📚 LEARNING THE LIBRARY: The General 000s

Tuesday is our Homeschool Books & Libraries Day in the River Houses, and on the first Tuesday of each month we invite you and your homescholars to explore one of the major Dewey Decimal classes at your local library. If you start at the beginning of the River Houses year in September and run until July, you can “adopt” one major class each month and cover the whole of knowledge (!) in a year.

The class for October is the 000s — the “zero-hundreds” — which covers General Works. The Dewey system is grouped by hundreds, so “the 000s” means the numbers running from 000 to 099. Interestingly, because the Dewey system was developed long before computers were invented, the major subject of computer science originally had no Dewey home, so it was eventually put into the 000s also, although an argument could be made that it should have been put into either the 500s (Science) or the 600s (Technology) instead.

Here’s what you’ll find at your local library in the zero-hundreds:

• CLASS 000 – COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION, & GENERAL WORKS
• • 000 – Computer Science, Knowledge, & Systems (General)
  • 010 – Bibliography
  • 020 – Library & Information Sciences
  • 030 – Encyclopedias & Books of Facts
  • 040 – Unassigned (formerly Biographies)
  • 050 – Magazines, Journals, & Serials
  • 060 – Associations, Organizations, & Museums
  • 070 – News Media, Journalism, & Publishing
  • 080 – Quotations & General Collections (Interviews, Lectures, etc.)
  • 090 – Manuscripts & Rare Books

Each of these “tens” divisions is subdivided further of course. For example, in the 090s (Manuscripts & Rare Books) you’ll find works on Incunabula (093), Books Notable for Bindings (095), Books Notable for Illustrations (096), Prohibited Works, Forgeries, & Hoaxes (098), and so on.

When I was a kid myself I would have zoomed right in on the 030s — Books of Facts! As an adult I’m more likely to head for the 080s (“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library“) and the 090s (Aristotle’s Treatise on Comedy). You and your students can explore and find favorite numbers of your very own. 😊

When you’re learning the library with your students, be sure they understand that any library collection that uses the Dewey Decimal Classification will be arranged in the same way: the numbers run from 000 to 999 in every Dewey-based library, so if you’re interested in, say, Astronomy, you’ll find it in the 520s in both the small-town library near you and in the big-city library across the country. If you have an opportunity to make field trips to multiple libraries over the course of the year you’ll be able to demonstrate that in practice and get your students accustomed to orienting themselves by reading the numbers aloud as you walk together down the ranges: “500 … 510 … 515 … here it is, 520.”

Learning these library basics will help your students become independent life-long learners and will ensure that they’ll feel right at home in any library they visit.

What delightful decimals have you discovered in your library lately? 😊

❡ Make it a tradition: Why not spend a few minutes during your first library visit each month and devise a little Dewey tradition of your own. Read the title page of one book in the 000s, one in the 010s, one in the 020s, one in the 030s, and so on. Find the very first book in the class (the lowest 000) and the very last book in the class (the highest 099). Find the thinnest book and the thickest book in each class. Make a list of your three favorite numbers in each class. If you follow a simple pattern like this month-by-month, over the course of the year you’ll be surprised how much information your students will absorb and how many skills they will develop without even realizing it. 🔎

❡ Planning ahead: If you’d like to map out a custom year-long Dewey project for your homeschool, here’s the first-Tuesday schedule we follow in the River Houses: Introducing Dewey (September); The General 000s (October); The Philosophical 100s (November); The Religious 200s (December); The Social 300s (January); The Linguistic 400s (February); The Scientific 500s (March); The Technological 600s (April); The Artistic 700s (May); The Literary 800s (June); The Historical 900s (July); and On Beyond Dewey (August). This schedule also appears on our main River Houses calendar for the year — print out your own copy, post it on your family bulletin board, and follow along with us. 🗓

❡ Dukedoms large enough: Have you found all the local libraries in your area? There may be more than you realize, and there’s no better homeschool field trip than a field trip to a new library! The WorldCat Library Finder will help you find all the library collections near you — public and private, large and small — and the WorldCat catalog itself will help you locate the closest copy of almost any book in the world. 😊

❡ When in doubt, go to the library: This is one of our regular Homeschool Books & Libraries posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📚