Details about Ditching Dewey

Hi friends!

Are you thinking about ditching Dewey? I talked about it earlier this year, and I think about it every time I try to help a student find a non-fiction book, in a location that doesn't really make sense ("I know the soldier books are over there, honey. I don't know why the tank books are over here with the cars instead of with the soldiers.")

Here's a blog post from the Van Meter Library Voice that gives lots of details about converting the whole library from Dewey to the bookstore model of organization. If you are thinking about making this big change, you'll wanna bookmark this super blog post.

Right now, I'm not quite ready to ditch Dewey, but I do think I'm just gonna let go of Dewey a little bit at a time. I've already pulled the graphic novels into their own section, out of the non-fiction area.

Perhaps this was prompted in part by the third grader who was helping me shelve last year. When I told him that Babymouse belonged in non-fiction, he responded (with child-like candor), "who told you THAT?" He clearly thought that someone had tricked me. 

I still giggle when I think about the incredulous look on his face.