# Why Aren't Library Cataloging Systems Uniform? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 25, 2008, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-library-cataloging-systems-uniform/454195 "2008-06-25T16:35:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-library-cataloging-systems-uniform/454195/41 "2008-06-26T20:40:29Z")
Hey… to the guy who wants to abandon the catalog system for computers and to the other guy who thought the first guy was an idiot… The problem with a catalog system or a bookshelf is that it’s one dimensional. In the narrow sense of the word. You have one dimension. Yet obviously different topics cross-reference each other in multiple ways. A stark example is the conflict in DDC vs LC of sorting by subject-then-country or country-then-subject. Computer catalogs could allow multi-dimensionalism. I’ll say this: current search technology, especially libraries’ search technology, sucks. Arguably the entire concept of querried search sucks. Computer browsing has the potential of being much better than shelf browsing. It just isn’t. So far. At least, imagine if library search was like Google: searching not just inside books but using ppls’ citations to construct a BookRank. Already, using technology that exists today, you could kick shelf browsing’s ass. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-library-cataloging-systems-uniform/454195/42 "2008-06-27T10:25:19Z")
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink] 🙂 So which books get irrational Dewey Decimal numbers? [/QUOTE] Books with multiple editions. Each edition adds a decimal place to the end of the number. > [@Zsofia](#): > > I believe they use the Colon system in India in some places, don’t they? Is that one related to the Dewey Dysentery system? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-library-cataloging-systems-uniform/454195/43 "2008-06-27T14:13:53Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] Books with multiple editions. Each edition adds a decimal place to the end of the number. [/QUOTE] I know this was intended to be a joke, but it’s actually one of my pet peeves about the idiotic cataloging used in Dewey. I can’t begin to estimate how many times I’ve seen the trade paperback edition of a book first issued in hardback given a different, longer, Dewey number, so that it’s shelved in a different location than the original. These are always for paperbacks identical to the original, not revised editions, although even there I don’t see why a new number should apply. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-library-cataloging-systems-uniform/454195/44 "2008-06-27T16:11:49Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] I believe they use the Colon system in India in some places, don’t they? [/QUOTE] Yes, but retrieval is a pain in the ass. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-library-cataloging-systems-uniform/454195/45 "2008-06-27T16:57:26Z")
Just to add one of the first entries in my Irony Collection: Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, was born in Adams Center, NY. (The farm my grandmother was born on was one mile from Dewey’s birthplace.) Hence when Jefferson Community College was founded, eight miles north, the college library was named the Melvil Dewey Library. The irony? As the library for a community college in the State University of New York system, it uses the same consistent cataloging system as all SUNY libraries: the Library of Congress system. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-library-cataloging-systems-uniform/454195.md?page=2)