[Tasl] Dewey? At This Library With a Very Different Outlook, They Dont

[mlgav]

July 14, 2007
  
  Dewey? At This Library With a Very Different Outlook, They Don’t   NYTimes  By SARAH N. LYNCH and EUGENE MULERO
    GILBERT, Ariz. — Trying to build popularity, many public libraries across the country have been looking more like big chain bookstores, offering comfortable easy chairs, coffee bars and displays of the latest best sellers.
  But the new library in this growing Phoenix suburb has gone a step further. It is one of the first in the nation to have abandoned the Dewey Decimal System of classifying books, in favor of an approach similar to that at Barnes & Noble, say, where books are shelved in “neighborhoods” based on subject matter.
  It was Harry Courtright, director of the 15-branch Maricopa County Library District, who came up with the idea of a Dewey-less library. The plan took root two years ago after annual surveys of the district’s constituency found that most people came to browse, without a specific title in mind. 
  “The younger generation today is wired differently than people in my generation,” said Mr. Courtright, 69. “What that tells me is we as librarians have to look at how we present materials that we have for them the way they want it.”
  So at the 24,000-square-foot Perry Branch, there is not a hint of a card catalog. (Mr. Courtright says most people do not know what the numbers mean anyway.) Visitors may instead search for books using an automated computer system, which classifies them by subject and author. Up to 50 items can be taken out, in a manner similar to self-checkout at a supermarket. And reference materials are just a click away in the computer databases.
   
  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/us/14dewey.html?em&ex=1184644800&en=36b9386a71e08e86&ei=5087%0A



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You see, I don't believe that libraries should be drab places 
where people sit in silence, and that's been the main reason
for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians. 
— Monty Python skit
       
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