Natasha 
🇪🇺Sometimes I think it’s going to be the librarians who will save us all.
Margaret Moonshadow@Natasha_Jay As a former librarian, I highly approve. Genius and the best use of Dewey.
Bård H. (lvl 49 🇳🇴)Dewey was the name I was looking for!
And it's internationally accepted, right?
So... in theory, anyone curious about these topics can just grab the list and check with their local library... =)
Jez 🍞🌹
@baardhaveland @MargaretSefton @Natasha_Jay definite maybe. there are local variations in classification rules, and many other schemes for assigning shelfmarks. also dewey can be problematic: it's highly US & anglophone centric, and rather slow to be updated (and it takes time and money to implement any such changes in each library even after they're published).
@baardhaveland @MargaretSefton @Natasha_Jay
for instance, since it was added in 1932, "homosexuality" has variously been found under:
132 mental derangements
159.9 abnormal psychology
301.424 the study of sexes in society
363.49 social problems
306.7 sexual relations (current)
in addition, Christianity covers 200-289, with all the world's other religions squeezed into the 290s
zbrown@petrichor @baardhaveland @MargaretSefton @Natasha_Jay also Dewey got forced out of his own organisation for being horrific to women *in 1905*.
It's 2025 and we still can't get the FSF to walk away from RMS, can you imagine how bad Dewey must have been to be sanctioned in 1905?
He was also, quite openly, incredibly antisemitic, anti-black, and presumably every other flavour of racist. USians in, again, 1905, found Dewey excessively racist.
AaronThat is some serious racism and misogyny.
yup 🤬
he was largely responsible for feminising the profession, not because he believed in equality or educating women or anything like that, but so that what he saw as the increasing clerical workload could be given to lower-paid women and allow the male librarians to focus on the "real" work
@hosford42 @zbrown @baardhaveland @MargaretSefton @Natasha_Jay
Also, I really really want to emphasise that no-one should be criticising libraries for still using DDC. Reclassifying an entire collection to a different standard is a huge amount of work and no public or academic library right now can afford to do that and also keep the lights on. There is some interesting work going on to address the worst issues too.
@petrichor @hosford42 @zbrown @baardhaveland @Natasha_Jay
Dewey, misogyny, librarianship relegated to women: Whatever, because almost anything worth doing can be best undertaken by a woman. Besides, true librarianship--or at least the kind of librarianship I practiced--is connecting people to resources. My bias is that most women, with a few exceptions, are superior. Not only does a librarian have to have customer service ability, but the ability to connect people to a universe of knowledge.
@petrichor @hosford42 @zbrown @baardhaveland @Natasha_Jay
That being said, I worked with wonderful guys who were passionate librarians. I'm just putting my thumb on the scale with Dewey, coz his little judgements aren't worth much, but thanks for your system all the same, lols. We'll take that and raise you public service passion and humanitarian beliefs.