Behind the Maricopa County Library District’s Dewey-less Plan
By Norman Oder -- Library Journal,05/31/2007
Well, it won’t be the first public library in the country to drop the Dewey Decimal Classification system, as the Arizona Republic suggested May 30, but the Maricopa County Library District, Phoenix, AZ, is pushing the envelope in its new Perry branch, scheduled to open next week. The branch’s 24,000-item collection will take its cue from bookstores, drawing on the 50 or so subject headings used by the Book Industry Study Group. Director Harry Courtright came up with the idea and assigned Marshall Shore, the adult services coordinator, to implement it. Most library users, Courtright told LJ, say they come to browse, but Dewey doesn’t facilitate browsing. Thus the the new subject headings, as well as an effort to get more books shelved at eye level.
Shore says the layout of the branch, which is part of a high school campus in the fast-growing town of Gilbert, also aims to echo bookstores with nooks and crannies aimed "to create a sense of intimacy and privacy." Maricopa outsources all of its cataloging, and Brodart, which provided the opening day collection, worked to translate Dewey to the new taxonomy. In the catalog, the record will indicate the subject heading, and books are then alphabetized by author. "We’ll be working with staff to develop the taxonomy," Shore said. "It’s a small branch, and the collection is not huge. If we open a larger branch, we’d need to fine tune it."
Asked about potential pitfalls, Courtright said, "We might find out our customers don’t like it." Added Deputy Director Cindy Kolaczynski, "The pages are probably a little nervous," but she noted that the sections in the library would each be fairly small. She added that staff were hired for the branch who embraced the evolving mission. And, where, for example, might the biography of sports figure go? Probably biography, Shore said, but the library would remain flexible as it assesses patron response. In some cases, the new taxonomy might allow for more granularity; DVDs, for example, won’t be labeled simply as fiction, but will be broken down by genre, as in video stores. Movable bookshelves on wheels, added Shore, will help the library create flexible displays of books.
The news of the new branch stimulated several comments on the Arizona Republic web site, as well as on librarian mailing lists. For example, Francis Buckley, former Superintendent of Documents at the United States Government Printing Office, commented in a message re-posted on pub-lib, "Approximately 50 years ago, under the legendary Ralph Ulveling, the Detroit Public Library instituted Reader Interest classification in its branches. The books in each branch were arranged by categories of interest to the local population by the librarians in that branch. It finally petered out as reduced staff no longer had the time for customization and since it was difficult for staff transferred from one location to another to locate books."
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| Submitted by: | Neva White 9/13/2007 9:22:37 AM PT |
| Location: | Virginia Beach |
| Occupation: | Librarian |
Has anyone ever had trouble finding a book in a bookstore one you knew what section it was in? (Assuming their staff had organized the shelves how they were supposed to be organized.) I think I'm missing the reason why you wouldn't be able to find something. If the catalog says the book The Secret Man is in US History and the section is alphabetized by author, I'm assuming I'd go to the US History section and find it right there under Woodward. Sounds like a great idea to me, especially if his customers have told him they are there mostly to browse.
| Submitted by: | Daniel A. deStefano (dadestef@gmail.com) 7/28/2007 8:05:24 AM PT |
| Location: | Nahant, Massachusetts |
| Occupation: | Library Director |
The bookstore model was rejected as ineffective during the nineteenth century because people--even librarians--could not find what they needed. Librarians bear a responsibility to organize knowledge. Intentionally disorganizing knowledge is dereliction of duty. The bookstore exists to make a profit; the public library exists to enlighten the electorate. Maricopa has chosen not only to reinvent the wheel, but to follow the wrong model.
| Submitted by: | B. Davin 6/20/2007 12:23:47 PM PT |
| Location: | Philadelphia |
| Occupation: | Staff Writer |
Typo: "video stores" not video "stories"--too late for print but not too late for the web.
| Submitted by: | Gail Gawlik (ggawlik@stfrancis.edu) 6/4/2007 6:31:33 AM PT |
| Location: | Joliet, IL |
| Occupation: | academic librarian |
But Dewey DOES facilitate browsing because it brings similar materials together, arranging them from general to more specific topics. That's why a person can take one call number, go to the shelves, and then find additional books that fit the bill. Shelf order, then, becomes a reference tool all by itself. Bookstores, on the other hand, just lump titles together by broad genres. That's OK for leisure reading, but if you need to do research on a specific topic, you are going to have a hard time finding the particular information that you need.
| Submitted by: | Barry Spiegel 6/2/2007 2:09:24 PM PT |
| Location: | Peoria, AZ |
| Occupation: | Library board member |
This story is just another example of librarians eating their young, so to speak. By moving to the bookstore model, libraries just feed the belief that they serve no other purpose than to become a publicly-funded Barnes & Noble.
This comes from geniuses who see the poor signage at their libraries as an indication that they need to reinvent classification. Would it be so hard to put subject headings next to every numeric Dewey reference to help the poor patron?
This is similar to the Maricopa County library reference conundrum. The district uses 'customer service' desks, staffed by a mixture of librarians (with their master's degrees), para-professionals and library assistants. They handle everything from circulation transactions to collecting fines to explaining how the library computers work to fixing the copy machine to answering reference questions.
From the public side of the 'customer service' desk, these folks are all the same. The person who took your 10 cent fine is now telling the another patron how to find an atlas containing a map of Iraq. Is it any surprise that the next person in line cannot tell the difference between a circulation clerk and a skilled reference professional?
Kind of makes you queasy, right in the MLS.
No surprise, then, that people figure that everyone who works at the desk is a librarian. All of which serves to reduce appreciation for what good librarians can bring to their patrons.
Gilbert's decision sounds a lot like the teaching profession's decision to use the so-called New Math in the 1960s. That didn't turn out too well for anyone. I'm concerned that this story will end up the same way, with patrons more confused about their library, its staff and its purpose.
What a shame to upend the whole library because you're not willing to purchase appropriate signs without blaming it on the Dewey Decimal System.
| Submitted by: | Joshua Fox (illystriel@gmail.com) 6/2/2007 12:25:26 AM PT |
It is time that we either seriously revised Dewey or got rid of it altogether. Libraries, especially public libraries, are places that should encourage and facilitate browsing. Dewey does not really encourage such. Developing a new system for labeling and arraigning materials will not be easy and will likely have many growing pains, but this is an experiment we should all follow.
| Submitted by: | L. Deatsman 6/1/2007 8:00:59 AM PT |
| Location: | Lexington OH/Tempe AZ |
| Occupation: | retired high school librarian |
I read the story from the AZ Republic online, and have been thinking about it ever since. I am a retired high school librarian, and I think that arranging the library like a bookstore would have attracted readers and increased circulation. I'd love to have a brand new library to try it out, and I'm anxious to visit the Gilbert library to see it in person!
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