This was originally a news post.

I’m a librarian, as you know. I’m about to talk about something that really bothers me, as a librarian. For small libraries, the Dewey Decimal system normally works great for the nonfiction. However, sometimes, it reveals just how archaic it is. Despite the fact that they’ve adjusted it to allow for Computer sections, I can’t believe that the people who hold the copyrights and licensing of the system can let something like this slip by:

Religion – 200
210 Natural Theology
220 Bible
230 Christian Theology
240 Christian Moral & Devotional Theology
250 Christian Orders & Local Church
260 Christian Social Theology
270 Christian Church History
280 Christian Denominations & Sects
290 Other & Comparative Religions

This is horrifying when applied to an academic environment. Nobody with any sense of perspective greater than that of a Wal-Mart manager would call such a lop-sided section “Religion” today. It’s made worse by the general (00’s) and the Natural Theology sections, which are anything but. Look at their subdivisions:

201 Philosophy of Christianity
202 Miscellany of Christianity
203 Dictionaries of Christianity
204 Special topics
205 Periodicals & serial publications of Christianity
206 Organizations of Christianity
207 Education, research in Christianity
208 Kinds of persons in Christianity
209 History & geography of Christianity
211 Concepts of God
212 Existence, attributes of God
213 Creation
214 Theodicy
215 Science & religion
216 Good & evil
217 [unused]
218 Humankind
219 [unused]

That’s a lot more Christianities and Gods. Essentially, you shove the majority of the world’s religions and theology into a tiny little corner of the system, and part of that is unused. Let’s look at the 290’s.

291 Comparative religion
292 Classical Greek & Roman religion
293 Germanic religion
294 Religions of Indic origin
295 Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism, Parseeism)
296 Judaism
297 Islam & religions originating in it
298 [unused]
299 Other religions

I’m sorry, but this is entirely inadequate. Granted, it must have made perfect sense to the man who founded the system, from his outlook. But we’ve gone much further since then, and although the real academic system is the Library of Congress system in this country, the Dewey system still deserves to be revised to better reflect reality. I suggest something like this:

200 – Religion
Changed to reflect more general concepts, with nothing specific to any one faith. Samus’s Big Book O’ Religion could go here, etc.
210 – Religious Philosophy
This would be the discussion of concepts such as Good and Evil; essentially, the philosophy of religion.
220 – Judaism
Judaism. The three main Judaic religions will be in order of their founding.
230 – Christianity
Christianity came second, so it gets the second spot.
240 – Islam
Islam is the newest, so it gets the third spot.
250 – Hinduism
The world’s third largest religion deserves a good place
260 – Buddhism
Another large religion that gets shafted in the current system.
270 – Classical Mythologies
Religions from the classical period that have fallen out of favor somewhat, such as Greco-Roman mythology, Egyptian, Sumerian, Norse, etc.
280 – Native American, African and Other
The religions of African tribes, Native Americans, and most other tribal religions.
290 – Comparative Religion and Religious Debate
Should be self explanatory.

This system above is not perfect. It is still very focused on Western and Judaic religions. Considering where the Dewey Decimal system is mainly used, this makes some sense. Since it’s impossible to give every single faith its own section, we must focus on those that are currently the most prominent, followed by those with the most historical impact. Naturally, this is again talking about Western history, but this is a Western system. It’s impossible to make perfect, but it’s much better than the current Religion setup, which is actually just Christian Theology. The language section is actually just as messed up, with every language that isn’t European being forced into the 490’s, but I’m not going to fight every battle.