In response to Darlene Price's post about the Deweyless Perry Branch in the
Maricopa County Library District, Arizona - I had the privilege of hearing Marshall
Shore, who was instrumental in designing and implementing this concept of "no
Dewey", speak last March at the Louisiana Library Association's annual conference.
I couldn't imagine doing away with Dewey in our libraries and was eager to hear
what he had to say. Marshall did explain and did answer many of my questions about
how in the world would you and could you do this. Of course, he is in a public
library setting and I am in a school library setting, I thought to
myself....wouldn't work at my school, I thought, even though this public library is
in joint use with a local school. However, as the next few months rolled along at
school, I kept thinking about some of the points he made and about his vision of
what a library should be for its patrons.
To digress a moment....I have tried reorganizing some of the library. Back in 2004
I reorganized all of the fiction collection at my middle school library by genre.
Long story short - it was one of the best things I have done in my library in many
years. Circulation of fiction over the next year tripled. There was and is a
better way, at least at my school, for arranging the fiction collection.
Last spring as I was shifting books and doing some rearranging I kept looking at
all the shelves of nonfiction, most of which are untouched by students and
teachers. (Remember - they want to find all their answers on the Internet, right?)
I have each shelf labeled by Dewey numbers which everyone should be able to follow
and understand because of all the wonderful lessons I do about using Dewey. As I
walked around the shelves I also got to thinking (again) about the 5 or 6 books
about mummies that are in the 300s and how my sixth graders who found the Ancient
Egypt section in the 900s probably missed finding these mummy books. So I took the
mummy books in the 300s and recataloged them for the 900s. I then started to
recall the system used by the Arizona Deweyless library - the Book Industry Study
Groups (BISG)Subject system that is based on 50 categories each of which are
divided into several sub-categories. Suddenly I had this epiphany that there might
actually be something better than Dewey. Gasp!! And that this sytem or a similar
system might even work in a school library setting. Double Gasp!!!!
So what have I done? Well, I have not done away with Dewey in my school library,
but I have gone through all the nonfiction shelves and grouped books by major
subject categories and my assistant has created labels, lots of labels like Stars,
Planets, Race Cars, Photography, Magic, Dinosaurs, Fashion, etc for all the
shelves. I still have a Dewey label at the beginning of each shelf but we also have
LOTS of subject labels too. I have bought more bookends and have separated the
different subjects on the shelves. I'm still thinking about all this, but I have
decided (and am determined) to do something different this coming year to help my
students connect with these books in the nonfiction collection. Separating books on
the shelves and highlighting subjects (popular ones as well as curriculum ones) is
it for now. I already have plans for showcasing and merchandising this altered
arrangment when school starts. Is there maybe a better way than Dewey in my school
library - I'm still not sure, but maybe there is. But I am going to do something
different, because, the times they are a changing. Some of you are probably
already using lots of subject labels in nonfiction, maybe even separating the books
on the shelf. Anyone else reconsidering Dewey in their school library?? I'll
look forward to hearing your comments.
Elizabeth P. Dumas
Library Media Specialist
Good Hope Middle School
400 Good Hope Road
West Monroe, LA 71291
Phone: 318 396-9693
FAX: 318 397-5110
WiKi for the Louisiana Association of School Librarians
http://lasl2.wikispaces.com/
Get Johnny Reading Blog
http://getjohnnyreading.blogspot.com/
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