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Librarians at the College of Eastern Nevada embrace the new classification system.

by Brody Truce
Senior Staff Writer

Citing shifts in student needs and ever-decreasing student satisfaction scores, librarians at The College of Eastern Nevada have elected to abandon the Dewey Decimal system for categorizing books.

“We found that we were spending an extraordinary amount of time explaining the Dewey Decimal classification system to our students, and they simply weren’t retaining the information,” explained Janet Poleman, director of the college’s library. “Our students will return this fall to find an exciting new system categorizing our literature.”

All books in the college’s library will now be categorized using familiar Netflix categories.

“There has definitely been some healthy debate as to where some of our books will now live,” said Poleman, recounting a particularly heated debate about whether Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights belonged in the “Romantic Comedy” or “Cerebral Drama” section.

Faculty who rely heavily on the Dewey Decimal system may download from the library’s internet site a conversion sheet for the new classification system:

Dewey Decimal Category Netflix Category
000 – Computer science, information & general works Sci-Fi & Fantasy
100 – Philosophy and psychology Special Interest
200 – Religion Faith & Spirituality
300 – Social sciences Gay & Lesbian
400 – Language Foreign
500 – Science (including mathematics) Sci-Fi & Fantasy
600 – Technology Documentary
700 – Arts and recreation Music & Musicals
800 – Literature Romantic Comedy
900 – History, geography, and biography Cerebral Drama