Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Remember Dewey?

Because of a new job I'm looking into, I started a 2-3 minute brush-up on the Dewey Decimal System. A few minutes, we all know this, who needs more, right? It didn't happen that way. Who knew it was this helpful? Who knew I would even care?

It's more organized than I remember learning about and of more use than I thought! Let's Do Dewey is a wonderful site that breaks it down simply but gave more details than I had known before. This information will be a great help finding what I need at the library; if bookstores are organized the same way as I know some are, this will be good to know. D doesn't care but I'm at least going to go over it with him, probably have him do the few "exercises" on the site. He doesn't need to remember it, just be aware.

Sometimes keyword searches don't give quite the results you want. Other times, you don't quite know the specifics you're looking for - that's why you're looking! This site did more than the usual posted signs in the library (which are definitely appreciated) that tell the 200's have religion and philosophy, the 600's are technology and applied sciences, etc.

Each of those hundreds divisions is divided into ten more, then each of those into ten. For example, from that site:
Start with 500s - the class for natural sciences - the first number of the call number will be 5. Ten divisions of this 500 class:
510 Mathematics
520 Astronomy
530 Physics
540 Chemistry
550 Earth Sciences
560 Paleontology
570 Life Sciences
580 Botanical Sciences
590 Zoological Sciences

It continues with the divisions of each of these divisions and gives some other information that can really come in handy. I had never HEARD of Cutter Numbers before finding this site.