Posted on 09/28/2024 9:07:51 AM PDT by DallasBiff
I was vilified for criticizing the Dewey Decimal system. We librarians need to stop perpetuating its systemic racism in our libraries.
Almost a decade ago, my colleagues and I wrote an article for SLJ entitled “Are Dewey’s Days Numbered?” in which we made the argument that the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system had lost its relevance. We took a bold stance, and the backlash was swift. Fellow librarians would wait outside the rooms I was speaking in at conferences, backing me into corners to demand that I stop talking about alternative systems.
(Excerpt) Read more at slj.com ...
Who else would not just allow but promote travesties like Drag Queen Story Hours?
1) The Dewey decimal system is already limited only to community libraries; university libraries use an entirely unrelated system
2) All biographies in a single number? All of mammalian biology in a single number?
3) Literature split up according to language and genre, with English divided into American and British?
You are precisely correct. I would think having all the books available via computer with the hard copies in a library that you can access would be best.
...like the blank stares of an adult trying to operate a smart phone
Adults laughed off how they'd have the kids figure out the television remote, how to work the VCR and then the DVD player, and how to work a computer. Instead of being the adult, they wanted to be the child.
Gen Z wasn't raised by adults.
Over time they embraced all the new technology for cataloging and checking out books, but there were greater changes. The Dewey Decimal Class 900 section changed rather quickly from History and Geography to almost exclusively Oppressed Minority Grievance. Other sections experienced similar changes.
There were changes in how the library is used. Upstairs is the kids floor. Most of the activity seems to be organized little tykes. When searching for books for grandchildren, I see very few kids actually browsing the rows for books.
Downstairs activity goes as follows: the tables and chairs around the perimeter are used by Asian kids with laptop computers, immersed in school work, availing themselves of the free WiFi. In the center is large block of desktop computers. That is where mostly blacks and Hispanics sit, browsing social media.
The actual rows of books? Crickets.
Thought Google had a corporate goal of scanning ‘everything’.
...how would they know where to find ‘everything’? Google it??...
Not everyone has or can afford an online connection. In fact libraries were once for people where are on a tight budget.
As libraries and book stores shift over to e-books the people who can not afford to shell out a hundred bucks a month for a good connection and two hundred for an e-reader are being shoved to the side.
It used to be that you could go to a used store and pick up ten or so books for your child to read or for you to read. You could then loan or give them to friends for them to enjoy. With e-books that does not happen.
We are now in the era of the "book gap". People who have been given a subpar education will no longer be able to advance on their own because the e-books are out of their reach.
They will not be able to teach their children at home.
Yeah I know, if they are not middle class they are all lazy drug addicts who need to just go die in a ditch somewhere.
The American Library Association is a Marxist organization. Dewey’s system is genius though. I spent countless hours of research at the card catalog in school.
Libraries have always been staffed by, shall we say, ‘eccentric’ people. Some of them are very interesting people, some can be pretty weird.
When I got to University and discovered the precision of the LoC system, I thought (and still do) that it was a disservice to youths to use DD in schools.
Babas is an ass, however, for playing the race card rather than arguing for the superiority of LoC.
I like that one.
From Wiki:
"Despite its widespread use, the classification has been criticized for its complexity and its limited capability for amendment. In particular, the arrangement of subheadings has been described as archaic and biased towards an Anglo-American world view.[48][49] This is particularly clear in the 800s section, in which most literature, particularly from outside the United States or Europe, is relegated to the 890s particularly when contrasted with the 900s—history."
So, it is complex -> difficult to understand -> not suited for minorities(?) -> racist.
Then it is biased towards the old white man stuff -> racist.
Seems pretty clear to me. Racist. 🙄
https://www.history.com/news/the-father-of-modern-libraries-was-a-serial-sexual-harasser
Early Google right there!
Dewey was a true Liberal (not conservative). The Decimal system is NOT difficult at all to understand and find books on the shelves of libraries.
The people complaining about this as racist are the usual non-English speaking, math challenged (can’t understand the decimal system... for one damn thing. Incredible. You know things like 2.5 means 2 and one half. .5 = 5/10ths etc. Dumb as a rock iow.).
But then they are likely only checking out cartoon page books for ‘reading’. Not works of science or academics of any stripe.
It reminds me of keyboards. You might argue that it makes more sense to put the letters on keyboards in a different configuration, now that computers have replaced typewriters, but people have been using QWERTY for so long that it makes no sense to change the layout.
I’m open to the idea that Library of Congress or some other system makes more sense to experts and specialists, but most of the time, in smaller libraries, it’s easy to remember that 100 is philosophy, 200 is religion, 400 is language, 800 is literature and 900 is history and just head for that section of the library. Once there, it’s not impossible to find what you are looking for, and you’ll see other interesting books along the way.
Replacing Dewey at this point could make people lost in libraries and likely to avoid them. Possibly that is the idea: more free time for librarians (after all the books have been recatalogued and the overtime has been paid), fewer opportunities to learn things that the regime doesn’t want you to learn. Eventually, when the regime has fully consolidated its power Dewey Decimal will be replaced, but until then, don’t let them restrict your access to information.
I’ll continue to say that libraries have served their purpose and now need to be permanently SHUT DOWN. The Librarians are virtually all hate-filled Leftists who support Grooming. SHUT.THEM.DOWN
“Well, tarnation! In other words, he is the perfect 2024 Democrat. So the Dems should love the guy and make him the Dean of Columbia University.”
Ilhan Omar endorses Dewey Decimal system!!
As a library user, I find it useful for finding the books I want. I look up the book in the card catalogue, then go to the stacks to get it. I have never thought about the system excluding or marginalizing any book, and I would bet that the average library user hasn’t either. If a book is in the library’s collection, which means some librarian made the decision to buy it, it will be in the stacks with a number on it, and can be conveniently located.
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