The document introduces students to the Dewey Decimal Classification system used in libraries to organize books. It explains that nonfiction books are organized by topic into 10 main categories numbered 000-999. Within each category, books on more specific topics are grouped together based on their call numbers. The system was created by Melvil Dewey in the late 1800s to make it easy for library patrons to find books on their topics of interest.
Before we can start with the sorting game – which is actually about how books are arranged on the shelves in a library – we need to review two things: The library’s main sections The make up of a call number. Who remembers the names of the different sections? We will focus to begin with on the easy, fiction and nonfiction section. Now we will look at the different parts of a call number. Where do we find a call number usually? (A: Spine) [Send three students to each of the main sections to find out what a call number is made up of: How many parts? What do the parts stand for? What is the same, what is different between the call numbers of the different sections?] Remains one question: what do the numbers in the call numbers for nonfiction stand for? (lead over to the “sorting game”)