A quick guide to Dewey Susan M. Lee, 3/1/12

Help! With all these books, how can a library patron find what they need without getting lost? Don't fret. It's easy if you know Dewey...

The Dewey Classification System Lowdown What is Dewey?

Dewey was an American librarian, educator and inventor of Dewey Classification System, which is used in many libraries including the San Diego Public Library system His work revolutionized librarianship He is often called the "father of modern librarianship" A firm believer in simplification, he even called himself "Melvil Dui" for a time. Melville Dewey ( )

The Dewey Classification system, created in 1873 and introduced in 1876, consists of ten main classes, which are further divided into subcategories and subdivisions The "DCC" is the most widely used classification system in the world It is used in over 200,000 libraries, over 135 countries and in over twenty translations including Arabic and Norwegian One of the benefits is that it organizes subjects and fiction authors in the same area for easy browsing The Dewey Classification System

The Main Dewey Classes 000 The Generalities 100 Philosophy and Psychology 200 Religion 300 Social Science 400 Language 500 Natural Science and Mathematics 600 Technology 700 Arts 800 Literature and Rhetoric 900 Geography and History

More in-depth Dewey summary

The call number is the usually number located on the bottom of the book's spine. The call number is made up of a Dewey Classification number and a Cutter number to give it a more unique 'address' on the shelf. What is a call number?

First you need to locate the call number of the item. Log into the SDPL library website and click search the catalog: How do I locate a particular title in the library?

Let's locate a fiction novel to show you an example. Type "Pride and Prejudice" into the search box. Note: You can also use the advanced search option to type in more fields like the author's name or just subject headings but if you don't know the author's name or want to find related sources, typing in less fields maximizes search results.

We locate the title we want in the search results. The location of the title is on the fiction shelf by FIC + the author's last name. Regular Fiction and Biography titles are organized separately.

According to Dewey, it would be in the 700s i.e. the arts section. All you need to do is write down the call number. When you go to the shelf, you'll find that similar topics surround the book you want. Let's locate titles on women impressionist artists.

Let's all go to the Library: there's always something to do at your local public library. To locate your local branch, just click

Books on Dewey: Dewey: Library Genius" by Jill Sherman Call #: YA B/Dewey Irrepressible Reformer: a biography of Melvil Dewey by Wayne Wiegland Call #:B.Dewey Dewey Classification System and Relative Index by Melvil Dewey Call #: R /Dewey For fun: Dewey, there's a cat in the library! by Vicki Myron Call #: E Myron for further reading:

Dewey Readmore Books: A lovable library cat named after Dewey, who touched the lives of everyone he met. "I was named after the great Melville Dewey. Meow."

The Library Hotel in New York City is the first hotel ever to offer its guest over 6,000 volumes of books organized throughout the hotel by the Dewey Decimal System. It has ten floors, each dedicated to a major category of the DCC. For example, the 8th floor is comprised of literature, with rooms dedicated to mystery, poetry and classic literature. Website link: Did you know there's a hotel modeled after the Dewey Decimal System?

"Dewey Services (OCLC Cataloging and Metadata)". OCLC. 3/1/ Dewey, Melvil. Abridged Dewey decimal classification and relative index. Albany: Forest Press, 1979 Bibliography