Where to find Dewey codes for specific books?

I'm a volunteer librarian (ie not trained as a librarian) at a small club library.

At the moment, our children's reference section (all of one bookcase with three shelves) is organised alphabetically by author. I'd like to reorganise it according to the Dewey decimal system.

Is there a website where I can easily look up the appropriate code for each book?

With 3 shelves on 1 bookcase, why?

>2 guido47:
The potential for future expansion, most likely.

>3 Collectorator:: Thank you; will have a look.

>2 guido47:: Well, because it is a reference section, but everything is pretty much lumped in together (history, space, science, world records etc. etc.). It doesn't happen often, but kids occasionally do ask where to find a book on a specific subject. I don't mind looking it up for them, but it would be easier for them if everything was classified by subject, I'm thinking.

http://www.worldcat.org

You will probably have to go into an individual library's record to get the Dewey.

Many books will also have a Dewey number as part of the Cataloging-in-Publication information on the back of the title page (that thing that looks sort of like they put a card-catalog card in the book). You can use that number too. They are not always perfect for every library, but I imagine in a small club library, they'll do.

I have found some in the LOC MARC records. Another place you might look is your public library consortium. If they use Dewey you could see how they have cataloged their books. If you have a foreign book or book from a publisher like Scholastic, you may have to go with the closest designation you can find. There are no Dewey police to come knocking at your door.

Thanks for all your help, everyone. At the moment we're doing a stock take, so I'm a bit tied up; but once that's done, I've got plenty of places to look for Dewey codes.

>8 mamzel:: Omigosh - Dewey police?!

"There are no Dewey police to come knocking at your door."
You obviously do not work in my library. I recently had to re-catalog a book from 514.56 to 514.58 (or something like that) to make a fellow librarian happy. Life. If you can think of it, probably someone will do it.

~10 Catalogers are a breed apart. Had many a tangle with the cataloger at the public library I worked at. Usually I could get a "see also" entry as a compromise from him. Catalogers and children's librarians do not always see the library in the same light. He wanted the Dewey number and subject heading "right", and I wanted the book where the patron could find it easily. Now I do my own cataloging and can pretty much please myself. Without straying too far from AACR, of course. :)

I often assist our technical services librarian and can say that WorldCat has proven quite useful. You'd probably want to look at the collections of public libraries, as most of them tend to use Dewey.

I'm not sure how many of your books they will have, but I use Blackwell's website. The details section has a Dewey number http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk

I use librarything quite a bit for cataloging the books in our church library. The odd one will be missing a Dewey number, but I'd say it's helpful the vast majority of the time.

I get my Dewey numbers from the Library of Congress record by clicking full record tab. Searching for the book is pretty easy, as long as you remember to omit the initial "the" or "a" in the title and omit any apostrophes. The Dewey fills in automatically when you add books using Library of Congress and often with Amazon also. Sometimes I think the LOC classification for Dewey is wrong for our library. For instance, The Little Book of Hindu Deities puts the book in the 700s prioritizing the drawings by Pixar illustrator and author. I reclassified into a 200 number for Hindu religion because that was the priority for me and where church users would look for a book on the topic. My mother was a cataloguer (I am not a librarian) and I can remember her complaining about LOC classifications not being spot on always.