Dewey or Don't We?

After working as an undergraduate in a college library for four years, I never could understand why when our whole library was organized by Library of Congress Classification, that our children's department was still organized using the Dewey Decimal Classification. The entire section was constantly a mess and student workers struggled with both remembering how they were suppose to shelve this select group of books and identifying them for routing when they were returned by patrons. I spent two solid weeks of one summer inventory reorganizing the entire section just to get everything placed in the correct order. I hated Dewey that summer. I hated him a lot.

After learning a little bit more about Dewey and the development of the system, I have to admit that the tension between us has eased, although I still dislike the system overall. From reading Weinberger's chapter "The Geography of Knowledge," I have learned that Dewey was a considerably eccentric man with a vision that for library organization that sincerely changed the way library systems were run before the turn of the 20th century. That being said, it is time that we move on from Dewey's system and move toward one that is more relevant and versatile for our Digital Age and exponentially growing wealth of information.

In the year 2010, over 300,000 books were published in the United States alone, just as eReaders were really coming into the public market with Barnes & Noble and Borders. Considering the growth of digitization technology and successful adoption of eReader technology and self-publishing software that number has had no alternative than to keep rising. In Dewey's day, so much of what we know about the world now was simply unimaginable and as such impossible to make space for in such a finite system. While Dewey loved his decimals, there is no way for the system to keep up with the rapid changes in all spheres of our fast-paced, technological society. For instance, in the fall of 2010, when I briefly worked for Barnes & Noble, entire sections of the carefully planned store system were entirely overhauled to make space for the new budding genre of teen book, "Paranormal Romance," a section of the store which took up nearly 1/3 of the entire "Teen" section (and is now the third genre listing of the teen favorites). There is simply no way to plan for the changes in popular culture using second order organization.

I'm not really sure what the future will hold for the organization of physical books. Stores and libraries utilize different systems, and it seems that the struggle to maintain organized stock is losing the battle against the desire to browse in book stores. I just remember everything shifting constantly between new displays, new end-caps, new tables, new promotions, new books... it was all constantly in motion. For libraries at least, I feel the influx of new materials is more calculated than on the selling floor, but between weeding out obsolete materials and trying to find places to fit new ones into the system the troubles will eventually have to be faced.

Whatever the next step may be, I do believe that the decision-making process should be conducted by a cross-sectional group representing a diverse group of library professionals. The group needs to attempt to formulate a plan or system that will work within the mindset of third order organization and be relevant for as long as possible. Whatever memory palace develops, I am sure it will be something we have not seen before.

Like European free book exchanges:

Maybe the future of libraries is breaking down the established idea of what a library is...

Maybe with all of the digital media and electronic resources, libraries will sustain as a source of person-person interaction and sharing of information between librarians and the public, more like the human library project...

Or, maybe we will come to rely more heavily on digital resources and adopt the concept of digital kiosks for patrons to utilize.

One thing is certain, we can all start copying off of Amazon's notes.