This week our lesson explored the Dewey Decimal System. I
found the history behind this system interesting, and I enjoyed learning more
about how this system works. In the article by Suzanne Stauffer, “Dewey-or
Don't We-Classify?” I was not quite sure
at the beginning what her stance was on the DDC? Was she for it, or for
incorporating something new? Upon reading more, I believe she is speaking for
the DDC.
I am only familiar with the Dewey Decimal system, and I
agree with Stauffer – “Ironically, many promote the “bookstore arrangement” for
libraries to encourage patron independence and reduce the need to ask
librarians for assistance (Stauffer, 2008, 49). The bookstore is just that – it
is a bookstore and its objective is to get people to browse and to purchase.
The needs are different in a school library. I know that when I go to the
public library, if I am looking for a book on a particular subject, I enjoy
that I can find other books related to that topic in the same section. I am not
sure how other cataloguing systems work, so I would have to investigate that
further.
Stauffer also makes some good points about students’ levels
of learning at certain ages. “These findings suggest that young children will
have trouble with any system (numerical or otherwise) that organizes
information into more than two or three categories and that all children will
continue to need instruction in the physical arrangement of the books on the
shelves, regardless of the system used (Stauffer, 2008, 50). It almost seems to
me that the Dewey Decimal System just needs to be taught effectively. Over the
years, as cutbacks have occurred for TL’s, perhaps there hasn’t been as much time
to teach students efficient use of the DDC system.
Through the readings, personally, I found the DDC to make
sense, and it arranges the resources in a logical classification system. I do
understand the need for a larger classification system for larger libraries,
which is where the LCC would come in. But for elementary school libraries, I
felt it was effective for student use at that level. I have been hearing about libraries going away
from the DDC, so now with my new understanding of the DDC, I am curious to know
more about how these other elementary school libraries are categorizing their
resources.
Another fun part of this weeks’ lesson was to come up with a
game to help students learn about the DDC. One of the DDC-teaching websites that was
mentioned in the lesson, I felt, was effective for teaching the DDC to elementary students: http://library.thinkquest.org/5002/.
It appears this website was created in 1999, but it has many good ideas that
could be used today. I liked the Dewey and the Alien story!
One of my favourite game shows was The Price is Right, so I
modeled my DDC game after one of the games: the “Race Game”
Initial preparation for the game:
-Class Categories with DDC number on them (ie. Sciences and
Mathematics 500, Geography 900) labeling the areas. TL can review and point out
these areas before the game begins.
-Print off pictures that would match books in that area
(ie. Dinosaur (for 500) Map of Canada
(for 900)
-Some kind of timer.
Students (working in small groups) would be given 10
pictures of items representing each class (less could be used if the TL wanted
to highlight specific areas more than others). On GO, students have an allotted
period of time to navigate around the library and try to match the pictures to
the class that they belong (try 5 minutes). When they have completed placing
the pictures, they come back to the TL to check to see how many they have
correct, and which ones. If they need to go switch some, they can, as long as
they still have time left. They are permitted to browse through some of the
books in order to try to find the match.
I would imagine that students may not get many correct first
try, but learning from mistakes can be very effective. Give students another
chance and see how much faster they can be! Most likely they will be faster!
This game seemed to work inside my head, so it would be
interesting to see the game in action. I am sure it would be tweaked and
modified to suit the students’ abilities!
Works cited:
"Do We" Really Know Dewey? Retrieved from: http://library.thinkquest.org/5002/
Stauffer, S. (2008, Summer2008). Dewey-or Don't We-Classify? Children
& Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to
Children, 6(2), 49-51.
No comments:
Post a Comment