“Doing DEWEY”The Dewey Decimal

SystemLibrary Skills

Mrs. Geist

Do you have a lot of books? What if you had 100 more? What if you had 10,000 more? Where would you PUT them? How would you keep track of them?

Now imagine that this whole building is a library, with books filling each room instead of classrooms. If you need a dictionary, which room would you go to?

Libraries have many, many books. Our very small library has almost 5,000 books.

Large public libraries can have several hundred thousand books.

Large university libraries

can have several MILLION books!

WHERE IS THAT ONE BOOK THAT YOU NEED???

Librarians need to know what books are in the library and where they are located. So do you.

Most school and public libraries use a numerical system to arrange books on the library shelves…

The Dewey Decimal

ClassificationSystem!

(or DDC for short)

What have we learned about how books are arranged in this

library?Fiction = Books that are not true

(Novels, stories, picture books, scary books, chapter books, mysteries, fantasy books, books in series, etc.)

Arranged on shelves ALPHABETICALLY by the AUTHOR’S LAST NAME.

Call number is “F” followed by first letters of Author’s last name.

For example, F CAB is the callnumber for The Princess Diaries

by Meg Cabot.

F ROW is the call number for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling.

NONFICTION = Books that are TRUE, factual, or real.

Arranged on shelves using Dewey Decimal Classification System

Includes biographies, reference books, textbooks

Call number is a series of at least 3 numbers, followed by a “cutter” of the first letters of author’s last name.

For example:

031 Gui -- Guinness Book of World Records

636.7 Bar -- The Big Book of Dogs973.75 Dou -- The Civil War in

Virginia

*To confuse matters, SOME “nonfiction” books are actually fiction!

Fairy tales are shelved in 398’s.Poetry and plays are shelved in

800’s

So who was this Dewey guy anyway?

Melvil Dewey Melville Louis

Kossuth Dewey was born in New York in 1851 and died in 1831.

He was a professional librarian and educator.

As a child, Dewey was fascinated with books. In 1868, when his school caught fire, he rescued as many books as he could from the school library.

While attending Amherst College, Dewey worked in the library, where he was frustrated by the disarray of the book collection. There was no uniform system for organizing books.

Back in Melvil’s day, every library had a different way to arrange their books.

Plus, no two libraries used the same system, making it difficult for people to use different libraries.

Frustrated with these problems, Dewey searched for a way to classify books by subject.

Dewey invented his system of decimal numbers to arrange books according to their subject. He published it in a book in 1876, when he was 25 years old.

With his book Dewey established the Dewey Decimal Classification System. His work created a revolution in libraries. Other libraries adopted his decimal system for arranging books.

It was a library revolution!

His system was so important, Melvil Dewey has been called the “Father of Modern Libraries.”

Dewey’s new system classified ALL KNOWLEDGE (we would say “information”) into ten broad categories.

Could you fit everything you know into TEN categories? Think about it!

Here are the TEN categories:

000- 099 General Works Books that have a lot of subjects,

like encyclopedias, world record books.

100-199 Philosophy and Psychology Includes “self-help” books, and

books about the great thinkers.

200-299 Religion and Mythology The Bible, books about other

religions, and myths.

300-399 Social Science A big category, includes

patriotism, banks and money, law, customs, holidays and fairy tales.

400-499 Languages Includes dictionaries and other

books in English and foreign languages.

500-599 Pure Science and Mathematics Books about all kinds of math,

plus planets, weather, animals

600-699 Applied Science, Technology Medicine and health, cars,

airplanes, space travel, farming, pets, cookbooks.

700-799 Arts and Recreation Painting, drawing, tv and movies,

music, sports of all kinds, hunting and fishing.

800-899 Literature Poetry, plays, jokes

900-999 Geography & History Travel in the US and foreign

countries, US history and history of other countries.

So how do the books get their numbers?

A library book is assigned a Dewey call number of between 001 and 999 based on its subject.

Numbers to the right of the decimal point are for more specific subjects. So books about US history have the call number

973. Books about the history of the US Civil War are

973.7 Books about the US Civil War in Virginia are

973.755

Here’s another one:

Books in the 630s are Agriculture Animal Husbandry (raising animals) is 636 Dogs are 636.7 German Shepherds are 636.737

Each main category has 10 subdivisions:

700 Arts & Recreation710 Civic & landscape art720 Architecture730 Sculpture740 Drawings & decorative arts750 Paintings & painters760 Graphic arts (Printmaking & prints)770 Photography780 Music790 Recreational & performing arts

Each subdivision has 10 sub-subdivisions:

790 Recreational & performing arts 791 Public performances

792 Stage presentations793 Indoor games & amusements794 Indoor games of skill795 Games of chance796 Athletic & outdoor sports & games797 Aquatic & air sports798 Equestrian sports & animal racing799 Fishing, hunting & shooting

That’s 1000 different places where library books can be on the shelf. How do you know where to go??

How do you find a book using Dewey?

Use the signs on the bookshelves Use the library catalog Use the Librarian