As books became more prevalent and libraries formed to house and collect books, people needed a way to organize and find them. In Roman times libraries needed less organization. There was a place for writings in Greek, and writings in Latin. Those that could read knew who the authors were and could find writings by knowing who wrote them: "Socrates, Plato, Ah here we go: Aristotle."
Ok, so it was not ideal, but it worked. But in modern times libraries had many more books to choose from, many more subjects and available to a wider audience. Each library did things a little differently, until Melvil Dewey came up with a system of organizing the knowledge of the library. You have to love the Dewey Decimal System.
Burke, J.J. (2009). Neal-Schuman library technology companion: a basic guide
for library staff (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Neal-Schuman Publishers.
There seems to be a lot of talk lately about moving away from the Dewey Decimal Classification, with librarians at the College of Eastern Nevada going to far as to replace it completely in favor of Netflix-style categories. I wonder how many more libraries will abandon the DDC in the coming years.
ReplyDeleteI know I’m biased because we use it in my academic library, but I prefer the Library of Congress classification system over Dewey! However, when talking with students or helping them find a book in the stacks, it’s obvious that it’s not as user friendly. I don’t know how in favor I would be of abandoning these systems, but lately, I’m trying to keep relevancy in mind. Patrons today, especially younger patrons, probably prefer a system that more closely mirrors Netflix or a retail book store. A library can have all the resources in the world, but if patrons struggle to locate them, it makes it less likely they will benefit from them.
ReplyDeleteI am more familiiar with the Dewey Decimal System. I would like to learn the Library of Congress classification system.
ReplyDeleteI learned Library of Congress first, so I'm more familiar with it that Dewey. I think LOC is not user friendly like you said and even DDC has its drawbacks. If libraries do end up abandoning these classification systems for something more user-friendly, I just hope there will be an industry standard to keep confusion at bay.
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