A library without Dewey - N.Y. Times

[vicki]

The New York Times reports on a Phoenix area library that has jettisoned the Dewey system (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/us/14dewey.html?em&ex=1184644800&en=36b9386a71e08e86&ei=5087%0A).


Trying to build popularity, many public libraries across the country have been looking more like big chain bookstores, offering comfortable easy chairs, coffee bars and displays of the latest best sellers.

But the new library in this growing Phoenix suburb has gone a step further. It is one of the first in the nation to have abandoned the Dewey Decimal System of classifying books, in favor of an approach similar to that at Barnes & Noble, say, where books are shelved in “neighborhoods” based on subject matter.




Librarians and others--what think ye?

[KarenB]

Oh. Lord! It is so difficult to find books in the "neighborhood" groupings! One person's idea of subject can be different from anothers - healthy eating, for instance. Is it cooking? nutrition, health? parenting? grrrrr
While you may not agree with how a book is filed in Dewey, at least you can find it!

[Ms. Kay]

Oh. Lord! It is so difficult to find books in the "neighborhood" groupings! One person's idea of subject can be different from anothers - healthy eating, for instance. Is it cooking? nutrition, health? parenting? grrrrr
While you may not agree with how a book is filed in Dewey, at least you can find it!

Ditto! It's a fine scheme for browsing but not for finding items (books).

Ms. Kay

[Strawberry Curls]

The New York Times reports on a Phoenix area library that has jettisoned the Dewey system (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/us/14dewey.html?em&ex=1184644800&en=36b9386a71e08e86&ei=5087%0A)

This really saddens me. Some of my fondest memories as a child are flipping through the cards in the card section and just reading what the books were about. Then one would take my fancy and I would seek it out using the Dewey system that I had learned at a very young age. I thought I was so grown up when I could walk the aisles and find a book all by myself. I know now it is all done on computers, but it will never replace the card system in my mind.

Egad, by "neighborhoods" what are they thinking? It is sometimes difficult to find a book in a bookstore, now it will be impossible to find one in the library. What are we coming to?

[jtb1951]

Egad, by "neighborhoods" what are they thinking? It is sometimes difficult to find a book in a bookstore, now it will be impossible to find one in the library. What are we coming to?

I heartily agree; why don't they just go ahead and arrange them all alphabetically by title while they're at it?!:) A patently bad idea!

John.

[ivanova]

I don't like it, and not just because I work in a library either. It makes it hard to find what I'm looking for. I've often wished that bookstores shelved by Dewey, or had a catalog for customers to search to see if they had something.

[vicki]

Yah, it seems kind of dumb to me, too. What strikes me as weird is that they're being so aggressive about it--wearing the buttons with the slash through the Dewey at the ALA, and what-not. I mean, it's kind of an interesting idea, I guess, but if I were going into the library looking for a particular title and they just waved me over toward a "neighborhood" with a "have fun browsing, ma'am" I'd probably fall over from an apoplectic choking fit.

In some ways, I think this passage is illuminating:



while even chain bookstores still put out classics like “Jane Eyre,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Moby Dick” for summer display, at Perry such books have taken a back seat to Paris Hilton (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/paris_hilton/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s “Confessions of an Heiress,”

I'll keep my Dewey-fied, no-Paris-Hilton-book-on-display library, thank you. :)

[Strawberry Curls]

I'll keep my Dewey-fied, no-Paris-Hilton-book-on-display library, thank you. :)

Amen to that!!

[Elizabeth]

I worked for many years in a library that had multiple classifications based on how they'd acquired the books. So three copies of the same title could be in three different parts of the building. Many tears were shed by both readers and staff trying to locate a book ...

My local library does something like what is described in the article. At the front are 'selections' by the staff, popularity lists or best-selling lists. I have picked up some things I never would have known about otherwise, but I have had to check in various sections (fiction, crime, best-selling, this week's favourite, suspense, etc) for a specific book that was supposed to be in the library but eluded me.

At least with Dewey the catalogue tells you the one place to go and hopefully it's there.

[vicki]

Hi, Elizabeth--it's good to see your font!

I'm okay with Dewey, myself. I can't imagine having to search all over the library in several different places for a book. That would make me a very grumpy library patron.

[jtb1951]

Growing up with the DDS makes it a little harder for me to envision having to learn a new system again; fortunately, our local library is laid out classically (but I do enjoy the convenience of computerized searching, and don't really miss the card catalogue!):)

John.

[Smurrey]

I can see the anti-Dewey trend catching hold but then someone, someday saying, "You know what would be great? If there was, like, one central location where the book was always, definitely supposed to be. We could totally, like, assign numbers or something, and then anytime wanted that book or a book like that book it could be easily found or cross referenced. And with computers these days, I bet that would be a piece of cake! WE should totally do that!"
Now, I'll admit, the comfey chairs and reading tables sound good to me, but I personally see that as bookstores ripping off good, old-fashioned libraries. If I could convince my library to sell coffee, tea, and/or baklava-- I would really never need to go out. I could just live there like the kids from The Mixed-up Files... by Koningsberg.