Dewey Really Need This? Classification, care, collaboration, and community engagement in libraries

These slides provide a brief overview of some of the problematic histories and legacies of the Dewey Decimal Classification System (and Dewey himself), particularly focussing on heterosexism and cissexism, but also sexism, racism, colonialism, and more discrimination. They critique the idea that libraries and librarians are neutral, discuss some of the creative and caring ways library workers and communities have challenged and continue to challenge and change these systems, and suggest ways we can all challenge discrimination in library classification (and other systems, policies and practices) too and why it is important that we do so.