- The Dewey Decimal System invented in 1876 by Melvil Dewey, sought to categorize books by organizing all knowledge into 10 broad classes, with each class further broken down into 10 divisions and each division into 10 sections.
- Though many college libraries use the Library of Congress system, for more than a century Dewey has been a mainstay in American public libraries, about 95 percent of which continue to rely on it.
Comfortable chairs, a store selling used books and a coffee shop lure customers into the Anderson County Library.
But ditching the Dewey Decimal System to go to a more relaxed, marketable way of shelving books — like one library in Arizona has done — is not in the cards for the Anderson library on North McDuffie Street just yet.
"I would have to see it work before bringing it Anderson. I would like to look at their catalog and see how they handle specific requests for books," Anderson County Library System Director Carl Stone said. "When I hear about libraries trying different things, I try to be skeptical at first."
Other Anderson-area library directors agreed with Mr. Stone. Most said they were aware of the Arizona library's new approach to organizing their books and were intrigued by it. But none were ready to change from a system that has been a mainstay in public libraries for more than a century.
"We've talked about it a little bit. It is exciting that libraries are doing different things," Pickens County Library Director Ann Szypulski said. "I still think it is important to have a system where you can walk over to a shelf and find exactly where it is supposed to be."
The Dewey Decimal System breaks books down into 10 broad classes, with each class further broken down into 10 divisions and each division into 10 sections. Each library director in the Anderson area said that for finding a specific book, nothing beats the Dewey system.
When the Maricopa County, Ariz., Library District abandoned the Dewey system at one of its branch libraries, they made the national news for being one of the first in the nation to do so. Now at the district's Perry Branch, in Gilbert, Ariz., they shelve books like employees do at Barnes & Noble, placing volumes in "neighborhoods" based on subject matter.
At the 24,000-square-foot Perry Branch, there is not a hint of a card catalog.
Visitors may instead search for books using an automated computer system, which classifies volumes by subject and author. Up to 50 items can be taken out in a manner similar to self-checkout at a supermarket. Reference materials are just a click away in the computer databases.
Harry Courtright, the director of the library system in Maricopa County, Ariz., said the idea took root two years ago after surveys of the libraries' visitors showed that most people came to browse, without a specific book title in mind.
"The younger generation today is wired differently than people in my generation," said Mr. Courtright, 69. "What that tells me is we as librarians have to look at how we present materials that we have for them the way they want it."
So far, it seems many users of Perry, a 30,000-item branch, seem very attracted to the new style.
But in Anderson, Oconee and Pickens counties and parts of Georgia, people still seem attached to the traditional way of looking around a library — the search for that exact number on a book's spine.
Visitors to the library on North McDuffie Street in downtown Anderson said they are happy with the Dewey system.
Mr. Stone said at each branch, books still are grouped in areas, even if they are shelved using the Dewey system. The newest releases, for example, always are kept in an area near the front of the library.
In Oconee and Pickens counties, some books are also arranged so customers can browse a subject area. The Athens, Ga., library system, which includes branches in Lavonia and Royston, does the same thing, the director, Kathryn Ames said.
Athens system officials also plan to go a step further in their main library, located in Athens, in the near future, Ms. Ames said. In accordance with customer requests, she said, the library staff will add a section that groups their most popular subjects — cookbooks, consumer information, travel and business — together.
The sections will be more "suitable for browsing," but books in those special sections will still be classified using the Dewey system. The new move in Arizona may show other libraries that customers want better signage when looking for books, Ms. Ames said.
"What this tells us is we may need to do a better job of signage," she said. "People don't care that 641.5 is the section for cookbooks. They just want to know what Paula Deen's latest recipe is."
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