Dewey or Don't We?
One-Question Survey
This month we asked how school librarians organized their nonfiction collections. The results came in quite a bit faster than normal (almost 400 within the first 36 hours the survey was open) which might indicate that our respondents were extra eager to answer this question. The results came back with an overwhelming 88% indicating they use the Dewey Decimal System (DDS) to organize their nonfiction. Another 8% wrote that they used some sort of hacked version of Dewey combined with something else, and only 4% responded that their nonfiction collection was genrefied.
Surprised? We were, at least a little. Genrefying is definitely a more popular organizational system for fiction, but 4% is really low. Social media may be giving an unbalanced perspective. It would be interesting to see the results of an expanded survey looking at the genrefying happening in fiction and nonfiction.
There were an overwhelming amount of write-in comments and questions to go with responses this month, so we've done our best to summarize them for you, with the most often mentioned first.
Many respondents mentioned the twists they put on the DDS, such as: "I customize for ease of use (example-some military books are in the 300s, some in the 900s. I'm moving them all to the 900s)." Another said, "I have mashed certain sections of the collection to make it easier for elementary students to locate certain subjects." At times, I (Jen) have also made the decision to reassign the DDS call number of a book because I believed the change would place it among more like texts.
There were a lot of questions about this, and maybe we're really all doing the same thing but calling it different things and not realizing it. As you can see above, many librarians say they use DDS to organize nonfiction, and then have no problem modifying it to suit their needs. Many mentioned just adding signs or pictures for students to understand what DDS sections were where. But, genrefying can be fairly different and can involve not using the DDS at all. (Google "Dewey Lite" if you want to find a fun bridge between the two.) The Book Wrangler discusses a great example of a genrefied elementary library nonfiction section: https://thebookwrangler.com/ditching-dewey-reorganizing-nonfiction/. Sometimes the delivery is also changed, with the use of tubs to get books front facing and easier to browse through.
This was repeated again and again. The most popular sections respondents mentioned moving were graphic novels, poetry, mythology, scary/paranormal books, dramas, and short stories. I'll point out that almost all of those are not nonfiction to begin with, but the DDS allows for the shelving of everything, and it's fairly common to find those housed in Dewey even though other fiction may be somewhere else. One commenter moved their mythology section near the Rick Riordan books and placed their military collection by the American history section, after becoming frustrated with how spread out the military offerings were. This was done to partially genrefy as well, with Dewey sports being shelved near sports fiction, for example.
"Whole number Dewey" was recommended up by many respondents who had successfully dropped the decimals. One librarian mentioned they were able to do this because they had a small collection. Others dropped to two decimal places. And, one really creative respondent used her spine labels and the DDS to collaborate with her math teachers when they covered place value. She bravely invites classes in to practice shelving books with their freshly-covered place value knowledge. What a great way to let students see how place value works in a system like the DDS.
Though not brought up much, we did have a respondent say they were no longer using Dewey's name. Although they were still essentially using the system, they were working to make it more equitable. Another respondent asked if the DDS was racist after seeing something about it on TikTok. While that can't be covered extensively here, we can leave you with some great reading on the subject. Zita Cristina Nunes, for the Smithsonian Magazine, did a great writeup on Dorothy Porter's work challenging racism in the DDS, and Christina Joseph's SLJ article is a good look at what's being done to challenge some of the problematic and inherent bias of the system now.
Joseph, Christina. "Move Over, Melvil! Momentum Grows to Eliminate Bias and Racism in the 145-Year-Old Dewey Decimal System." School Library Journal (Aug. 18, 2021)' https://www.slj.com/story/move-over-melvil-momentum-grows-to-eliminate-bias-and-racism-in-the-145-year-old-dewey-decimal-system.
Nunes, Zita Cristina. "Remembering the Howard University Librarian who Decolonized the Way Books Were Catalogued." Smithsonian Magazine (Nov 26, 2018). https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/remembering-howard-university-librarian-who-decolonized-way-books-were-catalogued-180970890/.