Spring 2023      Volume 51, Number 2

Check this Out!: Undoing Dewey
By Marie Ann Donovan and Mary Yockey

Document: Article  

Introductory Paragraph:  You might be among the many classroom teachers who noticed something quite different about your school’s library last fall: Its collection was no longer arranged by the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system. Instead, depending upon your librarian’s or district’s chosen framework, your library’s signage and guides might appear more “user-friendly” and be absent any numbers, including decimals. Such changes are more than window dressing. Rather, they demonstrate your librarian’s deep commitment to ensuring the collection is student-centered and reflective of how children think as well as who is in your school community. Those changes are part of a larger movement afoot in our country to rework Dewey’s 150-year-old knowledge organization system upon which most public and school library holdings are classified. Why more librarians are investigating ways to “ditch Dewey” is best understood by first learning more about the DDC system and the man who created it.

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.33600/IRCJ.51.2.2023.53

Page Numbers:   53-59