●After the Industrial Revolution, more

common people learned to read.●Libraries sprang up across the United

States and made books available to everyone.

Soon It Became Important to Have a Good Way to

Organize Library Materials

Many ideas were tried…●Some tried to arrange book by color;●Some tried arranging books by size;●Some arranged the books in the order

in which they were received;●Some tried arranging the books by

author;●Some tried arranging the books by title.

None of these ideas worked well.

Then came Melvil Dewey.

Melvil Who-ey?●Melvil Dewey was a librarian who was

frustrated by the lack of standardization or consistency in the way library materials were arranged.

●He solved the problem of arrangement by inventing the Dewey Decimal System in 1876. We still use this system more than 137 years later.

The Dewey Decimal System●Dewey’s System uses 1000 numbers to

categorize materials.●Here are the 10 main categories:

History and Geography900-999Literature800-899Arts and Recreation700-799

Applied Sciences and Technology

600-699Natural Sciences500-599Languages400-499Social Sciences300-399Religion200-299

Philosophy and Psychology

100-199General Knowledge000-099

Dewey Took the 10 Main Categories

●And subdivided them into 10s○ 000 General Knowledge

■ 010 Bibliography■ 020 Library and information sciences■ 030 General encyclopedia works■ 040■ 050 General serial publications■ 060 General organizations and museology■ 070 News media, journalism, and publishing■ 080 General collections■ 090 Manuscripts and rare books

He subdivided each of the main categories into sets of 10, and then he subdivided

each set of 10 into sets of 10.●This meant he had a total of 1000

numbers that meant different things.●Each number meant a different subject.

But because information grows every day

●Dewey allowed the use of Decimals to expand the system as needed.

●Therefore, there is room for subjects that did not exist when Dewey made this system.

●Examples: computers, airplanes, Kobe Bryant, motorcycles.

Here are some decimal numbers

●629.227 Motorcycles●004.692 E-mail●973.93 The administration of George W.

Bush●796.332 Football●599.75 Cat family (in nature)●636.8 Domestic cats (our pets)

Here’s a lie●Dewey numbers can only categorize

nonfiction materials

Here’s the truth●Dewey numbers can be used to arrange

all materials, including fiction, BUT

More on that next time!

The end!