Dewey Decimal System
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The Dewey Decimal System might seem confusing, with all those numbers. But really, it's not all that bad.
A Librarian named Melvil Dewey invented this system of organizing books in the early 1900s. He wanted an easy way to find the book you are looking for, no matter how many books there were on the shelves.
The best way to do this, he thought, would be to organize the books into general subjects. He decided to organize the subjects based on how he thought people developed over time, and what questions we ask ourselves as we grow. That way, all the books with similar information would always be next to each other on the shelf.
This is the basic system of questions and subjects:
| Melvil's Question | Dewey Number & Subject |
| What am I? | 100's - Philosophy and Psychology |
| Where did I come from? | 200's - Religion and Mythology |
| Who are these other people? | 300's - Social Science |
| How can I communicate with them? | 400's - Language |
| What is all this stuff around me? | 500's - Natural Science and Mathematics |
| What can I do with this stuff? | 600's - Technology and Tools |
| What can I do to have fun? | 700's - Arts and Recreation |
| How can I tell people about this stuff? | 800's - Literature |
| How can I remember all this stuff? | 900's - History and Geography |
| What about general information? | 000's - General Reference |
He was a clever guy, that Melvil. Once he had books grouped into these general subjects, then he could get more specific within each subject. For instance, you can see that books in the 500's are books about Natural Science and Mathematics. This would include books about plants, animals, fractions and long division, rocks, planets and stars, our bodies, birds, dinosaurs... a lot of stuff, right?
So, he divided up each of the main subjects even further. Books within the 500's are organized like this:
| 510 - Math |  |
| 520 - Astronomy | |
| 530 - Physics | |
| 540 - Chemistry | |
| 550 - Earth sciences | |
| 560 - Paleontology | |
| 570 - Life sciences | |
| 580 - Plants | |
| 590 - Animals |
Where does Oliver fit in? You're right, he's under 590 - Animals. But there are a lot of other things that fit in that subject, too. So, we need to get even more specific - like this:
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590 - Zoological sciences |
| 591 - Zoology | |
| 592 - Invertebrates | |
| 593 - Protozoa, Echinodermata, related phyla | |
| 594 - Mollusca & Molluscoidea | |
| 595 - Other invertebrates | |
| 596 - Vertebrates | |
| 597 - Cold-blooded vertebrates and Fishes | |
| 598 - Birds | |
| 599 - Mammals |
Do you notice what's happening with the numbers? First, we started with 500 - Natural Science & Mathematics. Then, we narrowed down a bit by going into 590 - Animals. Now, to find Oliver, we need to look at in 598 - Birds.
We keep building our number as we go along. This number is called the book's Call Number. It can be found on a sticker on the spine of the book. That's how you find books on the shelves. Each book has a call number, and all books with similar call numbers will be about the same subject. Neat, huh?
But you're still not satisfied? You want to narrow down even further, to find the books about Oliver? Okay, but we've run out of numbers, haven't we? No - now we go to decimal numbers (that's why they call it the Dewey Decimal System). To find books about owls, you would look for books around 598.9. That's easy, isn't it?
If you would like to learn more about the Dewey Decimal System, or see what numbers represent other subjects, ask Ms. Driscoll, or take a look at a big list of Dewey numbers.