I had this ready to go yesterday but never got near a computer to post it. So I'm backdating to Friday and life goes on…
“The Prelinger Library is a small privately owned “public library” in San Francisco with the unique philosophy
that browsing library stacks can reveal new knowledge, if the books are
arranged for browsing. This is counter to most public libraries who
rely on computer terminal searching, databases and the Dewey Decimal
system to atomize books and subjects, with stack browsing a sort of
random after effect. Now a (real) public library in Arizona has joined the revolution
and claims to be the first public library in the nation to drop the
Dewey Decimal system. Instead, books will be shelved by topic, similar
to the way bookstores arrange books. The demise of the century-old
Dewey Decimal system is overdue, county librarians say: “People think
of books by subject. Very few people say, ‘Oh, I know Dewey by heart.’
“”
(via MetaFilter which has some great discussion about the role of classification systems in libraries and bookstores)
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