There has been a recent discussion on the Community and Junior College Libraries listserv regarding the use of Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification schemes in community college libraries. Not surprisingly, members of the list have been quite vocal in expressing their views on the use of either.

Much of the discussion centers on the belief that DDC is a step “backward” for students coming to the community college environment and that it inadequately prepares them for transfer to a 4-year university. I was particularly struck by the notion that using DDC keeps students “stuck in public library/high school mode”. I feel that this is a great disservice to public libraries and to the classification system itself. There is an implicit belief that academic libraries are somehow better than public or high school libraries and I think that kind of divisive thinking sets us at odds with one another and with our shared professional goals.

Having worked in both classification systems at different community colleges it is my belief that students are ultimately adaptable and will do just fine. And if they’re not–well what on Earth have we been doing to prepare them?

An example from a completely different arena: in one of my many committee meetings we’ve been debating restructuring the admissions and add/drop forms. For years the add/drop form has been purple and everyone has called it “the purple form”. Now that the form is printed on different colored stock the concern is that students won’t know which form to use. Imagine the collective shock when I, as the only library representative, suggested that we stop creating idiots who don’t read forms. If a student can’t be bothered to read the tops of the forms and select the one that says “add/drop” then I think we’ve done them a great disservice with the hand-holding and color-coding.

I feel the same way about classification systems and transferability. We can’t teach students that everywhere they go in this life will cater to what is most comfortable to the individual–it’s going to be a rude shock when they discover otherwise. What we can do is teach them that information and instruction professionals will be available to see them through the rough spots, provided they want to learn. This is a transferable ideology–from grade school to 4-year universities.