Understanding the Logic: Step 1
Call Number | Understanding the Logic | Locating a Book
In 1876 Melvil Dewey attempted to organized all human knowledge into 10 big, very general categories. His plan was to find a way to put all the books that covered the same topic together on the library shelves.
Step 1:
He assigned each of these categories a number from 000 to 900. Books were assigned a number for a category based on their content.
| Number | Category | Examples of the content |
|---|---|---|
| 000 |
General Works | Encyclopedias. computers, mysterious events |
| 100 | Philosophy | Psychology, parapsychology, witchcraft, dreams |
| 200 | Religion | World religions, Christianity, Judaism, mythology |
| 300 | Social Sciences | Immigration, social problems, government, folk tales |
| 400 | Language |
Foreign languages, origin of language, codes |
| 500 | Pure Sciences | Mathematics, biology, chemistry, weather |
| 600 | Technology | Medicine, cooking, inventions, flight |
| 700 | Fine Arts | Painting, music, dance, games, sports |
| 800 | Literature | poetry, drama, humor, Shakespeare |
| 900 | History and Geography | atlases, world history, countries of the world |
Link on to Step 2
