Do You Know Dewey?
Do You Know
Dewey?
The Numbers in Nonfiction
The recipe for making a nonfiction call number
• numbers (for the subject)
• first three letters of the author’s last name
How do we know what number goes with each
subject ?
By using
The Dewey Decimal System !!
The Dewey Decimal System is a tool used to sort books
into
Groups or
Categories
This system was invented by
a man named Melvil Dewey.
He was a librarian
who lived long ago.
Sorting books by subject, what a brilliant idea!!
I think I’ve got it !!
10 general groups for sorting all of the subjects
General means broad, lots of subjects will fit
into each group.
Here are the 10 general groups for sorting books in the Dewey
Decimal System:
General Works Philosophy
Religion Social Studies
Language Science
Technology Arts and Leisure
Literature History/Geography
000s-General Works
Books that fit in this group have many different subjects in them. Like: Encyclopedias or The Guinness Book of
Records
This is also where books on unexplained subjects would be found-like The Loch Ness Monster.
100s-Philosophy
How we think and feel
200s-Religion
Different religions or stories from the bible.
300s-Social Studies
How people live together.
Holidays, customs, fairy tales
government, military
400s-Language Languages, grammar, dictionaries
noun verb
adjective
French
500s-Science
Plants, animals, weather, math, insects, astronomy
600s-Technology
Man-made things
700s-Arts and Leisure
Things we do for fun.
800s-Literature
Stories, plays, or poetry.
This is the group fiction books were put in long ago when The Dewey Decimal
System was first invented.
Today we have too many fiction books in our libraries to organize them in this way, so fiction books have their own section.
Arranged in ABC order by author
F CLE
900s-History/Geography
Events of the past and countries of the world
Biography- B
Famous people’s lives
B WAS
Knowing these groups will help make it easier to find the books you want in the nonfiction section.
Nonfiction call numbers are placed in number order first, so that all of the books about the same subject end up near each other on the shelf.
Author’s name, second
Let’s See What You’ve Learned
Call numbers help us find the books we
want to read !!!
1.What two things does a nonfiction call number need?
Numbers (for the subject)
First three letters in the author’s last name
398.2 Gri
2. What system tells us what numbers go with each subject?
Dewey Decimal System
3. Who is responsible for inventing the Dewey Decimal System?
Melvil Dewey
4. Mr. Dewey matched a number with each
a) author
b) subject
c) title
4. Subject
5. All school libraries use the Dewey Decimal System.
True or False ?
5.True
But colleges and universities use Library of Congress
The End