Amidst the discussion of the advance of our society in a multitude of ways, recent progress has been made in regard to the way we are distributing and evaluating the world’s information. More so than ever before, the variety of ways we can locate and utilize a variety of resources puts an extreme amount of pressure on those who are responsible for organizing the world’s resources.
In contemporary society, arguments and debates in academia about how resources in the library setting should be organized have run rampant for years and many independent as well as established systems have been put into place that give patrons the tools to browse, borrow and utilize all that a library has to offer. However, the academic library has evolved over the decades into not only a tool of academic research. Libraries have become a location to meet people, discuss ideas, find and check out favorite fiction and biographical literature. Since there is an apparent change in the way a library is utilized by the general public and academia, should there be an inherent shift in the way we organize collections. Perhaps this question is better suited to be answered given some insight into a person and system that revolutionized library functionality.
Understanding Melvil Dewey and the Dewey Decimal System as strange as it may sound, may shed some light onto our own times and efforts to find our way through the clutter of information. Dewey was born into an age of reform in 1851 in up state New York, reform not only within the political bounds of our country but of the world. He found himself growing and learning in times that produced scientific, educational and religious changes. If we look deep enough, perhaps we can see that the nature of progress in his lifetime shaped him as he endless thirsted for knowledge and efficiency (Prescott, 2001, p. 50).
In another twist that mirrors our own society today and could explain our struggles with organizing resources, is that once Dewey reached Amherst College in 1871and began to work towards his ultimate goal of improving education his employment opportunity put him face to face with his ultimate destiny. Prescott (2001) indicates his impatience with his employment at the Amherst Library due to, “The inefficient way that books we catalogued and shelved (in the order acquired) bothered his orderly mind, and so with characteristic, he threw himself into studying the problem” (p. 51). As an individual who was extremely academic, proper research was not facilitated by this particular library and many of its day because books and resources were not categorized by the nature that academic institutions structured their curriculum.
Perhaps Dewey himself could see the usefulness of creating a system that would allow one to decide on their particular area of interest, locate the resource and information easily and perhaps expand the topic further due to the surrounding resources. The final product of his desire for efficiency became the Dewey Decimal System (DDC). As stated earlier, even though the DDC can serve libraries in many different settings, its ultimate purpose is to provide a means for library patrons at a variety of levels to find pertinent material and put it to a purposeful venture such as research. Stauffer (2008) remarks that by using an efficient system of decimals, “The primary purpose of DDC is to organize materials according to precise subject in a systematic arrangement from the general to the specific. Besides making it possible to easily locate a given item, such an arrangement supports browsing more effectively than arranging materials by the author’s last name within a broad general category because each book is related to those on either side by specific subject, not alphabetical accident” (p. 49). The gentle progression of decimals and efficient nature that materials are organized from broad to specific mirrors how research from elementary to university is structured. The DDC certainly serves this academic purpose and has for well over one hundred years. Furthermore, describing the specific background and purpose of Melvil Dewey’s system only highlights the issues contemporary society may have with the its institution in a majority of libraries. If the belief holds true that libraries should be structured to serve the needs of its patrons, what if their needs are not that of research but of simply finding a favorite novel and returning it weekly?
As I briefly delve into the principles behind the system and how it can be applied in a research setting I hope to make you understand that there are advantages and disadvantages to any system. Although the DDC can seem to be intimidating, perhaps we have moved away from our responsibility as educators, curators and compilers of these resources to instruct the next generation of researchers.
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