[Web4lib] Innovation: NYT article on Dewey-less Arizonapubliclibrary

[K.G. Schneider]

I find two things interesting about this discussion:

1. How heavily librarians seem invested in proving that this post-Dewey
classification model won't work in most situations; like... who cares? If it
or some other model worked better than what we have, wouldn't we be happy
for everyone concerned? 

Furthermore, I keep hearing arguments of where it WON'T work. How about
where it might work well? Dewey doesn't work for Harvard, either... unless
I'm greatly mistaken. Other numbering schemes came about because we saw
problems with Dewey. 

How about working backwards from the premise that Dewey doesn't serve users
as well as we'd like, which is something we know already? 

2. How some folks got their shorts in a bunch because I said Dewey is an
inventory system. That doesn't make us clerks! We're kind of stuck with
something Dewey-esque (BISAC, Dewey, somewhere in between) due to the
limitations of print publications, but that is no reflection on the value we
bring to the larger information experience. It's just a blunt fact. 

I didn't take an oath of allegiance to Dewey or LC when I got my library
degree. I'm not a format queen, and I'm also not wedded to classification
models, either. That's not the baricenter of my professional worth.

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at freerangelibrarian.com