[Publib] RE: Good-bye to Dewey

Fri Jun 1 14:04:39 EDT 2007

I want to second what Dale said about DDC not forcing libraries to
organize books in any particular way. For example, I've never seen a
public library that organized the majority of its fiction by DDC rather
than first by genre and then in alphabetical order by author. (I'm
currently reading David Weinberger's "Everything is Miscellaneous," so I
have to laugh about organizing things alphabetically.) At the libraries
I've worked at, feature films and TV shows on VHS and DVD have not been
organized by DDC, although non-fiction videos have. I haven't seen music
CDs organized by DDC either.

So, my question (and it's not a rhetorical one) is, why organize some
materials by DDC and others by genre or musical style? In what way does
DDC make it easier for patrons to find books on computers or gardening
or travel, but not novels by Terry Pratchett, Janet Evanovich, or Toni
Morrison? If we already toss DDC to the wayside some of the time, why is
it problematic to abandon it completely (at least in terms of where we
shelve things and how we direct patrons to them)?

--Joshua M. Neff
Web Content Developer
Johnson County Library
(913)495-2449
neffj at jocolibrary.org

________________________________

From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Dale McNeill
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 12:40 PM
To: TNew at ci.bedford.tx.us
Cc: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Publib] RE: Good-bye to Dewey

I'll be quiet on this subject after this post, I promise.  Tony's post,
though, gives me to opportunity to repeat that DDC *doesn't* force any
library to divide test books or to separate books on computing.
Instead, decisions made by staff in LC's Dewey group make decisions and
the staff who update Dewey make decisions.  By and large, they make
decisions that make sense.  And they are, fundamentally, based on Mr.
Dewey's idea of dividing human knowledge into "aspects".  However, there
is no reason that any library shouldn't use DDC to arrange items into
whatever makes logical sense in that library for those customers. 

And we already do this.  Take the examples of recorded music and DVDs.
Look up a movie or CD in the catalogs of 10 or 20 public libraries.
You'll find many different classifications--from none to quite complex
DDC.  We, public libraries, can easily see that a huge research-oriented
collection of CDs should be arranged very differently from a collection
of 1,000 CDs of mostly popular music. 

While CIP has been a wonderful aid to libraries of all sizes, somehow
libraries have felt (often because it's cheaper, which does matter) that
they had to classify the book in the say way LC's Dewey group did.  They
do great work and I appreciate the staff there every day.  However,
their only customers are publishers and (ultimately) libraries.  The
Library of Congress doesn't arrange *their* collection in DDC order.  No
LC staff are helping people find "some study guide, I'll know it when I
see it" or answering "I need information about several careers to help
me choose one".  

I'm very glad that we're having this conversation.  I think that
cataloging (describing) and classifying (organizing), along with
selection, are among the things that fundamentally make libraries
different from piles of information containing items (books, LPs, CDs,
DVDs, databases, etc) and from book/music/video stores.  The other,
obviously, is the people working in public service in libraries, meeting
the needs--and surpassing expectations--of library users day in and day
out. 

Regards,

Dale 

On 6/1/07, TNew at ci.bedford.tx.us <TNew at ci.bedford.tx.us> wrote: 

	I've been following this topic with interest and while I think
that tossing Dewey out the door is a bit over the top, I do think that
there are some things that just don't make sense to the general public. 

	Here are some examples:

	The standardized exam study guides are divided by subject.
Patrons expect them to be all in one place and see no distinciton
between the GRE, GED, ACT, the Civil Cervice Exams, the TOEFL, the THEA,
or, my personal favorite, the exam to become a Railroad Engineer (the
folks that drive trains, not the ones that build them.)  CLEP tests 

	Information on becoming a citizen is split into two chunks in
the 300s.  

	And the one that bugs me the most.....

	Bbooks on repairing computers are in the 600's and the books on
software are in the 000s?  Try explaining that one to the patron who
comes in and says "Where are your computer books?"  And we won't even
discuss the digital photography section in the 700s. 

	So, in conclusion, for the small and mid-sized public library
there are some serious flaws in Dewey which really confuse the public,
and at times librarians :-).

	It will be interesting to see the library's report that is
experimenting.  Hopefully someone on the editorial staff of Public
Libraries or Library Journal will report on the library after a year has
gone by and they have a chance to see how it has been working. 

	Tony New
	Information Resources Librarian
	Bedford Public Library, Bedford Texas

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