San Diego, CA (special) -- Dewey, Elazar and Weine are neither a law firm nor an accounting firm. But they have a firm hold on how members of the Association of Jewish Librarians think about books.

Each of these names is associated with a different methodology for classifying books. Public libraries use the Dewey Decimal System, which divides all knowledge into ten broad subject areas, then subdivides those areas, and even subdivides the subdivisions. Under Dewey's broad classification for religion, "Judaism has a specific number--296," Barbara Sutton, chief librarian at the Lawrence Family JCC's Astor Judaic Library, said during the association's convention last week at the La Jolla Marriott Hotel. Jewish holidays are distinguished from life cycle events, or synagogue rituals, by numbers that come after the decimal point following the number 296, said Sutton, who served as the convention co-chair this year with Nomi Levy of Soille Hebrew Day School's Abraham Hurlich Memorial Library. "Sometimes, the decimal points could go round the book binding," Sutton quipped. Levy

LIRARIANS--Barbara Sutton, left, Chief librarian  at the Lawrence Family JCC, and Nomi Levi, chief librarian at Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, look over the program of events of the Association of Jewish Librarians, which held its national  convention in San Diego last week at the La Jolla Marriott.

laughed knowingly.

Although the JCC and Soille both have Jewish libraries, their needs are
very different. As strange as it may seem, the library at the "secular"
Jewish Community Center overall tends to be "more religious" than the
library at the "Orthodox" Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, the two
librarians agreed.

Because the JCC sees itself as a specialty library, which supplements the
offerings at public libraries, it focuses its collection exclusively on
Jewish subject matter. On the other hand, as a day school--which
teaches both secular subjects and Judaic subjects--Soille needs a library
that reflects the school's broad curriculum. Thus books on mathematics
and astronomy, which would be irrelevant to the JCC's collection, share
space on Soille's shelves with prayer books and Torah commentaries.

Because Soille students will look for books both at the public library and
at the school library, Levy said it was decided at Soille to use an
adaptation of the Dewey system -- known as the Weine System. Rather
than cramming all the Jewish books under Dewey's 296 heading, the Weine
System assigns books on various Jewish topics to shelves with non-
Jewish books about corresponding topics.

Books on Israel, for example, are housed with books about other countries
in the Middle East, under the Decimal Number 950, Levy said.

The JCC does not need to integrate Judaic knowledge and general
knowledge, so Sutton utilizes a classification system devised by the
Elazar Brothers.

"Their system is conceptually the same as the Dewey Decimal System,"
Sutton said. "Everything is into 10 categories, but they have different
numbers for the different areas. So we wouldn't find a book on Israel in
the 950s, but rather in the 800s."

The JCC librarian said that different classification systems are not the
only reason for books being shelved differently at various libraries.

"You could go to two different public libraries, catalogued by two
different people, and you might find the same book in two different
places," she said.

Levy told of a book which deals both with the holiday of Chanukah and with
the Holocaust. She explained that some librarians might place it under
"Chanukah" while others shelve it with other books on the "Shoah."

Couldn't a copy be placed in both areas? I asked.

"Yes," said Sutton, "until someone who thinks they are helping you see
them in different places and decides to put them in the 'right' place!"

Levy laughingly agreed that "this happens a lot."