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A Place for Everything

A Classification and Subject Index, For ... (by Melvil Dewey)
Public Libraries in the United States of... Volume: 4 (by United States. Office of Education)
Decimal Classification and Relative Inde... (by Melvil Dewey)
Simplified Library school rules; card ca... (by Dewey, Melvil)

Prior to the late 1800s, the categorization of books in public and private libraries varied. A haphazard multitude of classifications, some systematic and others not even pretending to a semblance of order, made finding specific books difficult if not impossible. Librarians who intimately knew the contents of their libraries wielded immense power within their small fiefdoms, having the knowledge and power to help a patron find information… or not.

That power yielded to the library classification system developed by Melvil Dewey. The self-declared reformer developed his ideas for relative classification in 1873, while working at the Amherst College library. Using Arabic numerals instead of Roman numerals, the classification system imbued a flexible numbering system: to wit, Roman numerals don’t have decimal points. In 1876, Dewey published the first version of his classification system, A Classification and Subject Index, for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library. The first issue of the Library Journal mentioned his new classification system and Dewey published an article in the Office of Education publication “Public Libraries in America” that same year.

Dewey didn’t rest upon his laurels and solicited the advice of colleagues. He continued to refine the new library classification system and published subsequent editions, with his work culminating in Decimal Classification and Relative Index for Libraries and Personal Use in Arranjing for Immediate Reference, Books, Pamflets, Clippings, Pictures, Manuscript Notes, and other Material (1922). In total, fourteen editions were published.

The chief advantage of the Dewey Decimal System, as the patented library classification system came to be commonly called, lay in positioning books relative to other books on similar topics, rather than assigning specific titles a fixed position on the library shelves. In private libraries, fixed positioning caused few problems; however, the growth of public libraries following a uniquely American emphasis on education for all classes of people mandated a better way to accommodate new acquisitions into library catalogs and to allow library patrons to browse the stacks.

Dewey’s indices grew with the popularity of public libraries. The first edition at 44 pages long with a mere 2,000 index entries morphed to 1,243 pages by the sixth edition. Small libraries could not handle the heavy tomes, so Dewey introduced an abridged version of the expanded classification schedules in 1894. School libraries also had unique issues that Dewey subsequently addressed with yet another variation of his system: Simplified Library School Rules; Card Catalog, Accession, Book Numbers, Shelf Lists, Capitals, Punctuation, Abbreviations, Library Handwriting (1898). Of course, Dewey updated that book on a regular basis, too.

By 1930, the U.S. Library of Congress adopted Dewey’s library classification system and printed the Dewey Classification system numbers on nearly all of its cards, which helped to standardize the stacks for all libraries using the Library of Congress card sets.

By 1927, 97 percent of public libraries and 89 percent of college libraries in the United States had adopted Dewey’s classification system. After his death in 1931, Dewey’s system continued to expand and with subsequent editions developed and published.

Over a century later, Dewey’s system remains in use by modern libraries around the world.

By Karen M. Smith