Dewey Decimal System

• Literacy
• 4-6 Grade

The Dewey Decimal System

What is the Dewey Decimal System?

Have you ever been to the library and wondered how we keep track of all these books? The library has a system called the Dewey Decimal System and it helps organize all those books.

How would you organize books?

The Dewey Decimal System was created by Melvil Dewey in the 1800s. He was a library guy and was hired by a library in Massachusetts to run their library. However, he ran into a problem. While fiction books were easy to organize based on the author's last name, non-fiction books, books that are based on real facts, events or people, couldn't work the same way. Think about trying to look for a book about trees by author! It would be impossible, especially since many non-fiction authors and publishers write about multiple topics.

The Dewey Decimal System was created by Melvil Dewey in the 1800s. He was hired by a library in Massachusetts to run their library. However, he ran into a problem. While fiction books were easy to organize based on the author's last name, non-fiction books, books that are based on real facts, events or people, couldn't work the same way. Think about trying to look for a book about trees by author! It would be impossible, especially since many non-fiction authors and publishers write about multiple topics.

Dewey made 10 categories into which all non-fiction books could be placed. He then gave each category a

name based on the information 

presented in the books. 

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