December 10th is known as Dewey Decimal Day in honor of Melvil Dewey, the creator of the Dewey Decimal library classification system. We celebrate him--and the system that he created--on his birthday (Happy 172nd Birthday, Mr. Dewey!). According to National Today, Dewey originally came up with this system at the young age of 21 (I couldn’t do that at 28), and it was officially published for the first time in 1876. Since then, most of the libraries here in the United States have used this system to classify books, and over 135 countries use it as well. It is the most widely used library classification system in the world. Crazy to think, right? So…if everyone is using it, we must all know how to find the books we want in the library, right? Yeah…not so much.
Though efficient in keeping things categorized and organized, the Dewey Decimal System can still be really confusing. Even most of the librarians I know don't have a complete knowledge of where and how to find things within it. We rely a lot on our handy dandy catalog to get us where we need to go. But after a while, you start to get a general idea of where most things - especially the most asked-for items - can be found.
For the broadest breakdown of the number system, here are what each category is by the hundreds:
000 - Computers Information & General Works
100 - Philosophy & Psychology
200 - Religion
300 - Social Sciences
400 - Language
500 - Science
600 - Technology
700 - Arts
800 - Literature
900 - History
From there, the more precise the number down to the decimal point, the narrower the information gets to a specific subject. For example, the 300s are the social sciences, but more specifically, the 398 area contains folklore and mythology books, and the 360s are true crime. The 800s are literature, but 811-812s are mostly poetry, and 814s are American Essays.
When looking for a book, you want to make sure that you write down the full call number. This includes the subject number and the first three letters of the author's last name.
For example, if you are looking for the book Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang, here is what you write down: 615.856 KAN.
600s -Technology
610s - Medicine & Health
615s - Pharmacology and Therapeutics
615.8 - Specific Therapies and Kinds of Therapies
KAN - for the author's last name, Kang.
We could go through all the numbers and their specific subjects, but that could take all day, and this post would be too long. For more information about Dewey number classification, check out this guide from Bridgewater College. Each number area is linked to a PDF about that specific subject number’s breakdown. It’s super helpful for understanding what the numbers mean when looking for materials.
Here is a list of my favorite books from each of the main number areas:
00s - Librarian Tales: Funny, Strange, and Inspiring Dispatches from the Stacks by William Ottens
CALL NUMBER: 025 OTT
100s - Ghostland: an American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey
CALL NUMBER: 133.109 DIC
200s - Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes
CALL NUMBER: 292.13 HAY
300s - Mythos by Stephen Fry
CALL NUMBER: 398.209 FRY
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
CALL NUMBER: 362.88 RUB
400s - Complete Greek: Learn to Read, Write, Speak and Understand Greek by Aristarhos Matsukas
CALL NUMBER: 489.383 MAT
Basic Korean: Learn to Speak Korean in 19 Easy Lessons by Soohee Kim
CALL NUMBER: 495.7 KIM
500s - The Secret Life of Fungi: Discoveries from a Hidden World by Aliya Whiteley
CALL NUMBER: 579.5 WHI
600s - Killer Plants: Growing and Caring for Flytraps, Pitcher Plants, and Other Deadly Flora by Molly Williams
CALL NUMBER: 635.933 WIL
700s - Bibliocraft: Using Library Resources to Jumpstart Creative Projects by Jessica Pigza
CALL NUMBER: 745.5 PIG
800s - Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by Kathryn Harkup
CALL NUMBER: 823.7 HAR
900s - When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney
CALL NUMBER: 932.01 COO
BIOG - Gold Dust Woman: the Biography of Stevie Nicks by Stephen Davis
CALL NUMBER: B NIC
*Note: Biographies are usually the first three of the book’s subject’s last name.
FICTION - The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
CALL NUMBER: F MIL
