Have you ever wondered what those numbers are on the side of the non-fiction books? They are not randomly chosen numbers! There is a four volume book set that tell us what numbers to use, based on the main subject of the book. Very generally, the structure use in Dewey Decimal Classification system is:
000 Generalities (example 020 is Library and Information Sciences)
100 Philosophy and Psychology
200 Religion
300 Social Sciences
400 Language (English and other languages of the world)
500 Natural Sciences and Mathematics
600 Technology and Applied Science
700 The Arts (includes music, recreation, sports and performing arts also movies, television, etc)
800 Literature and Rhetoric
900 Geography and History
Within each group of hundreds, it is broken down more specifically:
910 Geography and travel
920 Genealogy, Insignia
930 History of the Ancient World
940 General History of Europe
950 General History of Asia
960 General History of Africa
970 General History of North America
980 General History of South America
990 General History of Other Areas
This is just a very brief overview of the subject classification system initially organized by Melvil Dewey in 1876. For a specific breakdown of today’s system; you can look in the Reference Collection for 025.431 DEW (Dewey Decimal Classification System Edition 22).
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