the Dewey Decimal Classification system

the bald monk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Decimal_Classification


Any librarians on here?

My family have, over the years acquired/ inherited a substantial collection of books. These now fill a room in the house. I am interested in arranging them like in all libraries according to subject matter etc. from wikipedia i gather that the system most commonly used is the Dewey Decimal Classification system.

My question is whether anyone has ever arranged their books according to this system and if so have you any pointers as to where to start?? any websites etc? (I do not intend to go into great depth. I want to keep it to general subdivisions eg divide history into European, Irish, Other etc.)

any help much appreciated.


regards,

EBM

Eliot Rosewater

I'm not a librarian, but I have a bit of experience as a student in the Boole Library in UCC which is one of the biggest libraries in Ireland and is organized under the Dewey Decimal system.

It really depends on how big your library is, and what sort of books your library contains. The way literature (fiction, essays, auto-biography) is organized under Dewey would be counter-intuitive in a collection of under 1000 books, in my opinion. I just did a search of George Orwell, for instance, over in Boole Web, and I found that his books are stored in many different places:

• His novels are stored, by and large, at 823 (English fiction)
• His essays are stored at 824 (English Essays) or 828 (English miscellaneous writings)
• One of his essays is at 914 (Geography and travel; Europe)
• His non-fictional work Homage to Catalonia is at 946 (General Iberian history)

If I had a personal library I would keep Orwell together, especially his essays and his novels. Also, Dewey separates nationalities. American fiction is separated from English fiction, etc. I think this is an inconvenient classification for a personal library.

Fundamentally, when I go into the Boole Library I have to go to a computer to find the call number for the book I'm looking for. When I go into Waterstones bookstore I don't. I would use Dewey if I had an extremely large library, or a library of technical books. Otherwise, organizing like in bookshops (fiction; philosophy; poetry; history etc) would be easier, in my opinion.

landsleaving

If you want to keep it simple I'd recommend just following this as a general guideline:

http://www.scottpublib.org/dragon/Dewey.html

Put fiction at 823 and alphabetise by authors surname. Irish history is 941.5, so use that to seperate it from European (940)

Hope that helps. You can get a full guide for every last number in the library (more than likely behind the counter and reference only, and insanely pricey to buy yourself.) but it's enormous and you probably won't need it. It's really only used when librarians catalogue books before they go on shelves to figure out what number to give them.

the bald monk

Thanks eliot, and landsleaving. very helpful

On further research into the system i see your respective points! the system is incredibly detailed, far too much so for anyones personal library. however I would only be using general areas. The system is broken into 10 classes, then subdivided ten ways and then further subdivided ten ways - i plan to use the 10 main areas and some sub-classes - as suggested because i have more irish history than other history so i plan to keep them together etc. so elliot i guess this is essentially what you are suggesting.

i do not know if i would necessarily take your suggestion re keeping all of e.g. Orwell together. i think keeping Iberian history etc together would be a better system. in a huge library like UCC i see how this can be inconvenient but on the scale i am planning i dont think it should be a problem. still though, this is probably a matter of personal preference.

Re fiction i had planned to keep them separate but a further question for you: where does fiction end and literature begin?

Eliot Rosewater

the bald monk wrote: »

where does fiction end and literature begin?

In most (all?) cases fiction is a subset of literature!

Oxford defines literature so:

1 written works, especially those regarded as having artistic merit.
2 books and writings on a particular subject.
3 leaflets and other material used to give information or advice.

2 and 3 are extremely broad definitions and could be probably used to encompass every book every written! The problem with 1 is that "artistic merit" is a subjective concept, ie one mans ceiling is another mans floor.

I would use the term literature in the same sense its used in the title of this forum. Its probably best to define it by what it is not. When classifying my library the literature section would not contain history, science, philosophy, religion etc etc. However if any one of my other sections were small (I have only 1 book of philosophy) I would just subsume that into "literature" and the definition would still hold!


EDIT: The wiki literature page is interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature

the bald monk

"God bless you, Mr. Rosewater". another very informative reply!!

i guess you've hit the nail on the head re the subjectivity of the concept of "artistic merit". Could Cathy Kelly cohabit with Keats?

Eliot Rosewater

the bald monk wrote: »

"God bless you, Mr. Rosewater"

I've never actually read that book! I got the name from Vonnegut's other novel Breakfast of Champions. It was funny going into a bookshop and reading about Eliot Rosewater!!

the bald monk wrote: »

Could Cathy Kelly cohabit with Keats?

My mind swings between blurting out my raw snobbish instinct or maintaining strict political correctness :pac:

markw999

OUr dewey number for Fiction is 823.914, but we shelve it seperately under AF. There's plenty of sites online detailing Dewey quite well.