Dewey Decimal System
About it’s creator, Melvil Dewey (from Encyclopedia Americana on
Grolier Online):
Dewey, Melvil (1851-1931), American librarian who devised the Dewey
Decimal System for classifying books in libraries and probably had more
influence on the development of librarianship as a profession in the United
States than any other individual.
Life. He was born Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey in Adams Center, N. Y., on
Dec. 10, 1851. After graduating from Amherst College in 1874, he served as
acting librarian there for two years. His system of classification was first
published in a 42-page booklet in 1876 as A Classification and Subject Index
for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library, of
which 1,000 copies were printed.
For the next seven years Dewey lived in Boston, where he was active in
various organizations for the improvement of library services and for the
promotion of spelling reform and of the use of the metric system of
measurement. From 1883 to 1888 he was librarian at Columbia College, where
he started the first professional library school (1887) in the United States.
When Dewey moved to Albany in 1888 to become director of the New York
State Library, the school was continued in Albany as the New York State
Library School. (It returned to Columbia University in 1926.) While in
Albany, Dewey also served (1888–1906) as secretary of the Board of
Regents of the University of the State of New York.
In 1895, Dewey organized the Lake Placid Club in the Adirondacks as a
membership resort, and he founded a similar club in Florida in 1927. He died
at Lake Placid, Fla., on Dec. 26, 1931.
Dewey was a founder of the American Library Association (1876) and served
at various times as its secretary and president. He was also active in the
organization of the Children's Library Association (1888), the Association of
State Librarians (1890), and the American Library Institute (1905). In
addition, he served as editor of the Library Journal (1876–1881) and of
Library Notes (1886–1898).
Citation from Grolier Online:
Marshall, John David. "Dewey, Melvil." Encyclopedia Americana. 2006. Grolier
Online. 2 Aug. 2006 <http://ea.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=012593000>.
How the system works:
Every book has a call number. The number is similar to a street address for
a house. It helps you locate the book on the shelf. Our call numbers for
non-fiction books have two parts- the Dewey Decimal classification number
and the author’s last name.
Dewey decimal classification:
Middle Tennessee State University’s Todd Library in Murfreesboro,
Tennessee has a great exercise in Dewey Decimal System on their webpage
http://www.mtsu.edu/~vvesper/dewey.htm that breaks down how the
classification system works.
Here is a recap of their information:
The Dewey Decimal System groups items on the same subject and on related
subjects to make them easier to find on the shelves by using a combination
of numbers.
The Dewey system has ten main classes:
 000 Generalities
 100 Philosophy and Psychology
 200 Religion
 300 Social Science
 400 Language
 500 Natural Science and Mathematics
 600 Technology (Applied Sciences)
 700 Arts
 800 Literature
 900 Geography and History
Each of these categories has ten divisions. These divisions are further
divided and then further divided. With each division the topic becomes
more specific. The more numbers, the more specific the subject. The
Dewey classification system progresses from the general to the specific. A
decimal place is used to make the number even more specific.
Middle Tennessee State University uses the example of “catching a
butterfly” to demonstrate how the Dewey decimal classification system
works. Since a butterfly is an animal to find a book on butterflies, you would
begin with natural sciences (the 500s). The first digit in the call number
would be a 5. Then you would look at the next ten divisions in the 500 class
to find the second digit. Here are the divisions of the 500 class:
 510 Mathematics
 520 Astronomy
 520 Physics
 540 Chemistry
 550 Earth Science
 560 Paleontology
 570 Life Sciences
 580 Botanical Sciences
 590 Zoological Sciences
Butterflies would be classified in the 590s under Zoological Sciences. So
the second digit in the call number is 9. Zoological Sciences is further
broken down into the following ten divisions:
 591 Zoology
 592 Invertebrates
 593 Protozoa
 594 Mollusa
 595 Other Invertebrates (worms and insects)
 596 Vertebrates
 597 Fishes
 598 Reptiles and Birds
 599 Mammals
Butterflies would be classified under 595 which make the third digit a 5 and
we have the first three digits of the call number. The 595s are further
divided into specific types of insects. Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies)
are classified under 595.78. The numbers that appear after the decimal
point indicate a specific type of insect. Butterflies are classified under
595.789.
Shelving:
Just as it is difficult to find an address of a house when you only have the
street name or a few of the numbers, it is difficult to shelve a book in its
proper place if you don’t use the entire Dewey Decimal number. When filing
a book on the shelf, remember to file digit by digit and not by the whole
number.
Here’s an example from Middle Tennessee State University’s webpage:
 331
 331.01
 331.011
 331.016
 331.02
 331.026
 331.041
 331.04136
 331.042
 331.1
 331.198
 331.2
Exercise:
Which call number comes first?
 331.0942
 331.07
 331.116
 331.2
 331.018
 331.126
Put the rest in Dewey order.
Citation:
http://www.mtsu.edu/~vvesper/dewey.html