[Web4lib] RE: [lita-l] Innovation: NYT article on Dewey-lessArizona public library

[Jimm Wetherbee]

The experiment looks fascinating and very much like an extension that
most public libraries already employ of eschewing the 800s in Dewey.  I
do wonder about a few things of things.  Many public libraries label
literature under genre (mystery, science fiction, etc) rather create
sections for each because often enough books cross genres.  In the same
vein, where does on place a book on medical ethics--philosophy or
medicine?  Unless one purchases multiple volumes to cover each topic a
book may address, there is a fair chance that a patron would miss a
subject unless she went to the catalog first.

Also, libraries and bookstores stock books differently.  Even if a
bookstore has as many volumes as a typical branch library, it would
almost certainly have many fewer titles.  This would seem to make the
very broad categories used in bookstores less effective for browsing,
since one would have to pick through so many more titles in a given
category.

Finally, one problem with any classification scheme is that it is
designed to arrange topics in a way that relates them in the mind of a
potential user.  However, such relations are not fixed.  For instance,
Psychology is where it is because it use to be thought to be related to
epistemology, a philosophical discipline.  That connection is no longer
as intuitive as it once was.  The advantage of a system such as LC or
DCC is that they are sufficiently granular that one could, in theory,
remap a given range elsewhere.  I wonder whether Dewey is still lurking
underneath this particular system to assist librarian in the inevitable
need to break out certain categories and remix others.

--jimm