Why would you want to do that?

I told a few of my colleagues, who already think I'm a book nerd, that my assignment for module 9 was to create a lesson on the Dewey Decimal system and all I got was laughter. I told them about the website (www.deweybrowse.org) where you can search the web using Dewey Decimal call numbers and they said "Why would you want to do that?"

I, on the other hand, can see one reason why you might want to do that. Imagine you are a student holding a non-fiction book with the call number 915.08. In the physical library you can browse the shelves for books nearby on the same subject. The catalog allows you to do the same thing. Why not browse the web the same way? It makes sense I think, for students who are being encouraged to use both print and digital resources, to use the Dewey classifications to find digital resources that match the books they are using.

I do not think that students (or others) will chose this way of searching over a regular Google search, but having more possible search paths can't be a bad thing can it?

Students often seem to have trouble finding things on the web when their initial search terms don't yield results on the first page. One of my students is studying Sejong the Great (the Korean Emperor) for a humanities biography project. He told me he couldn't find any sites other that Wikipedia. He is having trouble imagining what searches other than "Sejong the Great" would yield results. This is despite the lessons that we have covered about web searching. Doing a broader subject search might help students find resources they otherwise wouldn't think to type into a keyword type search.

This makes it worth while to teach the DDS to students along with other Information Literacy lessons. Other lessons on the subject headings themselves would also be a benefit to students and teachers alike.

My Dewey Decimal System activity sheet:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wvDgwC9RZ-vk_AlJCgVXHCJJYgBqDgXeWBMBMLbFWjA/