According to the Librarian in Black, there is a new public library in Arizona that is not going to be using Dewey, LC, or any other classification system to organize books. An Arizona Republic newspaper article says that apparently this is the first public library in the country to not use the Dewey classification system. The library is going to be arranging its books by topic, similar to the way that bookstores arrange their holdings.
I don't think I'm a traditionalist when it comes to matters like this, but doesn't Dewey already organize titles by topic? Are things really easier to find at a bookstore than at the library? I can see some advantage for patrons who are primarily interested in browsing the stacks, but I can't understand how this would make it easier to find a specific title. I'm sure there's more to the library's new scheme than the article discusses, so perhaps it will work.
From Lex Scripta.
I don't think I'm a traditionalist when it comes to matters like this, but doesn't Dewey already organize titles by topic? Are things really easier to find at a bookstore than at the library? I can see some advantage for patrons who are primarily interested in browsing the stacks, but I can't understand how this would make it easier to find a specific title. I'm sure there's more to the library's new scheme than the article discusses, so perhaps it will work.
From Lex Scripta.