Kids OK With No Dewey

If you’re wondering how students in Gilbert, AZ, are responding to their Dewey-less library now that school is open, there’s no need to worry. No one’s really noticed. “Students don’t seem to care or know the difference,” says Jennifer Miele, manager of the Perry Branch Library, which also serves as a media center for the adjacent Perry High School.

Librarians across the country were up in arms over the decision by the library —a branch of the Maricopa County Library District—to ditch Dewey in favor of a bookstore-like shelving system. And they were equally concerned about how the high school kids would react to the change. So far, there have been no complaints. “I’m not sure these freshmen and sophomores really encountered Dewey before, so we haven’t had any comments,” says Miele.

School officially started on July 23, and Allison Burke, who has the dual role of media specialist and young adult librarian, has been pointing out the library’s new system of shelving its entire 31,000-item collection by topic and by alphabetizing an author’s last name. But the kids are more interested in the fact that the library allows food and drinks and that it has its own semiprivate Teen Oasis section, equipped with red and purple velvet lounge chairs and lots of computers.

Getting rid of Dewey was a bold but much-needed step to make the library as “customer-service friendly as possible” and to attract a younger crowd, says Marshall Shore, the library’s coordinator for adult services.

And it’s working. “Every week we see more high school kids,” says Miele, adding that they’re taking advantage of after-school programs and the library’s late hours.

Miele does admit that it may be too early to tell if more complaints will start coming in once research project season starts. But for now, students really enjoy browsing the easy-to-read signs and low bookshelves.