School Librarians strive to create a student-friendly library. For me, this means minimizing the time it takes students to find what they need. Accordingly, I tell them to search the OPAC By Subject and the results will show them the Dewey number for the location of the books. Unfortunately, there’s nothing more frustrating to a student—or a teacher or a School Librarian—than getting a list with several widely different Dewey numbers.

Every one of us, at some point, wonders why one book has a Dewey Decimal Number that places it at a certain location, yet another book on the same topic has a completely different Dewey number placing it in an obscurely different location—sometimes at opposite ends of the library! Should we change the number on one of them? Which one is “correct”? What if there are several books at both—or multiple other—locations?

I am not a Dewey purist, so I say we can be flexible and change the Dewey Decimal Numbers: Let’s put those oddball Dewey books where students will find them!

IT’S OK TO CHANGE A DEWEY NUMBER

Keep in mind that the Dewey Decimal Classification System was designed to organize knowledge by discipline, that is, by the field of study of those who will use the information. Library of Congress catalogers use that principle when they assign Dewey numbers for Cataloging-in-Publication (CIP) data, and usually it works fine for our school libraries. But, sometimes, the Dewey number for adults working in a field isn’t compatible with the topical curricular needs of our PreK-12 students.

When our students look for books by subject or topic, they expect to find all of them together. I frequently change an oddball Dewey number to put a book where students will look for it. In fact, changing a Dewey number for student access actually fulfills the very purpose of Dewey Classification: “works that are used together to be found together.” For kids we can take some creative license and redo those Dewey Numbers if those books will be more accessible in another location.

I know there are arguments against changing Dewey numbers, but I believe they lack validity. Here’s my reasoning:

• Don’t worry about “the next librarian.” Who of us has memorized DDC numbers past the 10 main classes? The next librarian will be as concerned about student access as we are, and will be grateful that books are where everyone can more easily find them.
• Finding something in a different library? Who remembers the Dewey number of a particular book? A book search will tell them the location of any book in that library. So what if it’s different from ours as long as they can locate it.
• Even professional catalogers may disagree about where a book “belongs.” That’s straight from the cataloging professor when I took the course for my library degree!
• The most compelling argument for making changes is that LOC and OCLC continuously make changes to DDC to meet the changing needs of society. Each new publication of DDC and Abridged DDC has numerous pages of Dewey number additions, deletions, substitutions, and revisions that have been made since the previous publication. Sometimes they’ll change a whole section, like moving pets from the 500s to 600s or travel guides from the 600s to 900s. Dewey is meant to accommodate patron needs.

USEFUL MODIFICATIONS USING DEWEY NUMBERS

Many School Librarians aren’t aware of this, but for books that cover multiple subjects, the DDC follows the rule of two or rule of three. These rules have you assign books to the first, or lowest, Dewey Decimal Number that includes both/all disciplines. That explains why certain books are where they are…and especially why so many are in the 300s!

These 2 rules are particularly annoying when applied to computer books, typically assigned to 004 and 005 Computer science and software—as information topics. But, when our students are looking for books about computers, they’re thinking of the manufactured physical product. They often know that the 600s are Applied Science & Technology, so that’s where they look for it. I changed the DDC Number on our computer books to 621.3, and now they are checked out much more than they were as 000s.

Sometimes it makes sense to group books together in one Dewey class to make them all more accessible. A librarian’s recent LM_NET post asked about David Macaulay’s book “Unbuilding,” a fictional dismantling of the Empire State Building. It was classified in 690 Buildings, but she also had 3 books on the construction of the Empire State Building that were in 974.71, which is the number for the State of New York’s History.

Now, historians (and perhaps NY students) would expect to find a significant event like building the ESB in the history of New York State, but who else would? My middle school library had books on buildings (including several by Macaulay) scattered in 300s, 600s, 700s, 900s, even 000s (about libraries!). I changed them all to 690 Buildings where students would more logically find them, and within a few days the shelf was bare…boys saw them and couldn’t check them out fast enough!

HELPFUL ALTERNATE DEWEY NUMBERS

To make a Dewey section more useful for students we may need to make a more extensive alteration of Dewey numbers. One of the first changes I made resulted from an elementary librarian’s suggestion on LM_NET. Few of us have 398.2 Folk literature differentiated between fairy tales, legends, fables, myths, and tall tales, yet that’s how our students study them. There are already Dewey numbers that align with these literary types as a better way to organize folktales. After I made these changes, it rejuvenated my folktale section, and I’m sure they will do the same for you:

• Fairy tales=398.21 Paranatural beings of human/semihuman form
• Legends=398.22 Legendary or mythological persons
• Fables=398.24 Plants & animals, real & legendary
• Myths and creation stories=398.26 Physical phenomena
• Tall tales=398.27 Everyday human life, historical/quasi historical events
• Multicultural tales changed to 398.23 Places and times from 398.2089 to reduce 2 decimal numbers then add one back for continent of origin according to Table 2 Geographic areas.

Another unorganized mess is the 920 Collected biographies. A spine label with 920 and the author’s 3 letters is not user-friendly for anyone, especially not for kids. DDC offers an alternative called Option A, which uses numbers 921-928 to align with the main Dewey Classes! I used this Option to completely redo my 920s. Students loved the change and circulation of those biographies dramatically increased!

CREATIVE ADJUSTMENTS TO DEWEY

If your library is organized like mine was, Addictive Substances was problematic for students because it can apply to 3 different Dewey numbers—362.29, 613.8, and 616.86—depending on whether the book is about addiction as a social problem, as personal health & safety, or as a disease. To simplify access for students needing books about drugs, I decided to put all the books in 616.86 with the rest of the medical-related books.

The really confusing part is that for the same drugs, the additional decimals are wildly different. So, here’s the “creative” part:
after careful analysis, I decided to adjust some of the thousandths numbers to create a more consistent grouping of drugs for 616.86.
Students immediately noticed the larger drug section, thought I’d purchased new books, and circulation skyrocketed. Learn more about creative Dewey in my e-Book, available from my TPT store.

LOC and OCLC have begun to make DDC culturally responsive, but School Librarians must be especially responsive to the diversity of students we serve. DDC’s application of expansion numbers for racial, cultural, ethnic, and national groups is very inconsistent. In a search for something that could apply across all Dewey numbers, I found that Table 2 Geographic areas lists numbers for the continents that can be added as an identifier. It’s the familiar one added after 9 in the 900s. I decided to use them as “Continent of origin” for cultural and ethnic grouping, so I adjusted, and even created, numbers in various sections of the school library to overcome Dewey’s racial and cultural biases.

I applied this “Continent of origin” concept to books in three different areas: 305.8 Groups of people, 398.23 Multicultural folktales, and 920 Collected biographies. Going a step further, my biggest change was gathering books together to create two completely new sections in 973 U.S. History: 973.04 Multicultural U.S. History and 973.08 Multicultural America about which I’ve written before.

I made other significant changes to 973 U.S. History by removing all the State books except our own, because a) it’s the only one our middle school students study, and b) because more accurate information about states is available online. I kept many topically relevant books found among those state Dewey numbers, and moved them to a better Dewey section, such as putting books about 9-11 in 364.1 Criminal offenses where we have other terrorism books. I also redid the State Dewey numbers for several U.S. history books by putting them into the appropriate time period, like the original colonies and westward expansion.

ARE ALL THESE CHANGES WORTH IT?

You may be thinking, hey…this is way too much work! I admit, it takes some extra time up front, but you can just do a little bit at a time—not all of it at once. I typically pull out odd books I find while shelving, attach a stickie note with the new number, then make changes when I have a few minutes free at the circulation desk. For new books I may have to redo a few spine labels and cataloging for selected topics, but it doesn’t take that long.

Here are the greatest benefits for changing Dewey numbers:

• It’s easier for students to browse like-topic books, which excites them.
• It’s faster for students to find the books they need, which pleases teachers who seem to think students waste time looking for things in the library.
• It increases circulation, which satisfies our administrators who may think the library is just an add-on.

If changing Dewey Decimal numbers changes people’s minds about our School Library Program, then I believe it is totally worth it!

I hope this has convinced you to make changes to Dewey Decimal Numbers on some of your books so they are more accessible for students. Remember, there are no “Dewey Police” that will come into your library to check number assignments and lock you up for making Dewey changes. So let’s go ahead and DO IT: Our students will thank us, and that’s all the reason I need.

MAKE DEWEY EVEN EASIER WITH SIGNAGE

Even after making Dewey number changes, the best way to help kids locate books is better library signage. If you like the above examples of colorful labels I created for my Dewey shelves, you can get Dewey Subject Signs & Shelf Labels in my No Sweat Library store on TPT. Your students, like mine, will enjoy looking at your new signage and discovering topics within the library they hadn’t known about before!

Finally, the real key to helping students find books is teaching them how to locate a decimal number on the shelf. Teaching the DDC is a colossal waste of time. Work with your math teachers to create a hands-on lesson about place value and sequencing. To learn more about how to do this, read my blog post Do We Teach Dewey … or Don’t We? A School Library Lesson.