Classification, broadly defined, is the act of organizing the universe of knowledge into some systematic order...

...It has been considered the most fundamental activity of the human mind.
— "Cataloguing and Classification: An Introduction"
Lois Mai Chan

One in a small set of librarian based posts...

If you are a librarian, you're probably aware of an Arizona library that has eschewed classification and has a "Dewey-less" collection.

Laura and I were talking about this at the desk yesterday and we thought it must be a small library if they think they can get away with "history" on their spines as a way to class books (there was a picture in the Wall Street Journal article.) I'll link this later, but for now, you can visit Jessamyn, she's (of course, woo hoo!) quoted in the article.

Okay, here are the two Jessamyn posts so far: the one with more information on the background (which makes me feel kinder towards the Arizona libraries), and the one that links to the WSJ article.

Having worked in a large bookstore for 7 years of my professional life and a library for almost 5 now, there are some things I prefer about the bustle of a bookstore. The new books, the beautiful displays, the long Saturday hours.* However, as far as classification, there is something calming about the DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification). You know where a book goes. You're not yelling at the folks in New York who put tattoo books in Sociology (which is also where they put Sex and the City, go figure.)

At my library, we have a huge cookbook section. If we used the bookstore model, it's possible that all the books on "cooking for one" would not be all in one place. It's a small enough collection of books that if you aren't classing them numerically might seem too small to make a separate label for. (I can't speak for how they are handling small sections like that.) (And I KNOW you're not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition.)

I remember when Feng Shui was one book, in 1994. And then it was a section. And so we were CONSTANTLY labeling and re-labeling, and re-labeling and re-labeling. And New York woud send us new "signage." Dewey is pretty constant, and while we do re-class books, it's based on a system that has worked for decades. And while Dewey, the man, has been dead a long time, his system is managed by librarians who know what they're talking about.

The misconception about Dewey is that you have to know the numbers to know how to find stuff. No, that's the beauty of it. If your nice librarian takes you over to the section, or you read the subject labels on the ends of the shelves, all your books on caterpillars are going to be right together. I know, because it's how I found them, yesterday. You can browse. The numbers help the books stay where they should be, but you don't have to pay attention to them if you don't want to. They just mean that all your Titanic books should be in one place. AND that when you leave the Children's Dept, and go upstairs, you can go to the same number area (so I guess you have to pay a LITTLE attention to the numbers) and find MORE books on the Titanic or caterpillars.

I think we need more education on this--patrons ARE afraid of Dewey, but they wouldn't be, I think, if they understood that it's what WE librarians do so that YOU patrons can find stuff.

Just one librarian's opinion...

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*But as a librarian, I'm better paid, I get to go to conferences, and I get to do lots of fun programming. So am I happier now than I was four years ago? YES!! Also, the bookstore world has changed TONS since I left it, and so even if I went back, it would never be as fun as it was in 2001. (And I'm not kidding about long Saturday hours--working the 3 pm-10:30 pm shift meant I could go to the farmer's market on Saturday. Working 9-5 means, no, unless you want to get up at five AM.)