Generalities
Philosophy &
Psychology
Religion
Social Sciences
Language
Natural Sciences
& Mathematics
Technology
(Applied Sciences)
The Arts
Literature &
Rhetoric
Geography &
History
Robin
Mariah
Jon
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Philosophy &
Psychology
Religion
Social Sciences
Language
Natural Sciences
& Mathematics
Technology
(Applied Sciences)
The Arts
Literature &
Rhetoric
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Generalities
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• Credit for the invention of the
Dewey Decimal system is
generally given to Melville Louis
Kossuth Dewey.
• He was born December 10,
1851 to a poor family as the
youngest of five children.
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• His family was unable to finance his education
at Amherst College so he got a job as a
student assistant in the library. It was while
working there that he began an intense study
of library classification systems.
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‘‘After months of study,’’ he wrote, he was listening to a
Sunday sermon, and while I lookt stedfastly at [the pulpit]
without hearing a word, my mind absorbd in the vital
problem, the solution flasht over me so that I jumpt in my
seat and came very near shouting ‘‘Eureka!’’ It was to get
absolute simplicity by using the simplest known symbols,
the arabic numerals as decimals, with ordinary
significance of nought, to number a classification of all
human knowledge in print; this supplemented by the
next simplest known symbols, a, b, c, indexing all heds of
the tables, so that it would be easier to use a
classification with 1000 heds so keyd than to use the
ordinary 30 or 40 heds which one had to study carefully
before using.”
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Because the quote is so
colorful—especially using the
simplified form of spelling
Dewey used at various
throughout his life—students
have been reading this
account for over 100 years.
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Philosophy &
Psychology
Religion
Social Sciences
Language
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& Mathematics
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Here is where the “murky” part comes in…
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• Although Dewey is considered the “Father of Modern
Librarianship,” it seems that he was not the only person considering
this subject at the time.
• Earlier, Sir Francis Bacon had begun the process of coming up with a
classification system and then William Torrey Harris changed and
expanded it while working as superintendent in the St. Louis school
system. In 1873, Dewey wrote to Harris asking some questions
about his classification schedule.
• Also, just one year earlier, a geologist named William Phipps Blake
had organized an exhibition that he was overseeing into 10
“departments” which were then divided into 10 “groups” that were
then subdivided into 10 “classes.”
• He published a pamphlet in February of 1873, describing his
organizational system that was distributed throughout the country.
This distribution most likely included Amherst, where Dewey was
still employed as a student.
• He paid one dollar for the cost of the
copyright.
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• Wiegand states that “in mid-March 1876
Dewey wrote the Register of Copyrights in
Washington, D.C., asking permission to
copyright ‘‘a little work just passing thru’’ the
press entitled ‘‘A classification & subject index
with direction for their use.’’
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By this time the (classification) scheme had
also evolved to its more familiar ten classes
with an ill-defined initial section (000) for
bibliographies, periodicals, and encyclopedias
that preceded Philosophy (100), Theology
(200), Sociology (300), Philology (400), Natural
Sciences (500), Useful Arts (600), Fine Arts
(700), Literature (800), and History (900)
(Wiegand, 1996)
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• The American Library Association was organized
in Philadelphia three years later in 1876 with
Melville Dewey as one of the founding members.
• At their first conference, Dewey was asked to
present information on the method of cataloging
and classification that he had “developed” at
Amherst.
• It seems that from there, Melville Dewey was
given credit for devising the system with little
credit given to those who came before him by
others….or even by Dewey himself.
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On the one hand the scheme has over the decades saved millions of
dollars and countless hours of time.
Because it has become so widely accepted throughout the world it has
permitted one person to classify one title for the hundreds of
thousands of libraries using the decimal system.
In addition, the system itself has become familiar to millions of people
who can feel relatively confident that their knowledge of the system
used in one library will serve them well in another.
On the other hand the doctrine of Anglo-Saxonism Dewey wove so
tightly into his system has over the years resisted the introduction of
new threads with more culturally pluralistic origins. (Wigand, 1996).
000 – Computer science, information and general works
100 – Philosophy and psychology
200 – Religion
300 – Social sciences
400 – Language
500 – Science (including mathematics)
600 – Technology and applied Science
700 – Arts and recreation
800 – Literature
900 – History, geography, and biography
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The Classes Are:
Generalities
Philosophy &
Psychology
800 Literature rhetoric & critisism
810 American literature in English
820 English & Old English Literatures
830 Literatures of Germanic Languages
840 Literatures of Romance Languages
850 Italian, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romanic
860 Spanish & Portuguese literatures
870 Italic literatures; Latin
880 Hellenic literatures; Classical Greek
890 Literatures of other languages
Religion
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Language
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(Applied Sciences)
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800’s - Literature
821 English poetry
822 English drama
823 English fiction
824 English essays
825 English speeches
826 English letters
827 English satire & humor
828 English miscellaneous writings
829 Old English (Anglo-Saxon)
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820’s English & Old English Literatures
• More than 200,000 libraries around the world
• Not often used in fiction collections
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Religion
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Who uses it?
• The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC)
system is the world’s most widely used library
classification system Provides a logical system
for organizing every item in your library’s
unique collection
• It has been greatly modified and expanded
through 23 major revisions, the most recent in
2011 (OCLC, 2011)
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Philosophy &
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Language
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What is it?
Generalities
Philosophy &
Psychology
Religion
Social Sciences
Language
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& Mathematics
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(Applied Sciences)
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• This system organizes books on library shelves in
a specific and repeatable order that makes it
easy to find any book and return it to its proper
place.
• “All copyright rights in the Dewey Decimal
Classification system are owned by OCLC.
Dewey, Dewey Decimal Classification, DDC, OCLC
and WebDewey are registered trademarks of
OCLC.” (OCLC, 2011)
Size Designation
Cutter Number
Q.855.1EC70i:Ecop.2
Dewey Decimal Number
Work Mark and other
Distiguishes
Indicates
Relates
Identifies
to
multiple
the
thesubject
physical
who
works
wrote
matter
size
bythe
the
of
ofthe
book
the
same
book
book
author
Generalities
Typical Call Number:
Philosophy &
Psychology
Religion
Social Sciences
Language
Natural Sciences
& Mathematics
Technology
(Applied Sciences)
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How is it constructed?
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A -- Bibliographies -- Shelved before 016
B -- Biographies -- Shelved before 920
C -- College Catalogs -- Shelved before 380
So, if the Dewey number for a biography of Lincoln
would have been 920.L345n, it would now be
B.L345n, and it would be shelved just before 920,
where older biographies of Lincoln might also be
found(at 920.L345).
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& Mathematics
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Almost done with Dewey...but there's one final twist.
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Philosophy &
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Religion
Social Sciences
Language
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& Mathematics
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What is it based on?
• Simplicity
• Faceted
• Translated into 30 Languages and used in
more than 135 countries
• Continually updated
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What are the advantages?
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Philosophy &
Psychology
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& Mathematics
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(Applied Sciences)
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• There is an abridged version for small local
libraries, and a more detailed/complex
version if the library grows, or for larger
libraries.
• Provides an easy way to introduce new
subjects
• Dewey’s greatest advantage and disadvantage is
that it reflects the bias of its creator and the
cultural snapshot where it was born. Issues
reflecting Dewey's personal bias and the cultural
bias surrounding the late 19th century can be
seen most clearly in the treatment of religion.
• There is also an inherent Anglo-American bias as
seen in the presence of a whole division for
American literature (810), but a clumping from
French and French Canadian Literature.
Generalities
Philosophy &
Psychology
Religion
Social Sciences
Language
Natural Sciences
& Mathematics
Technology
(Applied Sciences)
The Arts
Literature &
Rhetoric
Geography &
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What are the disadvantages?
Generalities
Philosophy &
Psychology
Religion
Social Sciences
Language
Natural Sciences
& Mathematics
Technology
(Applied Sciences)
The Arts
Literature &
Rhetoric
Geography &
History
(Dewey Decimal System)
• Universal Classification System (Based on DDC
created by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine)
• Library of Congress Subject Headings
(Eliminates some of the bias & new subjects
are easily added)
• BISAC (Book Store Model) – Used by Amazon,
Barnes & Noble, Bookscan, Bowker, Ingram,
and others
Generalities
Philosophy &
Psychology
Religion
Social Sciences
Language
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& Mathematics
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(Applied Sciences)
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Alternatives
•
•
•
•
•
Dewey Decimal in the UIUC Bookstacks. (n.d.). Retrieved July 5, 2011, from University Library University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:
http://www.library.illinois.edu/circ/tutorial/anatomy.html
Dewey Decimal System. (n.d.). Retrieved July 5, 2011, from NYU - Dept. of Media, Culture, and
Communication:
http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/Dewey_Decimal_System
Dewey Services. (n.d.). Retrieved July 5, 2011, from OCLC: http://www.oclc.org/dewey/
How one library pioneer profoundly influenced modern librarianship. (n.d.).
Retrieved from http://www.oclc.org/dewey/resources/biography.
Wigand, W.A. (1996). The ‘‘Amherst Method’’: the origins of the Dewey decimal classification
scheme. University of Texas/Libraries & Culture, 33(2), 175-194
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REFERENCES
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Psychology
Religion
Social Sciences
Language
Natural Sciences
& Mathematics
Technology
(Applied Sciences)
The Arts
Literature &
Rhetoric
Geography &
History