{"id":18053,"date":"2018-04-19T12:01:03","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T16:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=18053"},"modified":"2018-04-19T08:55:12","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T12:55:12","slug":"autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/autism\/","title":{"rendered":"An Autistic Take on DDC"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Autism Awareness Month, or Autism Acceptance Month if you\u2019re one of us. According to the Dewey Decimal System, I have a disease, but I don\u2019t think of it that way. Sure, I have some real diseases, like Hashimoto\u2019s. My thyroid attacking itself is a disease. But I don\u2019t think of the way my mind works as a disease.<\/p>\n

Yet, if I wasn\u2019t afraid of needles, and I was going to get a tattoo, I think it would read \u201c616.85882.\u201d The Dewey Decimal System is part of my identity as a librarian, and 616.85882 is the call number for autism in adults.<\/p>\n

The Dewey Decimal System works well with my autistic mind. Indeed, my autistic superpower is that I can remember strings of numbers, manipulate them, and read them back. \u00a0(It\u2019s called \u201cworking memory.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The DDC feels, in fact, like something that only an autistic could have come up with. (The question of whether Melvil Dewey was autistic, well, that would require an entire blog post of its own.) It is very literal in the way that it classifies things, and autistics can often take things pretty literally. A picture book about how Harvey Milk and Gilbert Baker invented the Pride flag? The Dewey gods at the Library of Congress\u2019 Dewey Program place it not under civil rights, or flag-making, but under history of California. Because, literally, it\u2019s an event that happened in California. (Contextually, it probably belongs under civil rights.)<\/p>\n

Yes, DDC has gone through 22 revisions, but its \u201coriginal sin\u201d is Dewey himself. Aside from his problematic views on women and minorities, he was first and foremost a man who existed in a different time and place. DDC was born in that time and place; its foundation was in the way that Dewey viewed the world.<\/p>\n

As an autistic children\u2019s librarian, the DDC works well for me, and is something that I\u2019m comfortable with. I recognize that no one has come up with a better system to organize nonfiction books in public libraries. (I\u2019m sure we\u2019ve all seen a webinar on how to make your library more like a bookstore, but come on, really?)<\/p>\n

I also am somewhat old-fashioned, in that I like to help people find books. So I don\u2019t mind that the typical parent doesn\u2019t know the system, because I know it. I\u2019m old-fashioned. I don\u2019t like to use the self-checkout at CVS, so I imagine that someone coming into a library wants me to actually help them find books. Some may want to ship me out of town and replace me with a volunteer, but I think that reference and reader\u2019s advisory in a children\u2019s room are useful services.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the answer? Do we blow up Dewey because he was a creep and his system reflected patriarchy, Eurocentrism, etc.? Or do we hope that there are \u201cwoke\u201d people plugging away at the Dewey Program who will evolve DDC for the times? I\u2019d lean toward the latter.<\/p>\n

I still want that tattoo, and I still dream of the day that books about autistics end up under 323 instead of 616. It\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n

***********************************************************************<\/p>\n

\"An
Image courtesy of guest blogger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This guest post was written by \u201cJustin Spectrum.\u201d\u00a0 Justin Spectrum is the pseudonym for a youth services librarian in the United States. Read more about his perspectives as an autistic children\u2019s librarian in this previous ALSC Blog piece<\/a>.\u00a0All opinions are his alone; he can be reached at\u00a0 <\/em>realjustinspectrum@gmail.com<\/em><\/a> or on Twitter @realjspectrum. Justin would love to hear from you; email him directly or add comments to this post.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at\u00a0alscblog@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Autism Awareness Month, or Autism Acceptance Month if you\u2019re one of us. According to the Dewey Decimal System, I have a disease, but I don\u2019t think of it that way. Sure, I have some real diseases, like Hashimoto\u2019s. My thyroid attacking itself is a disease. But I don\u2019t think of the way my mind works as a disease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[134,207],"tags":[393],"class_list":["post-18053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-blogger","category-special-needs-awareness","tag-autism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}