"If a library decides to go it alone and creates its own idea of
where materials belong, how transferable will that knowledge be when the
child goes to the public library, or even to the next school up the
chain? Will the child be at square one in locating information?"
This is precisely the reason libraries should stick with a consistent
classification system.
Maricopa County may have created a system that works for their patrons, but being a
library patron who is able to find things in Maricopa county is meaningless
elsewhere.
As a practioner of Dewey, I agree with everyone that Dewey is imperfect and biased.
Personally and professionally I think the Britannica people have a great
organization structure going with their Propaedia (and I would love to see that
adapted into a classification system), but as a librarian whose job it is to know
where everything is and to be able to find it quickly, Dewey allows me to do this -
to help my patrons which is the whole point of being a librarian. You want books on
the Jewish holocaust? 940.53. You want American poetry? 811. You want cars? 629.
Are these numbers random and meaningless? Biased, absolutely? But knowing that
Islam is 297 is all I need to know to find books on that subject and isn't that the
point?
I don't think I'd be able to help my patrons as well in a non-Dewey library. Isn't
that why bookstores and the internet are so frustrating to librarians because WE
KNOW HOW TO FIND STUFF and we can't when it isn't classified? And being that
computers and the internet are such a motivational tool for our students, they just
might learn how to find stuff better as well, instead of searching for hours. And
for those of our students who INSIST on using the internet to do their research,
wouldn't it be great if we could bring up all the 342.73 pages on the
Constitutional Amendments for them and then let them sift as opposed to just
googling which is a pretty inefficient way of searching.
After all browsing is browsing, whether in a bookstore, a library or the internet.
So why not browse things that are at least in order?
________________________
Patricia Sarles, MA, MLS
Canarsie High School Library
NYC Department of Education
1600 Rockaway Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11236
voice: 718 761-7944
fax: 718 290-8681
cell: 718 986-5985
psarles@schools.nyc.gov
http://documentaryphotographybooks.blogspot.com
"Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is
to be kind; and the third is to be kind." - Henry James
-----Original Message-----
From: School Library Media & Network Communications on behalf of Carol Simpson
Sent: Thu 7/17/2008 4:03 PM
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Doing without Dewey?
While we certainly want to provide the maximum amount of relevant
organization to our patrons, we also want to teach them a transferable
skill. If a library decides to go it alone and creates its own idea of
where materials belong, how transferable will that knowledge be when the
child goes to the public library, or even to the next school up the
chain? Will the child be at square one in locating information? I'm not
saying that Dewey doesn't need some adjustment after all these years.
As a professor of cataloging, I always pointed out the biases and
inconsistencies. The advantage is that ALL Dewey'd libraries have the
SAME inconsistencies. A patron just needs to learn the scheme once.
If you elect to Border your library, will your patrons be able to locate
materials in the middle or high school library, the public library, or
for that matter, Barnes & Noble?
--
Carol Simpson, JD, Ed.D. Assoc. Prof. (Mod. Serv.) University of North
Texas School of Library and Information Sciences csimpson at
carolsimpson dot com
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