Discord over Dewey

In Discord over Dewey, an article in the Wall Street Journal online for July 20, 2007, Andrew Lavalee describes a branch library in Arizona which has dispensed with the Dewey Decimal classification and labeled the book spines with English words, such as “history” or “weddings.” There is still an online catalog, but no call numbers. The library looks and is arranged much like a chain bookstore, and apparently has been popular.

This piece of news leads me to opine that one size doesn’t necessarily fit all libraries. Perhaps all collections don’t automatically and with no consideration for their users NEED a classification system. Do small libraries with small collections designed primarily for leisure reading need to be arranged by call number, just as the collections in large research libraries are?

Even in large libraries, there may be individual collections which have not been classified because of size or type of materials. That fact alone refutes the argument that classification is always necessary as a finding tool.

Perhaps it’s time to rethink our desire to standardize, and consider fitting the arrangement of our collections to the kinds of users that our libraries attract.

By
Michele Seikel
Cataloger, Assoc. Prof. of Bibliography