“Could one be a revolutionary and still love the library?” (Simon Gikandi, “The Fantasy of the Library”)
SUMMARY. DDC is the world’s most widely-used library organization system, yet remains conservatively modified since publication in 1867. Built on colonial logic, DDC acts as a largely uninterrogated force of information imperialism today, and in school libraries, primes developing learners to internalize knowledge the way it was defined by dominant colonial interests. Continued use begs for significant alternation if not total removal.
One is typically introduced to the DDC with reverence and good humor. Well-known enough to have staked a claim in pop culture, “Dewey Decimal” even has that whimsical, roll-off-the-tongue quality familiar to celebrity names. Words like “efficient” and “accurate” are quick to appear in internet articles on the DDC. Or even—revolutionary, a testament to its genius and flexibility that it has endured since its publication in 1876, and is now the most widely-used classification system in the world. (Libraries in 138 countries use the DDC.1) And its continued popularity is clearly justified, because the system is “continuously revised to keep pace with knowledge.”2
Truer words have been said. Dewey has been the subject of ire for librarians since coming to prominence, whether it be the classification scheme or its creator, Melvil Dewey: famed sex pest, documented racist.3 As early as 1930 librarians like Dorothy Porter of Howard University were protesting the system, a necessity because it was made with only the most privileged information- seekers in mind.4 The hostility of Dewey did not escape the classification he so considered universal. It only became neutralized, losing its sting through matter-of-fact language.
Dewey’s respectable vision of the decimal system, prioritizing “practical utility and economy”5 to respect both the labor of librarians and the searching of patrons, did overhaul libraries to new efficiency, offering a centralized manual for piecing together any collection IKEA-style without having to classify from scratch. But it also entrapped them in a system that made it increasingly difficult to imagine other ways of knowledge organization, all under the guise of universality and productivity—assets that are themselves arguable. “The DDC is easy to use,” remarks OCLC,6 which published the most recent (23rd) edition in 2011. In four volumes and 4,175 pages it explains how one can use this simple system. Luckily, the Abridged version is only 1050 pages.
Alongside steady praise of the DDC, criticism has risen from standpoints ranging from material (it works shoddily, confusing patrons and librarians alike) to moral (after twenty-two revisions, it remains unrepentantly in favor of the powerful). Since the critical cataloging movement that sprang up in the 1970s,7 many have analyzed the most popular classification systems, Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress Classification, both created when imperialism was all the rage and preserving substantial colonial influence. There is considerable momentum towards shifting away from these systems, but their monopoly on information organization ensures that change is slow and devoid of institutional support.
In the midst of the classification tug-of-war is the K-12 school library. School libraries, most of which are organized by the DDC,8 are particularly at odds with the system given their exclusivity to children or teenagers. Collections reflect the narrow patron demographic both in content and style, rendering the minutiae of DDC categories unnecessary. Elementary school librarians note that sometimes, decimals themselves are out of place—younger grades have not learned them yet.9
One of the greatest complaints about the DDC is its problem of distributed relatives, or the “scattering of books about a given concrete subject across classes representing different aspects of that topic.”10 Dewey is sorted by academic discipline, so books about animals go in 590 (Zoology) except domesticated animals, which go in 636 (Technology—Agriculture—Animal husbandry, places almost nobody would think to look to find dog books). Books about the moon are in 523.3 (Astronomy—Moon) unless about the moon landing, which is 629.45 (Engineering—Manned space flight). But of course the moon landing is also a historical event, so it may even be found in 973.92 (History & geography—United States—1953-2001). And so on: books on the same general topic are separated, and often not even in the same main class. In the physical library, that usually means they are shelves and shelves away from each other, and circulation has been shown to increase when the “distance a patron has to travel in a library” decreases.11 Without a catalog, patrons unaware that titles are separated like so are vulnerable to missing out on an entire section of potentially useful information.
This problem is especially irksome to school libraries, where students are developing learners and less likely than an adult to know what they do not know. Plus, most library users browse rather than search the catalog, and avoid asking for help.12 Youth who have no channels to discuss personal and stigmatized topics like sexuality, mental health, and abuse may turn to the library, where they avoid search assistance even more. The ease of independent browsing is crucial, but the DDC stubbornly hinders it.
Then there is the flaw underwriting the distributed relatives: that the main classes themselves are arranged so uneconomically. The DDC’s most basic categories, or main classes, which supposedly span the entire breadth of human knowledge, are currently ordered: 000 Computer science, information & general works; 100 Philosophy & psychology; 200 Religion; 300 Social sciences; 400 Language; 500 Science; 600 Technology; 700 Arts & recreation; 800 Literature; 900 History & geography. Immediately there are questions. Why is computer science not with neither science nor technology, why is social science so far from history, why is language so far from literature, and is psychology not more directly relevant to language than religion?
The answer, it turns out, lies in the history of the DDC’s origins. Dewey insisted his Decimal system arrived as a eureka moment while dozing off at church,13 but an investigation by Eugene Graziano delivers damning evidence that Dewey in fact extracted his main classes from his contemporary, William Harris of the St. Louis Public School Library, who himself was inspired by the philosopher Hegel.14 It becomes abruptly clear, after understanding Harris’s rationale, that the DDC is an awkward arrangement taken out of its Hegelian context like the result of a game of telephone, or a student who copies the responses of their seat-partner verbatim under the wrong exam question. Harris, following Hegel’s logic, ordered everything from most to least valuable. “Philosophy is the science of science,” placing it first; next was theology, “the science of the absolute,” and social and political science—the science of the state, which was lesser than God— came third. Philology (language) was included in the state, in an institutional sense. Then followed natural science, useful arts (applied science, or technology), fine art, and then literature (nonmaterial and thus less of value). Last was history: “accidental relations…the area of no apparent reason nor organic-unity.”15 Hegel, and by extension Harris, and by extension Dewey, was under the impression that history—the story of human relationships to time, place, and each other—was the least important of all the knowledge of the world.
Knowing the DDC’s origins, it becomes easier to identify where this devaluation of humanity permeates the system. One of the more hidden, and thus arguably more influential, effects of distributed relatives is that they enact ideological harm by keeping a topic’s natural, technical, and social aspects away from each other. Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers our Lives, on the abusive labor that produces our electronics’ lithium ion battery (338.2 Economics— Production—Mineral extraction) is shelved disturbingly far from Careers in Electronics and How Are Smartphones Made and Sold? (621.3 Electrical engineering). Books in 623 Military engineering, when written for young readers, emphasize war vehicles as exciting, heroic, a career option even. Nowhere near are 350 Public administration & military science, nor any actual histories of war (900s), obstructing both realities that war is political and institutional—more than just “defending the nation”—and that it kills people and upends societies. And, perhaps most importantly, that the legacy of war explains a great deal of our present lives.
For those adversely affected by structural power, awareness of these relationships of power in connection to people, technology, and the Earth can be a tool of survival and resistance. But the DDC discourages library users from recognizing these relationships. It is the kind of compartmentalization that, outside the library, turns a blind eye to the mass exploitation of human labor and natural resources. In reality, these concepts cannot be separated from the effects they have on each other. Effects that are, to some, beneficial; to others, irreparably violent. But in the school library, where there are so many “career” books to nudge students towards their futures, these students are allowed to think uncritically about the roles they may play in an interconnected world. They can dream of being engineers or military pilots without having been given the chance to consider their full contexts. It is not only the world they are discouraged from learning about; it is also themselves.
There is a third difficulty about separated subjects, though not necessarily an issue of distributed relatives. Here is an example: Bible stories and Greco-Roman mythology have protected places in the 200s. Native American creation stories, on the other hand, are classified in 398 Folklore.16 The point is not necessarily that Native American mythology should be classified in Religion, but that some creation legends appearing in Religion while others appear in Folklore ensures the latter is regarded with less recognition and prestige than the former. In other words, the DDC denies certain ways of knowing as legitimate. It does so quietly, acting under objectivity. However, “every classification scheme is an objective representation of a subjective point of view— that of its human constructors, who share the perspectives and ideologies of those populations with which they identify.”17
Such examples begin to reveal the inner workings of the DDC as a colonial project. In case there is any doubt, the classes of Religion, Language, and Literature are more transparent. Of the ten divisions in Religion, seven alone are dedicated to Christianity. One at the very end, 290, is “other religions.” Christianity is presented as “immensely complex and rich…with significant range and diversity”18 while Islam, practiced by a quarter of the world,19 is shoehorned into 297 with two more religions. Religions further down the hierarchy are assigned less subcategories, as if they lack the “diversity and complexity that would require more in-depth classification.”20 Similar observations are made in Language and Literature. Eight divisions are reserved for languages and literatures of European origin, trailed by “other languages” that holds a potentially infinite number of languages fighting each other for space.
The more specific a subject is, the longer its Dewey number; after the sixth or seventh digit, libraries generally reach the limit to their patience. Rarely are books’ spines wide enough to accommodate that many numbers. School libraries especially, where books tend to be thinner. It is prudent to cut off digits past the sixth, or even the third, for ease of spining and shelving. But that means, for topics like other religions and languages that are helplessly reliant on long call numbers to differentiate themselves, books may lose their distinction—they become absorbed into one big section sorted alphabetically by author. The effect is problematic, suggesting that nondominant cultures can be immediately homogenized, and increases difficulty in finding books.
The colonial underpinnings of the DDC are explicit in the system’s treatment of non-Christian, non-western subjects. Another example, this one less obvious, is the orientalist discussion of Africa and Asia. As explicated earlier, Europe usually takes precedent when Dewey subdivides the world’s knowledge geographically. However, in some instances Africa and Asia appear first. 180 Ancient, medieval & eastern philosophy—190 Modern western philosophy. So, all eastern philosophy is always more ancient and medieval than it is modern. 930 History of ancient world—931-935 African and Asian civilizations—936-938 European. The DDC teaches users to interpret its arrangement of subjects from most to least significant, so it guides them here to consider the civilizations of China, Egypt, Palestine, India, and Mesopotamia and the Iranian Plateau as most significantly ancient. While the earliest kingdoms in these regions do predate those in the west, there lies danger in implying that Africa and Asia are never more valuable than Europe except in antiquity. The idea that contemporary cultures of the “east” have produced little of worth was logic used to justify imperialism in Melvil Dewey’s time—literally, as the ordering of “ancient” topics has not changed since 1876—and remains in orientalist rhetoric today.
What about the students who culturally identify with those religions, languages, and countries? And what about students who are girls or women, queer, autistic, disabled, system-impacted, and/or experiencing eating disorders? Because the DDC has opinions about them too. K-12 youth are in decisive stages of identity development and cultural understanding, and a child’s self-esteem is “largely influenced by the way the child and overall society views the cultural group to which the child belongs.”21 As early as preschool they may internalize stereotypes and react negatively towards perceived differences; “social messages that reading materials convey about a particular culture” contribute to this behavior.22 As for teenagers, when they “perceive books…as less relevant, they become disconnected and lose interest in reading, ”23 the consequences of which extend beyond school. Surely these findings can be applied to not just books but also how they are organized.
There is a lot at stake in maintaining the school library. Its presence is consistently correlated positively with student achievement regardless of socioeconomic status.24 Yet public school libraries face the most obstacles. While they thrive in some states, most states do not fund their school libraries directly, leaving it up to the district to determine how much value a library brings to their students’ education.25 As it is, school librarianship is such a contested position the Institute of Museum and Library Services approved a whole taskforce in 2020 to investigate its national decline.26 Libraries are typically understaffed (if at all), placing the responsibility of the entire library and its students onto one person. In fact, many school libraries are staffed by “library aides” who are not credentialed teacher librarians but classified staff not required to have completed any education past high school. I point this out not to suggest that library aides are incapable of delivering high-quality services, especially considering they are more likely to come from the same communities their students belong to and thus are often more personally knowledgeable of their assets, but that they have limited access to further resources on how to do so, and are barred from professional development opportunities and higher pay that would boost morale regarding librarianship.
In all, school librarians are busy and isolated, and issues of classification are not easily tackled if even on their radar. Student interaction is more pressing, as well as outdated and damaged books. Some lack the funds to address even that, as it would necessitate ordering new titles. It is thus unlikely that most school libraries will replace Dewey anytime soon. No part of the process is easy. Yet it is abundantly clear that many are looking for something else, and more than willing to take the matter into their own hands.
The easiest solution is to take Dewey’s skeleton and mold it as appropriate to first eliminate the most egregious offenses, then work from there. However, as one of the Metis classification system’s creators argues, DDC bias is “a feature, not a bug…the entire system will have to be overhauled.”27 Or as another school librarian puts it: trying to improve DDC is like “using chewing gum to plug the holes in a 200 year old rowboat.”28 While recognizing it is not ideal to have each library create its own classification, it is also appalling that the DDC has been allowed, to this extent, to be an active tool in shaping young lives without an ethical framework.
Ironically, as the least valued libraries in America, school libraries have the most freedom. Librarians implementing alternative schemes like genrefication, Metis,29 BISAC,30 or “Dewey-lite” systems have laid groundwork for a different future. The core difference with these alternate systems is that they emphasize leniency and open-ended, intuitive categorization, while the DDC prizes anality and is ill-planned for future edits. Though most do not interrogate the colonial impulses of classification, they seem to be immediately beneficial, observing increased circulation, greater independence in students’ searching, and less time taken to find a book.31
In any case, school libraries must invest more resources in classification, whether that be in reclassifying or educating librarians and students about the ethics of the system—ideally both. No scheme can assert to perfectly classify a library used by multiple groups of people, because there is no one way of knowing the world. Rather than a core strength, universality is a formality that deems one perspective most neutral and productive and thus superior, and then subsumes the rest. For whatever reason, the DDC is loath to admit this truth. As the world’s most widely-used classification system, it is rather irresponsible. Not only irresponsible, but an agent of information imperialism: a channel through which colonial ideology is disseminated and internalized by knowledge-seekers.