The Origami Forum

Anyone know what the number of the Melvil Dewey's decimal system in origami? I'll find origami books in the library.

I'm not sure about the official, true Dewey Decimal System number, but different libraries use different call numbers. I've been to libraries where 747.1 (Los Angeles Public Library) was origami, and others where it was 736 (Santa Monica I think). And still others (Santa Barbara had a different number).

It depends on the library.

I've noticed the same thing as well. Different libraries have different systems.

Never heard of Melvil Dewey's decimal system before. Just had a quick search on Wikipedia and found out it's mostly used in the Anglo-American language area. In Austria the most usual library classification standard is called ÖSÖB (never heard of this one before too). From what I understand there are a lot of other classification systems to be found all around the world. So if you want to get a classification code for a specific topic, you first have to tell where you live and what specific library you are interested to borrow the books from.

First, try the 700s. Then look around 736. If you don't find any origami, then the best answer is to ask the reference librarian or look in the card catalog or computer...

- Hank Simon

736-982 has always worked well for me.

I've spent hours going to libraries trying to learn models. Other thing I've done a few times is going to book stores with a semi folded model in my pocket and learning new steps from the books on the shelves. It usually takes me 4 to 5 visits to the book store to complete a model (you know, you can't just take it out of your pocket and start folding right there.)

As a somewhat related tangent, I have a friend who is a librarian and he explained to me that libraries don't tend to buy many complex origami books because they do not get checked out very often, and that's one of the main ways that a library measures the value of a book in the collection.