DDC 360-369: A curious case of massive understatement

A Teach Me How To Dewey production

This Is How We Dewey:

  • 360 Social services; association
  • 361 General social problems
  • 362 Social welfare problems & services
  • 363 Other social problems & services
  • 364 Criminology
  • 365 Penal & related institutions
  • 366 Association
  • 367 General clubs
  • 368 Insurance
  • 369 Miscellaneous kinds of associations

361 “General social problems”? Really, Dewey? There could (and probably should) be an entire library filled with books in that subclass. But as has been the case with the previous 300s sections, this one gets FascinationPoints™ for dealing with people themselves: the good, the bad, the insane, the pathological, the criminal… We contain multitudes, we humans and our psyches, and it’s all pretty well represented here. So dive in, if you dare, to the Human Experience. Hope you brought a swimming suit because you’re about to get drenched by humanity.

The Dew3:

Devil in the Details: Scenes From An Obsessive Girlhood
By Jennifer Traig
Dewey: 362.196852
Random Sentence: “Instead of tights, I had Torah.”

The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant: An Adoption Story
By Dan Savage
Dewey: 362.73408664
Random Sentence: “I took some more codeine.”

Catch Me If You Can
By Frank Abagnale
Dewey: 364.163
Random Sentence: “After that I was flying kites.”

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