[Web4lib] Innovation: NYT article on Dewey-less Arizona publiclibrary

[Brian Gray]

Thanks for the link.

I cannot wait to see what public response is over time.

It seems to be setup well for general topical browsing, which is the
common way in book stores.

It seems to provide more steps for research thought, but will still
work overall. Why the emphasis has now been removed from Dewey
knowledge by the patrons, sounds like a higher effort will need to be
put into using the OPAC for research tasks.

Brian Gray
mindspiral at gmail.com

On 7/15/07, Lynn Reynish <lreynish at reginalibrary.ca> wrote:
> They are using BISAC headings (which is what bookstores use). At the moment, they are only using the 50 top-level categories. The books have the BISAC category printed on the spine and are shelved by category and then by title. It is also interesting to note that they have chosen to interfile their juvenile, YA and adult non-fiction (not sure about fiction).
>
> Jeff Scott (a manager at another Arizona library) recently went on a tour of this branch and he gives an even-handed discussion of their labelling decision and the other things they are trying out. See his post at:
>
> http://gathernodust.blogspot.com/2007/07/doing-it-without-dewey-perry-branch.html
>
> I personally prefer LC as a classification scheme (despite working in a public library). No matter what classification scheme you use, you will always have people that can find things just fine and you will always have people who need assistance.