Friday 28 June 2013

The Magic of Dewey Decimal

You might have guessed from some of my posts that I am a huge fan of libraries and in particular, the Dewey Decimal Classification System.
 
 Created by Melvil Dewey in 1876; it's the system used for classifying non-fiction books in the majority of British public libraries and school libraries. I first learned to use Dewey at the start of secondary school when I worked as a Student Librarian.
 
It's an amazing system, a form of engineering where pretty much anything can be categorised and filed making it easy to find at a later date. The system contains 10 main divisions and within each division, further sub divisions - in fact that's the beauty of Dewey, things can be divided up into miniscule sections, so that even the most obscure of topics can find a home.
 
There's far too many subjects to write here but Wikipedia helpfully has a list of all the main sub divisions.
 
My favourite classifications are (and I am aware how sad that makes me sound):
332.024   Money Saving and Finances
641.5   Family Recipe Books
646.2 and 746.44   Sewing, Crafts and Embroidery
910.45   Travel Writing
And Andrew's favourite  - 385.085   Railways

 
As well as sharing my love of Dewey, the main topic to this post was - how fabulous are these?

Dewey Decimal gifts
One - Two - Three - Four - Five - Six - Seven
 
I can't take the credit for discovering them though, it was a tweet from Cardiff Libraries who shared the Dewey love with a link to this post on Book Riot.
Incidentially, Cardiff Libraries are hilarious to follow on Twitter; they tweet things like this!
 
Cardiff Libraries Tweet
 

 
Is is anyone else a fan of the Dewey system? I can't be the only one surely?
 
It's very lonely over here in geek corner...
 
 
 

6 comments:

  1. I am in LOVE!!!
    I had the pleasure of working in a small library once but unfortunately 'to make things easier' everything was organised by category and not DD :(

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    1. Oh no! It has to be Dewey, it's the best way :-) x

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  2. I can't say I'm in love, but it sure is a smart system and super handy! The tweet and 'Librarians Dewey it better' both made me chuckle.

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    Replies
    1. Haha, good! :-) I am seriously considering buying the 'Librarians Dewey it better" badge! :-) x

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  3. How fantastic! I love the pendant- and I am assuming 398.2 is Fairies- but I am off to check :) xx

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