Time to do away with Dewey?

I spend a lot of time working in the library. Free WiFi, a break from the at-home routine, and no need to keep buying caffeinated beverages like I have to at the coffee shop. Also, since I’m living in Da Hood, my nearest coffee shop is further away than the library anyway.

Hanging out here. often staring into space or watching people – generally doing anything except the task at hand – I’ve noticed that the Dewey Decimal Classification might have come to its natural end.

When I was a kid in elementary school, we were taught Dewey on library days – once a week the teacher would herd us down to the library for a story, and then to pick out books for the week. We learned how to use the card catalog to find books on subjects that interested us. Every book was assigned a special number, and every number grouping formed a section of the library.

However, kids these days (wow, that really made me sound old) don’t have library days the way they used to. They don’t learn about card catalogs (though now it’s all computerized) or Dewey categories.

Here at one of the outposts of Toronto’s sprawling library system, kids wander aimlessly about, wondering where their favorite Twilight and Harry potter books are. These kids, teens and tweens are accustomed to bookstores.

There was a time in not too distant history that books were a luxury for only rich families to collect. Cities that had thousands of working poor put together libraries to make books more available to everyone. A system to keep track of all these tomes was devised, and librarians were required to help people learn and understand the system.

Fast forward to today. In Canada we have Chapters and Indigo. In the United States, there’s Borders and Barnes & Noble. Books are sorted according to area of interest, and then by author name. It’s all very straightforward, no indecipherable digits required. In a pinch, some minimum-wage college kid can direct you out of Cooking into Self-Help. Biographies are all clumped together, not spread about by area of biographical interest. Language books span from Arabic to Zulu without interruption. Signs clearly advise you what area you’re in, and are visible throughout the store so you know which direction to walk in to get the latest chick-lit marvel.

It’s very civilized.

So where does that leave Dewey and the moth-bitten librarian of old? Libraries are still functioning with an archaic system (albeit one they’ve slowly dragged onto computers) that few people – especially in a “multicultural” society like the one I live in – can comprehend. And with books being more affordable to the average person, the days of the library may be numbered.