案例库 · 研发与科研 · 技术决策 · 1876
这条还没译成中文，下面是英文原文。
Melvil Dewey's decimal scheme won libraries by letting every book be numbered forever.
Dewey's 1876 scheme split knowledge into nine decimal classes so a new topic could always be inserted and shelved in order; it became the library standard.
Melvil Dewey · OCLC
那一手
As libraries grew, each chose its own arrangement, so a book found in one library could not be located in another. In 1873 Melvil Dewey, working at Amherst College, began building a system to classify and arrange books.
He published the first edition in 1876: a library divided into nine main classes, each divided again using decimals. Because the decimal point could keep extending, any subject could be split without new categories, and the relative order stayed consistent on the shelf.
The scheme made the catalogue and the shelves match, so a book could be found by a number anywhere the system was used. OCLC has maintained the Dewey Decimal Classification since 1988.
为什么管用
- Decimals let a scheme expand forever without renumbering
- Relative number equals shelf position, so finding is mechanical
- A book's address is independent of the building or the librarian
- It gave small and large libraries one common shared vocabulary
可以搬走什么
A classification that can always subdivide is open-ended by design; make order a property of the identifier and a growing collection never needs re-shelving.
后来呢
The Dewey Decimal Classification became one of the most widely used library systems in the world, and OCLC has maintained and published it since 1988, proof that a good ordering standard can outlive its inventor.
资料来源
- A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library
- DDC timeline
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