Dewey Decimal System for Kids

Have you ever been to the library and wondered how they keep track of all those books? Well, the library has a system called the Dewey Decimal System and it helps organize all those books.

December 10th is Dewey Decimal System Day!

Have you wondered why the non-fiction books in the West Springfield Public Library, our school library, and other libraries are arranged on the shelves the way they are? What do all those numbers on the books’ spines (call numbers) mean? The Dewey Decimal System is a way to put books in order by subject. It is often used in public libraries and schools in the United States and other countries. It places the books on the shelf by subject using numbers from 000 to 999. It is called "decimal" because it uses numbers to the right of the decimal point for more detail. Each subject has its own group of numbers. The system was created by Melvil Dewey, born on December 10th, 1851.

The Dewey Decimal System organizes information by grouping books about the same subject together. From the general to the specific, a book’s subject is represented by a series of numbers between 000 and 999. These numbers are used to create the spine codes, known as “call numbers,” for each item.

000 – Computer science, information, and general works
100 – Philosophy and psychology
200 – Religion
300 – Social sciences
400 – Language
500 – Science
600 – Technology
700 – Arts and recreation
800 – Literature
900 – History and geography

From a young age, Melvil Dewey focused on organization, simplification, and efficiency. Born as "Melville", he actually removed letters from his name he found unnecessary, becoming Melvil, which he believed was more efficient! He applied his vision for a more organized and efficient world at the Amherst College library, when he was given the job of reclassifying their books while working there as a student assistant at the age of 21. He developed his classification system, the Dewey Decimal System!

https://www.nationaldaystoday.com/decimal-dewey-system-day/

Visit a library and explore using the Dewey Decimal System!

Introduction to the Dewey Decimal Sysytem

https://sixthformstudyskills.ncl.ac.uk/libraries/overview-the-dewey-decimal-system/

https://portolalibraryandmedia.weebly.com/dewey-decimal-system.html

History Behind the Dewey Decimal System:

The Dewey Decimal System is the most widely used classification system in the world. Over 135 countries around the globe use the Dewey Decimal, and it has been translated into 30 different languages. But, before the Dewey Decimal System, each library had its own way of organizing items. It was often difficult for people to find specific books in libraries. Library visitors would have to rely on the librarian to know where each item was shelved, and this was the same story when visitors would visit a new library. They would have to find out how to use a different system for each library they visited!

What is the Dewey Decimal System?

The Dewey Decimal System was created by Melvil Dewey in the 1800's. He was a library guy and was hired by a library in Massachusetts to run their library. However, he ran into a problem. While fiction books were easy to organize based on the author's last name, non-fiction books, books that are based on real facts, events or people, couldn't work the same way. Think about trying to look for a book about trees by author! It would be impossible, especially since many non-fiction authors and publishers write about multiple topics.

He came up with a system of organizing the non-fiction books by dividing them into categories and organizing the categories and books based on numbers between 000 - 999. Each book has at least a three-digit number and the numbers are then put on the spine of the book so that you can easily see them when looking at books on the shelves. He called it the Dewey Decimal System, obviously named after himself.

The Dewey Decimal System is a system that is now used in libraries all over the world to organize books by subject. It is called "decimal" because it uses numbers to the right of the decimal point for more detail.

Dorothy Louise Porter Wesley (May 25, 1905 – December 17, 1995) was a librarian, bibliographer and curator, who built the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University into a world-class research collection. She was the first African American to receive a library science degree from Columbia University. Porter published numerous bibliographies on African-American history. When she realized that the Dewey Decimal System had only two classification numbers for African Americans, one for slavery and one for colonization, she created a new classification system that ordered books by genre and author.

All of the libraries that Porter consulted for guidance relied on the Dewey Decimal Classification. “Now in [that] system, they had one number—326—that meant slavery, and they had one other number—325, as I recall it—that meant colonization,” she explained in her oral history. In many “white libraries,” she continued, “every book, whether it was a book of poems by James Weldon Johnson, who everyone knew was a black poet, went under 325. And that was stupid to me.”

Consequently, instead of using the Dewey system, Porter classified works by genre and author to highlight the foundational role of black people in all subject areas, which she identified as art, anthropology, communications, demography, economics, education, geography, history, health, international relations, linguistics, literature, medicine, music, political science, sociology, sports, and religion.

How is the Dewey Decimal System Organized

Dewey made 10 categories into which all non-fiction books could be placed. He then gave each category a name based on the information presented in the books. The category of the book is represented by the first digit. Each category is further broken down into divisions, which are represented by the second digit, and each division is further broken down into sections, the third number of the three-digit system. Let's look at an example.

Let's say you are looking for a book on lions. The book would be under the main category of Natural Science (nature). The natural sciences fall in the 500 category. So 500-599 are all in the natural sciences section. Lions are animals, which are in the 590 division, and more specifically, lions are mammals, which are in the 599 section. Many libraries are sorted even further down than that. So 500 is natural sciences, 599 is mammals and lions have a decimal point of 7. So the lion books would be under 599.7. This very specific number helps a ton if you are in a very big library where there are hundreds of mammal books to look through.

000

General Knowledge

000

Computers

001

UFOs and the Unexplained

030

Encyclopedias and Books of Facts

092

Individual Biographies

100

Philosophy & Psychology

130

Ghosts

135

Dreams

200

Religions

220

Bible Stories

290

Mythology

300

Social Sciences

300

World Cultures

350

Military

(Tanks, Submarines)

390

Folk Tales and

Fairy Tales

400

Languages

410

Sign Language

420

Dictionaries

440

French

460

Spanish

490

Mandarin Chinese

500

Math & Science

500

Science Fair Projects

510

Math

520

Astronomy

(Stars & Planets)

530

Physics

540

Chemistry

550

Earth Sciences

(Volcanoes, Storms)

560

Dinosaurs

570

Habitats

580

Plants

595

Insects

597

Snakes, Lizards & Fish

598

Birds

599

Mammals

600

Technology

600

Inventions

610

Medical Science

620

Transportation

629

Space Exploration

636

Pets

641

Cooking

700

Art & Games

730

Sculpture & Origami

740

Arts & Crafts

759

Famous Artists

780

Music

790

Games

793

Magic Tricks

796

Sports

800

Literature

811

Poetry

812

Plays

815

Speeches

820

Shakespeare

900

History & Geography

910

Explorers & Pirates

912

Maps

920

Collective Biographies

930

Archeology

940

European History

973

US History

Melvil's Dewey System

https://msrosenreads.edublogs.org/tips-for-researching/library-organization/dewey-decimal-classification-system/10240-2/

Here are some videos about the Dewey Decimal System! (I can present these, as usually YouTube is blocked for students.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bV_sI8XQdI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lC4mlKcbmU

Race for the Book

This game is perfect for teaching the Dewey Decimal System because it gets kids up and moving. It’s like an academic relay! Here’s how you play: divide students into two or three teams. Give each student a call number of a book. Each student must find their book and bring it to the next person in line to verify it is the right book before the next student can go find his own book. Whichever team is quickest and retrieves the correct books win!

Dewey Scavenger Hunt

Make a library scavenger hunt to teach kids how to find books using the Dewey Decimal System. Here is how you can create this activity. Split the class into three or four groups. Give each team a set of instructions (try and give each team a different hunt, i.e. various books to find). In the first set of instructions lay out the rules of the hunt: no running, no yelling, finding the book for the next clue, etc. Each time the students locate the correct book, inside will be instructions for the next clue. Set out five clues and one final place to claim their prize. Whichever team completes the tasks wins!