#Dewey Decimal System

[humanoidhistory]

Card catalog at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, ca. 1950.

[lrosewrites]

LIBRARY USERS OF TUMBLR who are age 35 or younger, are you able to help out a grad student by taking a survey? Your prize will be my eternal gratitude 😔

EDIT: You all are incredible! I have SO MUCH DATA to work with!! ❤️📚❤️ Survey is now closed

[married-to-a-redhead]

The Dewey Decimal System. The card catalog had a certain scent to it. I sort of miss that smell.

[your-dewey-decimal-number-is]

Hey man, can you explain what the decimals in the system mean? I get that 001-099 and so on are specifics, but what do the .# mean?

The Dewey Decimal Classification system allows every non-fiction topic to be categorized under one of ten broad subjects, each starting with a different digit (see my pinned post).

Say you were looking for a book about narwhals

5XX: science 59X: zoology 599: mammals 599.5: cetacea and sirenia (aquatic mammals) 599.54: other toothed whales (most whales are under 599.52, and dolphins are under 599.53, while 599.55 is about manatees and dugongs) 599.543: narwhals

Every digit after the decimal point represents a subcategory of the previous. The more digits you add, the more specific the classification. It's turtles all the way down; some subjects are so dense that you need long strings of digits to find exactly what you're looking for. Softball is under 796.3578. Mayan folklore is under 398.2097281. The Beatles are under 782.4216609; that's the exact same number of digits as Mayan folklore, so you'd think they'd have the subcategory all to themselves, but no, they share it with a ton of other bands because it actually represents the broad topic "history, geographic treatment, and biography of specific rock songs."

Not every single subject gets that granular. In fact, most require less than six digits total because there aren't going to be that many books on any given subject to warrant that level of specificity. 551.312 represents everything to do with glaciers; whether they're from Norway or Antarctica (complete opposite sides of the globe), they share the same six digits. There's really no need for more.

But just because a topic exists doesn't necessarily mean your library will carry books about it; mine, for example, has several non-fiction books about platypuses (599.29) but none about possums (599.23). Damn shame.

Feel free to submit any posts you want me to classify, or shoot me an ask if you have a specific topic in mind.

[dawsonscreekwasalwaysbad]

chewy decimal system merch at dropout store when

[kingsbridgelibraryteens]

🙄🙄🙄

[mysticdragon3md3]

How to Fix Grocery Stores | Smartypants Presentation by Dropout

[estavionpira]

his name is dewey decimal and he was bitten by a radioactive system...

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

For those of you who are interested in becoming horror movie protagonists, your local library's parapsychology/occultism section can be found under Dewey Decimal classification 130.0 - 130.9

If you're looking for folklore, that would be in the early 398s (if you hit "jokes and jests," 398.7, you've gone too far)

[historyhermann]

Myne, books, and fictional libraries: Examining three official fanbooks

An excerpt from page 33 of the first fanbook, showing part of the temple diagram. Note the “book room” shown here in this diagram. To give some background, on August 26, 2020, I first mentioned Ascendance of a Bookworm on this blog, followed by a substantive post three days later, on August 29, 2020, entitled “Myne the ‘bookworm’ librarian and the Nippon Decimal Classification System.” Since…

[your-dewey-decimal-number-is]

Dewey Decimal Classifications

0xx: information

1xx: philosophy and psychology

2xx: religions

3xx: social sciences

4xx: language

5xx: natural sciences and mathematics

6xx: technology

7xx: the arts

8xx: literature

9xx: history and geography

Asks are open, so feel free to submit anything you want classified.

[its-okay-youre-adorable]

Read books guys

I'm telling you. Read books. There's an entire world of dead useful knowledge contained. There are so many books that have a TON of useful information while also being easier to read than textbooks.

Listen, I know the internet's gone to pieces. Misinformation is practically the only thing you can be certain of with any search engine.

But books.

I mean yeah, there are books that are inaccurate. Or outdated. But for the most part, if someone cares enough to compile so much information on a subject together into a book, they care enough to make sure it's right. After all, it's not so easy to edit it like a blog once it's published. They're not spending so much time and labor putting together random units of information they stumbled across on the internet. They're doing this with genuine research and careful time and knowledge.

Let me emphasize one more time that there are so many books with real information that are NOT COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS (though those can be incredible sources of information too!). There is real information out there in very easy to process formats if you're willing to open a book and thumb through the index, table of contents, or even just all the pages.

...I mean, it does require us to care a little bit. It's certainly not as fast and convenient as a quick internet search. But it is so much more reliable, and if you care to know more about a subject I think it's important to care enough to get some solid information about it and not just a once-and-done.

Side note, did you know the Dewey Decimal System has a number for everything? Actually everything? Want to pick up a book on crochet or leatherworking? Dewey's got you. Learn about moths? Yup. Politics? Public speaking? Languages? Writing? Architecture? Librarians have master's degrees specifically so they can help you find things in the DDS (and also for other reasons but ya know).

[ao3-tags-that-shouldnt-be-funny]

This isn’t a mlp fic, btw

[marlinspirkhall]

In the UK, instead of the Dewey decimal system, we have:

[intothestacks]

If your audience leans on the younger side (e.g. pre-reading/learning how to read) make signage with images. It helps them SO much.

[blondebrainpowered]

Melvil Dewey invented the Dewey Decimal System in 1876.

The Dewey Decimal System makes finding books in libraries much simpler. Dividing books into ten main categories, each with its own subcategories, helps librarians and visitors find exactly what they’re looking for without wasting time.

This system is not only about keeping books in line; it’s about making knowledge accessible to everyone. Over 200,000 libraries in 135 countries still use this system today because it works so well​.