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When he developed his decimal system in the 1870s, Melvil Dewey was trying to bring the efficiency and allure of engineering to the emerging field of library science. At a moment when engineers were national heroes, nothing quite said reliable or important like decimals. It’s perhaps ironic, then, that the Dewey Decimal System is today not just a practical way to find books in most public libraries (but not most large research libraries, where the Library of Congress system holds sway). It’s also—and maybe more importantly—a symbol of the romance of libraries, not their efficiency.

We can see the particular, fantastical romance of the Dewey Decimal System best in the proliferation of jewelry that says “I still believe in 398.2,” or variations thereof. 398.2 being, of course, the classification for fairy tales (or, in other words, about as far as you can get from engineering).

But if your reading tastes run in a different direction, there are other Dewey Decimal categories to choose your jewelry from. The Written Nerd, for example, uses real card catalog cards to make jewelry under different headings. Like science:

To read the complete article, see: Dewey Decimal jewelry (bookriot.com/2013/06/14/dewey-decimal-jewelry/)