OK, so most of our lovely patrons have probably heard of this Dewey guy and know that he has some kind of Dewey Decimal System that the library uses. But how does it work? What does it mean?
First of all, we must understand that libraries needed a way to be organized in a way that simply makes sense. The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system uses universally recognized Arabic numerals, well-defined categories, and hierarchies. The DDC begins by organizing information into 10 broad areas, which are broken into smaller and smaller topics. Each topic is assigned a number known as a "call number."
This solves what would have been a huge problem; each item has a specific call number in order to easily find the information you need. The DDC allows all similar topics to be shelved near each other. Want to browse cookbooks? Look no further than 641. Need information on World War II? Take a look at 940.53.
Take a look at this fantastic PowerPoint put together by OCLC to better understand the DDC:
https://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/dewey/resources/tutorial/adults_tutorial_0606.ppt
Happy Hunting!
References:
https://www.oclc.org/dewey/features/summaries.en.html
https://www.oclc.org/dewey/resources/public.en.html
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