The End of Dewey?
A local library has stopped using the Dewey Decimal system to catalog books and are simply grouping them based on general categories: Art, Cooking, History, etc.
This is disturbing and wrong on so many levels.
Some searches would be obvious, say "cupcakes" could be found under 'Cooking.'
But what if I was searching for "sex?" Is that 'Health?' 'Psychology?' Is it in both?
How about "bears?" Is there just an 'Animals' shelf to look on, or are they separated out into 'Mammals?'
In most cases, you, as the library patron are going to have to search for your subject online to figure out where to go look on the shelves in these large, broad groups now.
This gets into user design, which one thinks of in terms of software and not physical libraries, but user design grew out of 'user behavior' which is entirely related. A good user interface (UI) allows for people to access your system in multiple ways because people look for information in different ways.
There are folks who like to browse around software systems and those who like to type keywords and get straight to the point, and a good UI designer knows to accomodate both. But this new library design/subject design/cataloging system seems to make all the patrons fit into one mold--you have to use the library catalog first, type in your subject(s) before you can access the shelves. (BTW, the new library catalog requires you to log on too, before it was an anonymous system).
There has been a trend in software to get rid of the bells and whistles and to make software simpler (easy-to-use! goes the tagline on the marketing materials) and I wonder if this is jumping on this bandwagon. But it strikes me as dumbing down. Users do not want their world dissolved into twenty or thirty broad subject areas.
Or are there no librarians to catalog books, so the library clerks are shelving books where they see fit? I don't know.
I am a browser, but heaven help me if I want to search for "medieval armor," you tell me where to begin to look.