Dewey Decimal System and Figs

Books arrange by color.

Books can be arranged by color, or many other organization strategies but the most efficient way is with  decimal numbers because decimal numbers are infinite -- so the number of books, in theory, could be infinite. They were arranged by subject, title, and author in card catalog cabinets (see below) at one time. Now they are arranged in the online catalog by subject, title, and author. That way a book can be searched using whatever piece of information that is already known, in my case the subject  figs.

Card Catalog Cabinet

A search in the online catalog would help find out if specific titles for the figgy topic exists at this particular library. For the purposes of this post, the answer is yes, books exist in this particular library for figs. Fig cooking would be in the 640s, and fig planting would be in the 580s. When arriving at the area for the broad decimal category for the subject of figs, a specific book can be found by looking at the spine. Each spine has an identifier called a call number. It is made up of the Dewey Decimal number and, under that, the first two letters of the author's last name.

Shelton Public Schools uses this diagram to explain call numbers.