Dewey Decimal Quotes

Ben wished the world was organized by the Dewey decimal system. That way you'd be able to find whatever you were looking for.

There is a hideous invention called the Dewey Decimal System. And you have to look up your topic in books and newspapers. Pages upon pages upon pages…” Uncle Will frowned. “Didn’t they teach you how to go about research in that school of yours?” “No. But I can recite ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ while making martinis.” “I weep for the future.” “There’s where the martinis come in.

He wished he was with his mom in her library, where everything was safe and numbered and organized by the Dewey decimal system. Ben wished the world was organized by the Dewey decimal system. That way you'd be able to find whatever you were looking for, like the meaning of your dream, or your dad.

Ben wished the world was organized by the Dewey decimal system. That way you'd be able to find whatever you were looking for, like the meaning of your dream, or your dad.

For the record, do I know anyone not a demon or a freak?” – Nick “Yes, you do. Not sure if Bubba and Mark go into the latter or not, though. I’m too tired to mentally categorize them. You figure it out, and I’ll go with your Dewey decimal.” – Caleb

Part of my job is to help other kids find books, because not everyone has a keenly organized mind. Some kids could wander the library for hours and still have no idea how to find anything. For them, the Dewey Decimal System might as well be advanced calculus.

The librarian was explaining the benefits of the Dewey decimal system to her junior--benefits that extended to every area of life. It was orderly, like the universe. It had logic. It was dependable. Using it allowed a kind of moral uplift, as one's own chaos was also brought under control. 'Whenever I am troubled,' said the librarian, 'I think about the Dewey decimal system.' 'Then what happens?' asked the junior, rather overawed. 'Then I understand that trouble is just something that has been filed in the wrong place. That is what Jung was explaining of course--as the chaos of our unconscious contents strive to find their rightful place in the index of consciousness.

-You've got a . . . Lot of books, he said at last. -it's a sickness. -Are you . . . Seeing anyone for it? -I'm afraid it's untreatable. -is this the . . . Dewey decimal system? -No. But it's based on similar principles. Those are the British novelists. The French are in the kitchen. Homer, Virgil, and the other epics are by the tub. -I take it the . . . Transcendental its do better in the sunlight. -Exactly. -Do they need much water? -Not as much as you think. But lots of pruning. He pointed the volume toward a pile of books under my bed. -And the . . . Mushrooms? -The Russians. -Ah. -Who's winning? -Not me.

But the player librarians all over the country were raving about most was Marjory Muldauer from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. A gangly seventh grader, a foot taller than any of her competitors, Marjory Muldauer had memorized the ten categories of the Dewey decimal system before she entered preschool.

I’d always sorted people, just like books in the Dewey Decimal System, where everything had its place.

It’s research. It’s only research. Lie back and think of the fucking Dewey Decimal System.

As soon as I hit send, I snap to my senses. Why, of all the words available to me, is this what I said? Maybe my brain is organized by the Dewey decimal system, but right now all the shelves seem to be on fire.

When I first learned about the Dewey decimal system, I assumed it was an impartial way of defining and filing the breadth of knowable information. I came to understand that the intention of the filer and the perspective that they carry play a huge role in how Dewey, and any other system, is employed.

CHAPTER 10: For questions about librarians featured in erotic literature, you will find absolutely nothing in the public library.

I was falling hard for Laura. I was not much of a cat person, but I knew our relationship was solid when I bonded with her black-and-white shorthair, Dewey, named for the decimal system.

I like things that have a right and a wrong answer, things that can be done perfectly. They don’t often come up in the humanities. They are normally relegated to the sciences. So I’ve always liked the alphabet and the Dewey decimal system for being objective standards in a subjective world.

Though my love for you is infinitesimal, your eyes are as dewey as any old decimal.

Ah, the Dewey decimal system…humankind’s single greatest achievement.” From Candace Fleming’s The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School

Yes, I speak Dewey Decimal.

like talking to people about books. I like it when kids ask where to find something and I can squeeze in a mini-lesson on the Dewey decimal system.

The Dewey Decimal System consisted, in part, of Miss Caroline waving cards at us on which were printed ‘the’, ‘cat’, ‘rat’, ‘man’, and ‘you’.

Within the fair’s buildings visitors encountered devices and concepts new to them and to the world. They heard live music played by an orchestra in New York and transmitted to the fair by long-distance telephone. They saw the first moving pictures on Edison’s Kinetoscope, and they watched, stunned, as lightning chattered from Nikola Tesla’s body. They saw even more ungodly things—the first zipper; the first-ever all-electric kitchen, which included an automatic dishwasher; and a box purporting to contain everything a cook would need to make pancakes, under the brand name Aunt Jemima’s. They sampled a new, oddly flavored gum called Juicy Fruit, and caramel-coated popcorn called Cracker Jack. A new cereal, Shredded Wheat, seemed unlikely to succeed—“shredded doormat,” some called it—but a new beer did well, winning the exposition’s top beer award. Forever afterward, its brewer called it Pabst Blue Ribbon. Visitors also encountered the latest and arguably most important organizational invention of the century, the vertical file, created by Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System. Sprinkled among these exhibits were novelties of all kinds. A locomotive made of spooled silk. A suspension bridge built out of Kirk’s Soap. A giant map of the United States made of pickles. Prune makers sent along a full-scale knight on horseback sculpted out of prunes, and the Avery Salt Mines of Louisiana displayed a copy of the Statue of Liberty carved from a block of salt. Visitors dubbed it “Lot’s Wife.

One of the most fascinating things about the Dewey decimal system is that while there are distinct categories for every subject imaginable, it also allows for internal referencing, acknowledging that while a book may be about one subject and exist in one place, it also has a corollary placement elsewhere. At the same time. And that’s okay. I understood that a book could be many things at once, without conflict or contradiction, long before I realized it about people. Or, at least, long before I admitted it.

I walked around the library and the library smelled like every library I had ever been in and Dewey decimals were on all the spines, same tiny font, tiny numbers, and I thought, for a moment, that there actually were things you could count on in the world until I realized that the most dependable things in the world are not of any significant use to any substantial problems.

Funny how the very thing you cling to one week is what you're ready to trash the next. I guess you cling because, in some obscure way, you understand that life is going to require that you give it up.

Another thing I liked about the Dewey decimal system was that it could sometimes function as a secret code. Every once in a while during my high school years, I would hesitantly and cautiously type “gay” into a search bar in a card catalog. Just “gay,” as if more specificity would kill me right on the spot. Libraries were the only space I felt remotely comfortable even acknowledging the question—which didn’t yet even have words or language, just the faint outline of the punctuation. And where if not a library could I go to understand the unknown, to expand my world, to make sense out of gibberish? I would type “gay” and then survey the titles that came up and then click the window closed without ever doing any further exploring. I didn’t know what I thought I might find if I actually went to the aisle where the books were. A very quiet gay bar, perhaps? I figured it wasn’t worth the risk. But as I closed the screen, I memorized the Dewey decimal number of the section where, I presumed, a mirror ball sprinkled stardust across the aging carpet and the rows of books waiting to be opened.

Though Hoover conceded that some might deem him a “fanatic,” he reacted with fury to any violations of the rules. In the spring of 1925, when White was still based in Houston, Hoover expressed outrage to him that several agents in the San Francisco field office were drinking liquor. He immediately fired these agents and ordered White—who, unlike his brother Doc and many of the other Cowboys, wasn’t much of a drinker—to inform all of his personnel that they would meet a similar fate if caught using intoxicants. He told White, “I believe that when a man becomes a part of the forces of this Bureau he must so conduct himself as to remove the slightest possibility of causing criticism or attack upon the Bureau.” The new policies, which were collected into a thick manual, the bible of Hoover’s bureau, went beyond codes of conduct. They dictated how agents gathered and processed information. In the past, agents had filed reports by phone or telegram, or by briefing a superior in person. As a result, critical information, including entire case files, was often lost. Before joining the Justice Department, Hoover had been a clerk at the Library of Congress—“ I’m sure he would be the Chief Librarian if he’d stayed with us,” a co-worker said—and Hoover had mastered how to classify reams of data using its Dewey decimal–like system. Hoover adopted a similar model, with its classifications and numbered subdivisions, to organize the bureau’s Central Files and General Indices. (Hoover’s “Personal File,” which included information that could be used to blackmail politicians, would be stored separately, in his secretary’s office.) Agents were now expected to standardize the way they filed their case reports, on single sheets of paper. This cut down not only on paperwork—another statistical measurement of efficiency—but also on the time it took for a prosecutor to assess whether a case should be pursued.

Was there a Dewey Decimal number too? Winnie asked. He had the impression if she could snort Dewey numbers she'd get high.

Love Poem for a Librarian Although her love for me is infinitesimal, Her eyes are as Dewey as any old decimal.

First, Andrew Carnegie would supply bricks, mortar, and even blueprints for library buildings, but local communities and librarians had to pay for and select the books on the shelves. No less critical was Melvil Dewey’s decimal system of classification: the old system of having librarians guard and fetch books from closed stacks gave way to user-friendly open stacks where readers could find books on their own—a method pioneered by Carnegie himself. The first generation of public librarians diligently kept out improper books and tried to restrict the circulation of light fiction. But by the 1920s the winds of liberalism were sweeping through American society, and second-generation librarians were more inclined to give the public what they wanted.

In my card catalogue, the Dewey Decimal System had placed him firmly under Ancient History.

They were passing the “000” section, the outcasts of Dewey Decimal Classification

Trying to keep Rohan out of her thoughts, wondering endlessly if she should apologize for throwing herself at him, she traveled from shelf to shelf, rearranging the books by language, by historical period, by size, as was practical, and above all, alphabetically, by the writer's last name. She had found multiple titles by individual authors scattered willy-nilly through the collection. It made her want to pull her hair out. Obviously!- an individual author's body of work all belonged on one shelf, the works arranged, in turn, by whatever system was most suitable: by volume number, alphabetically by title, or by the year of publication, or, in case of playwrights, works grouped by genre- tragedies with tragedies, comedies with comedies, histories with histories, and so on.

Demographics are the Dewey Decimal System of humanity: a great way to organize people into groups based on similar outward-facing characteristics but not an indication of what those people are all about on the inside.

The Nook was in a perpetual state of slightly organized chaos, like it had been hit by a tornado followed by a slightly mad librarian with bold new ideas about the Dewey decimal system.

She was a librarian, dammit. She knew books. She used the Dewey Decimal System. She taught the children to search with their eyes and their brains. They were encouraged to ask Moira for help, rather than punch titles into a screen. Moira believed all children needed to live through that awkward, precarious moment when they had to disrupt the silence of the library and approach the librarian. It built character.

Women know that we each have our moment. Clothed and out in the world, I was a discreet woman, just the sort you'd imagine behind the reference desk of your local library. But take off my clothes in the safety of my own apartment and I changed into a glittering, gleaming creature with white, silky skin, hair tumbling around my shoulders, and my taut body like the spine of a beautiful book with gold-embossed lettering. Only I saw this other creature and I couldn't pretend that I truly believed in her. She was my fantasy.

He likes reading," his parents had told their friends in the same awed tones they might have used to announce he'd been awarded the Victoria Cross. Peter did like reading. He'd read his way through the entire children's section of the Kilburn Library bu the time he was eight, a feat that might have been a source of pride and celebration but for the problem posed by his still being years off acquiring the coveted adult borrowing card. Thank God for Miss Talbot, who'd bitten her lip and straightened the library name badge on her lemon cardigan, and told him-a faint quiver of purpose enlivening her usually soft, smooth voice-that she would personally ensure he never ran out of things to read. She was a magician, as far as Peter was concerned. Decipherer of secret codes, master of index cards and Dewey decimal, opener of doors to wonderful places. Those afternoons in the library, breathing the stale sun-warmed dust of a thousand stories (accented by the collective mildew of a hundred years of rising damp), had been enchanted.

I’m not about to get thrown back in jail because you couldn’t figure out the fucking Dewey decimal system.

Not a store-bought plastic monstrosity, but a homemade wooden frame, painted to glossy perfection. The sight of it sends a pang through me. As do the homemade bookshelves lining the far wall. There’s so much care, not just in the construction but in the organization, Charlie’s touch and Clint’s as visible as inky fingerprints. The books are meticulously ordered by genre and author, but not pretty. Not rows of leather-bound tomes, just paperbacks with creased spines and half-missing covers, books with five-cent thrift store stickers on them, and Dewey decimal indicators on the ones that came from library sales.

Common mythology would have it that the truth was easy to remember and lies tended to morph with the retelling. The opposite was true. A group of honest men, questioned about a social evening that was merely one of many like evenings, would argue endlessly about who showed up in what order, whether they ate ham or pastrami, who won the pot, Memories were not stored in a linear fashion, ordered by some cerebral Dewey decimal system. They were dumped in a vast mental junk drawer and had to be pawed through to be sorted out.

Mika belIeved in Magic. One hundred per cent without a doubt. She learned that fast when he arrived. He knew the Dewey decimal 130s like the back of his hand and they went to the town library often to sit in front of them.The 130s were bottom shelf; Occult and Paranormal. He ran his fingertips along those spines muttering to himself. ‘This is nowhere near as good as the Oxley Library, Pip.

By this point, I could zero in on true crime by Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress classification in five seconds flat. It wasn't long before I had Helter Skelter and was browsing the rest of the section, seeing if there was anything else that might be interesting. There was one book with the greasy plastic cover of a Waffle House place mat, the red font large and garish, that promised to be a tell-all from the daughter of a serial killer who'd been local to Central Florida in the 1980s.

[Demographics] are the dewey decimal system of humanity; a great way to organize people into groups based on similar outward characteristics, but in no way an indication of what those people are all about.

Who do you think would coach him if I didn’t? Dewey? Mr. Dewey Decimal System?” I search for the library joke in there but decide there isn’t one—though I do feel pretty checked out.

WE ENTER THE stacks. This library does not use the Dewey decimal system, instead relying on the librarians’ intuitive, psycho-geographical layout. Starting on the left-hand side with subjects local to San Francisco, things proceed outward and along the aisles into the American West, World Geography and Natural History, Extraction, Transportation, Infrastructure, Housing, Art, Film, Networked Media, Material Culture, Language and Gender, Race and Ethnicity, U.S. Political History, Geopolitics and Un-American Activities, and finally, a section called Abstract and Off-Earth.

Shakespeare is the only author afforded the honor of his own Dewey Decimal call number, 822.33.

Let's just say you've got an honest way about you- and a sharper eye than I initially thought." She brushed her fingers over the nearest table. "Not a speck of dust." "Oh." Cinderella felt little pride from the compliment. "It is my job," was all she said. "I'm glad you understand that, girl. Though no one told you to reorganize my books." There was a note of accusation in the duchess's voice, and Cinderella didn't know how to respond. "I apologize, ma'am. I-" "Most of my attendants arrange them like flowers, by color and size, but you did it by substance and author. You couldn't have done that without reading them." She swallowed. "I didn't have time to read any, ma'am... but I couldn't resist skimming a few.

If you ever suffer from the "Aren't People the Greatest?" syndrome, spend a day working in a library. In fact, that gives me an idea. We have "Bring Your Child to Work Day" and "Spend the Day with a Nurse/Doctor." Why not a national event called "Labouring with a Librarian"? In my zest for alliteration, that sounds like a librarian about to give birth, but you get the gist of what I mean.

They saw the first moving pictures on Edison’s Kinetoscope, and they watched, stunned, as lightning chattered from Nikola Tesla’s body. They saw even more ungodly things—the first zipper; the first-ever all-electric kitchen, which included an automatic dishwasher; and a box purporting to contain everything a cook would need to make pancakes, under the brand name Aunt Jemima’s. They sampled a new, oddly flavored gum called Juicy Fruit, and caramel-coated popcorn called Cracker Jack. A new cereal, Shredded Wheat, seemed unlikely to succeed—“shredded doormat,” some called it—but a new beer did well, winning the exposition’s top beer award. Forever afterward, its brewer called it Pabst Blue Ribbon. Visitors also encountered the latest and arguably most important organizational invention of the century, the vertical file, created by Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System. Sprinkled among these exhibits were novelties of all kinds.