Helping School Librarians Understand Dewey 300 Social Science

Posted on March 25, 2021 by Barbara Paciotti

If your school library collection is like mine, the 300 Social Sciences takes up large part of your Dewey area. What boggles the minds of students, teachers, and School Librarians alike is the mish-mash of disparate topics with an arrangement that doesn’t make much sense. Plus, the 300s seem to have many books that belong in other Dewey sections!

As a lover of the Dewey Decimal Classification system and a college major in the Social Sciences, I hope to help you understand this Dewey Class…and suggest some changes that might better serve your students and teachers.

THE METHOD OF ASSIGNING DEWEY NUMBERS

Remember that Dewey Decimal Numbers are assigned by discipline, that is, the field of study—the profession. How does that differ from subject?

Subject asks, “What is this about?” and is the topic of a book—the informational content inside.
Discipline asks, “Who is this for?”—who will use this—and assigns a Dewey number so those folks find their professional information in one place.

A particular subject, then, can be assigned more than one Dewey number depending on which profession uses the material for their own purposes. Here’s a DDC example of a simple water report that can apply to 5 different Dewey numbers:

Use 333.91 for monitoring to protect water quality, 553.7 for chemical & biological status, 363.6 for assuring compliance with standards, 628.1 for technical aspects of water treatment, and 628.93 for effectiveness of sewage treatment. (Abridged 15, p65.) [edited for brevity]

Also keep in mind that books for more than one discipline or subject are assigned the lowest Dewey Decimal number that includes all disciplines—using the rule of two or the rule of three. This explains why the 300 section is so large: its numbers are lower than 6 other Dewey Classes, so multiple subject/discipline books are placed in the 300s rather than where we might need them for our school curriculum.

Visit my blog posts on Dewey 590s Animals for more about disciplinary alignment, and Let’s Put Dewey Decimal Books Where Students Can Find Them for more on the rules of two & three.

WHAT DOES 300 SOCIAL SCIENCE REALLY INCLUDE?

Calling the 300s “social sciences” may be a slight misnomer: the social sciences include geography and history which Dewey places in the 900s, as well as psychology which Dewey places in the 100s. Thus, of the 7 social sciences, only sociology, anthropology, political science, and economics are in the 300s.

Since these four disciplines are about social relationships and the organization & function of human societies, I’ve chosen a more specific name for this Dewey number which students understand better than the generic “Social Sciences”:

Dewey 300 – Society, Government, and Culture

Unfortunately, the materials for these 3 broad headings are not necessarily in contiguous divisions and sections, so here’s the 300 divisions each one encompasses:

Society: 300 Sociology & anthropology and 360 Social problems & services
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Government: 320 Political science, 330 Economics, 340 Law, and 350 Public administration & military science, and 380 Commerce, communications & transportation
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Culture: 370 Education & 390 Customs

NOTE: You probably won’t have any 310s in your school library because it’s just for statistical records.

SOCIETY

300 Sociology & anthropology
The 300s begin with society, specifically sociology & anthropology. If we consider psychology (the 100s) as the social science of the individual, then 300-307 is the social science of groups. It includes behaviors like bullying, gangs, prejudice & discrimination; interactions such as social change & civil disobedience; and relationships between individuals, groups, and communities. It does have one section important for School Librarians:

305 Groups of people introduces those used throughout the rest of the 300s by age, gender, social class, race, ethnicity/ancestry, occupation, and illness/disability. School Librarians need to build this section with high-quality, equity-sensitive resources because it can so strongly influence the minds of our students.

360 Social problems & services
This division may be, I suspect, the one that gives School Librarians the most headaches. It’s categorized according to type of problem and how the service is provided:

for specific groups of people (according to the groups in 305),
as governmental services such as public safety, crime & punishment,
by public & private societies & clubs,
by commercial insurance services,
by associations.

Some books in this division are victims of the rules of two or three, such as substance abuse and mental & physical disorders. I relocated many of these to appropriate higher numbers for better student access.

363 Other social problems and services
If the 360s are problematic, this section is particularly exasperating for School Librarians. Like any “other” section of the 300s, it’s a dumping ground for disparate topics. To understand what’s covered in this section, think of it as the basic needs of Maslow’s Hierarchy: physical needs for human survival, and our need for safety & security.

363 begins with Public safety from hazards, followed by police services with crime investigation & forensics, and ‘safety’ from moral ‘problems’, like alcohol, gambling, prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, drug trafficking, and abortion. The public safety portion ends with another dumping ground—363.3 Other aspects of public safety which has just about everything else, from censorship to terrorism to gun control to firefighting.
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363.34 Disasters is actually disaster relief, and school libraries may have sizeable sections here on earthquakes & volcanos, floods & tsunamis, and other earth & weather-related disasters. I relocated many of these to 551 Earth science so they’d be together for science class assignments.
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363 ends with physical needs and the services that provide for it. This section includes housing, public utilities like water treatment, food supply issues including malnutrition of the poor & famine, and population issues like family planning & birth control, sterilization, and over-population.
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363.7 Environmental problems is another perplexing spot, because so many popular school topics about environmental protection are crammed in here. I added additional numbers (below) to better define the different topics:

Description	Dewey number
Environmental problems	363.7
Sanitation – waste control, recycling	.72
Pollution	.73
By source – oil, toxic chemicals, acid rain	.738
Of specific environments – air, water, soil Global warming from CO2 (greenhouse effect) & ozone layer depletion (You may find ozone books in .738 due to the rule of 2 regarding refrigerants, but I moved mine here because it’s a global issue of the atmosphere.	.739
Noise pollution	.74

GOVERNMENT

It’s no surprise that 320 Political science, 340 Law, and 350 Public administration & military science align with the 3 branches of U.S. government. (Be aware that other countries may not have this structure, but most of those books are in the 900 section. )

320 Political science includes civil & human rights, the political process & elections, relations between nations, and the legislative process, hence, books about the U.S. Congress.
340 Law covers international, constitutional, regional/state, economic, criminal, and civil law, and includes the United Nations, the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
350 Public administration covers the executive branch—the U.S. Presidency, the Cabinet, and management of departments or agencies such as national security, justice, foreign affairs, health & education, and those with economic or environmental oversight. 355-359 military science covers all branches of the military, which is administered by the head of state.

MAKING THE 300’S MORE STUDENT-FRIENDLY

330 Economics
Economics is probably nestled between 320 and 340, because legislatures (320) set taxes and budgets. This division also includes careers, money, banking, credit cards, the stock market, and taxes. (You may also see books on socialism & communism because they are economic-based systems, but I prefer all books on types of government together, so I relocated mine to 321.)

School Librarians need to know that 330 also covers economic development and management including that of natural resources, so that’s why we find a sizable group of books in 333.7-333.9. I actually added decimals to my books to differentiate between the different topics, according to the table below:

Description	Dewey number
Economics of land & energy	333
Land, recreational & wilderness areas, energy	333.7
Conservation & protection	.72
Land	.73
Grasslands	.74
Forest lands	.75
Rural lands	.76
Urban lands	.77
Recreational & wilderness areas	.78
Energy – alternative, renewable	.79
Primary forms of energy – solar, nuclear	.792
Secondary forms of energy – renewable	.793
Photovoltaic energy	.796
Subsurface resources – nonrenewable	333.8
Fossil fuels	.82
Geothermal	.88
Other natural resources	333.9
Water energy – hydroelectric	.91
Wind energy	.92
Biofuels, biodiversity, wildlife refuges	.95

380 COMMERCE, COMMUNICATIONS, TRANSPORTATION
This division may seem redundant with topics in 330 Economics; however, this division is for regulatory aspects (law & public administration) and public consumption—the socio-cultural perspective of ‘products’ & ‘people’, that is, services that sustain or benefit our way of life. Here we find:

domestic & international trade
the infrastructure for communications—postal, telegraph, computer, wireless (radio, television, satellite), and telephone
the infrastructure for transportation, including railroads, waterways, air traffic, roads, local mass transit, and pipeline transport of utilities.

You may see here books that are topical with those in the 600s, and they may get increased circulation by relocating them there.

CULTURE

Near the end of the 300s we find the two divisions relating to culture and it’s institutions.

370 Education
Education is how our culture and traditions are passed down from adults to children. Most books with this division number will be about teaching, so will be shelved in our Professional collection. You may, however, want to do as I did, and build a circulating group of books on schools for the historical time periods our students study in their social studies classes, and books on study skills topics.

390 Customs, etiquette, folklore
This is the division we probably think of when we refer to “culture”. It differs from 300 Sociology & anthropology in that 300 is about groups & institutions, whereas this division is about our personal or informal way of life. We find here sections on personal adornment such as clothing & accessories, cosmetics, jewelry, and body alteration like tattoos and body piercing.

We also find sections on customs for home & family life, death, and special occasions, like marriage, festivals, birthdays, and holidays. Interestingly, it’s also where we find such arcane topics as cannibalism and taboos. The topics may seem similar to 306 Culture and institutions, but 306 is about behaviors and interactions, whereas these sections are for specific celebratory rituals.

398 Folklore, especially 398.2 Folk literature can be a sizable section in school libraries, and if yours is not well organized, you might want to read my post Let’s Put Dewey Decimal Books Where Students Can Find Them. I offer alternate numbers to group these books according to how our students study folklore.
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At 398.8 Rhymes and rhyming games we find Mother Goose and other nursery rhymes, as well as lullabies and jump rope rhymes. If your school library serves PreK, you may want to build this section and relocate related books from other areas to make it easier for you and your teachers to find them all together.

WHEN THE 300’s ISN’T THE RIGHT PLACE

Many School Librarians get frustrated with the Dewey Decimal Classification system and want to “genrify” it like we do our fiction literature. I believe this is because they don’t understand the purpose of DDC:

“works that are used together to be found together.”

It’s that purpose of DDC which gives us the freedom to change a Dewey number. Since our disciplinary use is different than career professionals, we can locate books where they will better serve the needs of our school curriculum.

For example, one DDC rule of two/three victim is U.S. slavery before the Civil War. Books on this subject can be found at 2 places in the 300s:

306.3 Culture/economic institutions if the content is slavery as an established socio-economic culture of the time.
326 Slavery and emancipation if the content is about abolitionism and antislavery movements, the political issues of that time period.

I didn’t like either location, so I changed all these books to a little-used but legitimate DDC number where students would find the books within the historical time period:

973.71 Civil War – Social, political, economic history

This number already includes the Underground Railroad and the Emancipation Proclamation, so now all U.S. slavery books are together. After relocating the books, students easily discovered them there and even thought I’d bought new ones!

So, School Librarians don’t have to give up Dewey for radical organizational changes to make their school library more student-friendly. For additional creative ways to use DDC, get my new E-book How to Make Dewey Decimals Student-Friendly found at No Sweat Library, my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

School Librarians: Show Teachers Their National Standards Require Student Research

Posted on October 17, 2020 by Barbara Paciotti

School Librarians are excited when a research assignment brings classes to the library. For me, it was my love for helping students do research—finding and using information–that drew me to pursue my graduate degree in Library Science. Teaching research skills is my raison d’être.

When I began my middle school library position, few teachers did research with students, and of those, even fewer gave me the latitude to fully engage students in the research process. As I developed collaborative partnerships, Research Library Lessons—short introductions up through week-long units—became my trademark skill set, and after several years nearly every subject area teacher had some sort of research assignment with me, even PhysEd!

Then 2010 brought Common Core College- and Career-Readiness Standards and high-stakes testing. Our state had given standardized state tests since the early 90s, but with CC-CCRS came the pressure of teacher accountability in a way not seen before.

Suddenly, teachers abandoned research assignments en masse. In the next few years I was able to recapture some research partnerships, but my biggest disappointment when I retired was how short-changed our students would be in their future pursuits because they didn’t know how to do proper research.

COMMON CORE ELA STANDARDS REQUIRE RESEARCH

Recently I discovered a 2014 blog article by Dave Stuart Jr, a Michigan educator well-known for his expertise in Common Core. In his post, New Thoughts on the Non-Freaked Out Approach to Common Core Literacy, Dave lists 8 CCSS “anchors that deal with research-related skills.” I have his permission to list them here:

R.CCR.7: Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
R.CCR.8: Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
R.CCR.9: Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.
W.CCR.7: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
W.CCR.8: Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.
W.CCR.9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
SL.CCR.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
SL.CCR.5: Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.

Note that 2 writing standards use the term research and a 3rd writing standard outlines the same Information Literacy skills that the American Library Association promotes in its Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights:

School librarians work closely with teachers to integrate instructional activities in classroom units designed to equip students to locate, evaluate, and use a broad range of ideas effectively.

OTHER SUBJECT STANDARDS ALSO REQUIRE RESEARCH

Fascinated by Dave’s analysis, I looked at Common Core Literacy Standards for History/Social Studies and for Science & Technical Subjects. For middle schoolers I found 7 more “anchors that deal with research-related skills” including 3 listed under the specific heading Research to Build and Present Knowledge:

R.LHSS.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
R.LSTS.8: Distinguish among facts, reasoned judgment based on research findings, and speculation in a text.
W.LHSS8.1a: Introduce claim(s) about a topic or issue, acknowledge and distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
W.LHSS.1b: Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant, accurate data and evidence that demonstrate an understanding of the topic or text, using credible sources.
W. LHSSST.7: Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.
W.LHSSST.8: Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
W.LHSSST.9: Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis reflection, and research.

Curious, I browsed the C3 Framework for Social Studies Standards and found this statement on page 17:

The C3 Framework offers guidance and support for rigorous student learning. That guidance and support takes form in an Inquiry Arc—a set of interlocking and mutually reinforcing ideas that feature the four Dimensions of informed inquiry in social studies: 1 Developing questions and planning inquiries; 2 Applying disciplinary concepts and tools; 3 Evaluating sources and using evidence; and 4 Communicating conclusions and taking informed action.

You can see that 3 of their 4 Dimensions deal with student Information Literacy skills, and within those 3 Dimensions, I found 9 Standards which specifically address student research or information literacy skills:

D1.2.6-8. Explain points of agreement experts have about interpretations and applications of disciplinary concepts and ideas associated with a compelling question.
D1.3.6-8. Explain points of agreement experts have about interpretations and applications of disciplinary concepts and ideas associated with a supporting question.
D1.5.6-8. Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration multiple points of views represented in the sources.
D3.1.6-8. Gather relevant information from multiple sources while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection.
D3.2.6-8. Evaluate the credibility of a source by determining its relevance and intended use.
D3.3.6-8. Identify evidence that draws information from multiple sources to support claims, noting evidentiary limitations.
D4.1.6-8. Construct arguments using claims and evidence from multiple sources, while acknowledging the strengths and limitations of the arguments.
D4.3.6-8. Present adaptations of arguments and explanations on topics of interest to others to reach audiences and venues outside the classroom using print and oral technologies (e.g., posters, essays, letters, debates, speeches, reports, and maps) and digital technologies (e.g., Internet, social media, and digital documentary).
D4.4.6-8. Critique arguments for credibility.

In addition, Table 4 on page 20 shows how Dimensions connect to Common CoreELA/Literacy in History/Social Studies Standards, where I count 27 CCSS Standards to which the C3 Framework Dimensions connect:

More curious than ever, I searched the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). It’s a complex document, but a quick view of its Disciplinary Standards shows that 8 Standards address inquiry & research skills or align with the four CCSS Standards listed above for Science & Technical Subjects:

MS-PS1-3: Gather and make sense of information to describe that synthetic materials come from natural resources and impact society.
MS-PS1-6: Undertake a design project to construct, test, and modify a device that either releases or absorbs thermal energy by chemical processes.
MS-PS3-3: Apply scientific principles to design, construct, and test a device that either minimizes or maximizes thermal energy transfer.
MS-PS4-3: Integrate qualitative scientific and technical information to support the claim that digitized signals are a more reliable way to encode and transmit information than analog signals.
MS-LS4-5: Gather and synthesize information about the technologies that have changed the way humans influence the inheritance of desired traits in organisms.
MS-ESS2-2: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth’s surface at varying time and spatial scales.
MS-ESS3-1: Construct a scientific explanation based on evidence for how the uneven distributions of Earth’s mineral, energy, and groundwater resources are the result of past and current geoscience processes.
MS-ESS3-5: Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.

I was on a roll…so I scanned Common Core College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Math, and even there, under Statistics and Probability, I found “Develop understanding of statistical variability,” with 2 standards related to research:

Mathematical Practices: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
- M6.SP.1: Recognize a statistical question as one that anticipates variability in the data related to the question and accounts for it in the answers.
- M6.SP.5b: Summarize numerical data sets in relation to their context, such as by describing the nature of the attribute under investigation, including how it was measured and its units of measurement.

Now I was really intrigued, so I explored the National Core Arts Standards for Media Arts, Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts, where I found 8 standards related to research:

MA6.Cn10.1a: Access, evaluate, and use internal and external resources to create media artworks, such as knowledge, experiences, interests, and research.
MA6.Cn11.1a: Research and show how media artworks and ideas relate to personal life, and social, community, and cultural situations, such as personal identity, history, and entertainment.
MA6.Cn11.1b: Analyze and interact appropriately with media arts tools and environments, considering fair use and copyright, ethics, and media literacy.
MU.Pr4.1.6: Apply teacher-provided criteria for selecting music to perform for a specific purpose and/or context, and explain why each was chosen.
MU.Pr4.1.7: Apply collaboratively-developed criteria for selecting music of contrasting styles for a program with a specific purpose and/or context and, after discussion, identify expressive qualities, technical challenges, and reasons for choices.
MU.Pr4.1.8: Apply personally-developed criteria for selecting music of contrasting styles for a program with a specific purpose and/or context and explain expressive qualities, technical challenges, and reasons for choices.
(I’ve added these 3 Music Standards to my blog post for a performing arts make-up research assignment.)
VA.Crt1.2.6: Formulate an artistic investigation of personally relevant content for creating art.
TH.Cn11.2.6b: Investigate the time period and place of a drama/theatre work to better understand performance and design choices.

Finally I checked the Career & Technical Education Core, where I found 4 standards related to research:

CCTC.AG.1: Analyze how issues, trends, technologies and public policies impact systems in the Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources Career Cluster.
CCTC.AG-ANI1: Analyze historic and current trends impacting the animal systems industry.
CCTC.AC.4: Evaluate the nature and scope of the Architecture & Construction Career Cluster and the role of architecture and construction in society and the economy.
CCTC.AC-DES.1: Justify design solutions through the use of research documentation and analysis of data.

PROMOTE RESEARCH ASSIGNMENTS WITH EVERY TEACHER

Perhaps you are as surprised as I am to find no less than 46 National Standards for middle school subjects that either require or align with students doing research. And that doesn’t count the 27 that connect C3 & CCSS. The conclusion is inescapable: in order to comply with all of the National Standards, students need a research assignment within every content area class! School Librarians to the rescue!

To help you approach teachers for collaborative Library Lessons, here’s a printable PDF document listing the above National Standards. Click this link to download the FREE document National Standards Requiring or Aligned with Student Research Assignments.
(It’s also available on my FREE Librarian Resources page.)

It is imperative that we School Librarians design a variety of lessons for research assignments, in order to appeal to every teacher in our building. I’ve given an overview of how I do some of these lessons in my blog post about Information Literacy, one of the 5 Essential Literacies for students.

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