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