Thanks to Katie Halama, Youth Services Coordinator, L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library, for this guest post! Katie received a scholarship from IFLS to attend the Wisconsin Library Association Annual Conference. She shared insights and resources from a session by Valerie Morris, the Youth Services Librarian at Whitefish Bay Public Library.
In the session Hello Bookseek? Goodbye Dewey!, Valerie Morris described how over a two-year period, she and the Whitefish Bay Public Library developed and implemented a classification system for youth nonfiction books called Book Seek.
Why ditch Dewey?
The Dewey Decimal System is a classification system developed in the 19th century that is still being used in the 21st century. The system was developed for librarians, not the general public. The system also reinforces harmful stereotypes about minority groups and history, women and careers, and diverse religions.
Morris’s motivation for reorganizing the nonfiction materials for children and teens was to promote equity and inclusion in the organization of nonfiction materials, make nonfiction easier to navigate, and increase circulation.
Morris and her library team created the classification system Book Seek based on the Metis classification system, an alternative to the Dewey Decimal System that focuses on how children search for materials. The Metis system was developed in 2012 by school librarians at the Ethical Culture School in New York City. It is comprised of 26 broad categories including picture books and fiction genres.
Morris describes the process for switching from Dewey classification to Book Seek, which could also be applied to other alternative classifications systems.
Step 1. Research. This step includes reading articles about libraries making the switch, learning about the pitfalls of the Dewey Decimal System, visiting or reaching out to other libraries that have reorganized, thinking about your spine labels, knowing how much your processing materials and labels cost, and writing a brief summary on your findings to share with library staff.
Step 2. Convincing stakeholders, including library directors, supervisors, staff, library board, and patrons. Talk to your supervisor about reorganizing your nonfiction, present research and benefits to your stakeholders, include feedback from library users and staff, and discuss how a new classification system would be easier to use for patrons.
Step 3. Funding. Funding this project can be possible through a Friends group, processing budget, grant, or local sponsor.
Step 4. Weeding. Morris calls this the most essential step. The Whitefish Bay project began with 8,000 books and ended with 6,300.
Step 5. Develop your system. For this step, Morris encourages considering what your young patrons look for the most. What major topics did you discover in your collection while weeding? Document and track your main categories, subcategories, and groups, and update your document with any changes you make as you go.
Step 6. Spine and call number labels. Think about what information needs to be on your call number label, decide what your labels will look like for patrons, review your label with pages and circulation staff, ensure that the new label is different from others used in your collections, and think about how the call number will appear on your hold lists.
Step 7. Work flow. Decide who will be the primary staff member to lead the project, develop a workflow, decide who will create and place new labels, continue to update your working document with any changes you make or additions, and communicate with staff and patrons as you go.
Morris says that Book Seek has received positive feedback from patrons and staff. The initial investment of reorganizing the collection has already started to benefit the community by helping kids and teens find the books they want and need to read.
Additional Resources provided by Valerie Morris
Balas Kaplan, Tali, Andrea K. Dolloff, Sue Giffard, and Jennifer Still-Schiff. “Are Dewey’s Days Numbered?: Libraries Nationwide Are Ditching the Old Classification System”. School Library Journal, September 28, 2012.
“Balas, Tali. Nine Years Ago, I Speculated that Dewey’s Days Were Numbered. How Far Have We Come?” School Library Journal, September 9, 2021.
Joseph, Christina. “Move Over, Melvil! Momentum Grows to Eliminate Bias and Racism in the 145-Year-Old Dewey Decimal System”. School Library Journal, August 18, 2021.