“A library is a universe with smaller universes contained within the pages"

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In the chapter, “She’s Got Herself a Universe,” Thomas explains how the library instilled in him a love of learning. He recalls using the microfiche catalog at the library to do research on birth order in hopes that this would lead him to understanding who he was. On his quest to self-discovery, he was comforted by the thought that everything could be defined and categorized: “I’d always been captivated by the numbers on the spine of every book. I loved that every possible thing, every story, every fact, everything in the universe of knowledge could be classified.”

Although he speaks fondly of the Dewey decimal system for granting him access to “an ever-deepening world of information,” he also recognizes and acknowledges the flaws of the system: “When I first learned about the Dewey decimal system, I assumed it was an impartial way of defining and filing the breadth of knowable information. I came to understand that the intention of the filer and the perspective that they carry play a huge role in how Dewey, and any other system, is employed.” As Thomas points out, systems are not impartial or objective, but are influenced by the social context, and reflect the values, beliefs and biases of the society in which they were created.

I was fascinated to learn about Dorothy Porter’s ground-breaking work. Thomas explains that Porter, a Howard University librarian, devised her own classification system for library materials. In the 1930s, she began building a collection of books by black writers and volumes on black and African history. As she built her collection, she recognized that “many libraries were reaffirming a Eurocentric mindset” by filing everything about black life under two categories: 325 for colonization and 326 for slavery.

If you would like to learn more about Porter’s work, read this 2018 article published by the American Historical Association in "Perspectives on History":
https://www.historians.org/publicatio...

Could you relate to anything Thomas was saying about libraries? Did you learn anything? Had you previously given much thought to the way things in the library were categorized and filed?