Dewey Decimal System Day

December 10 is Dewey Decimal System Day. The day commemorates the birth of Melville Dewey, the inventor of the Dewey Decimal System of library classification.

The system, first published in 1876, organizes library materials by fields. There are 10 main fields that are further divided into smaller, more specialized area. Libraries around to the world use the system to organize and classify their books.

In addition to creating this ingenious system of organization, Melville Dewey was also a big proponent of the metric system. He was the founder of the American Metric Bureau.

David Greer, Learning Resource Centre Manager, commented, "The Dewey Decimal System is essential to the SERC LRCs. We use it to place books on our shelves in their subject areas, so in a way it’s a location code. The Dewey number for our books can be found on the book’s spine. We have over 30,000 books so without it, students and staff would find it almost impossible to locate the books they are looking for."

"The LRCs are still open, unfortunately due to the current pandemic, there is no access to the bookshelves, however the LRC staff will be happy to retrieve any books from the shelves for you – just call in and speak to our staff or use the Library Catalogue in student apps to reserve your books. We also have a wide selection of e books and these can be accessed from the LRC pages in the SERC intranet"