Metis is a Dewey-free library classification system developed and implemented in 2011 by Sue Giffard, Tali Balas Kaplan, Jennifer Still, and Andrea Dolloff, the librarians at the Ethical Culture School in New York City. The system places the thinking, interests, information needs and information-seeking behavior of children at its center. It was developed as an alternative to the Dewey Decimal Classification System and the practices which customarily accompany that system in school and public libraries in the United States: namely, the alphabetical arrangement of fiction by author, and the frequent arrangement of biographies in alphabetical order by biographee. The Metis system (named for Metis the Titan who was the mother of Athena in Greek mythology) was designed to encourage productive independent browsing by children, as well as allowing for successful catalog searching by elementary school students.
Theoretical foundations
Metis draws on a number of sources for its foundational ideas and approach. A number of authors have stressed the importance of browsing potential in a successful classification system, notably A.C. Foskett and Robert Losee. This suggested the need to investigate browsing and information-seeking behavior. Similarly, Thomas's contention that in constructing a classification system one needed to "use communally accepted patterns of subject order and relationships" showed a need to investigate children's modes of categorizing information. Linda Cooper's work was extremely influential in this regard. From a more general education perspective, the work in devising Metis was deeply influenced by the fact that the Ethical Culture School library is part of a progressive elementary school, where children's developmental needs are given a central importance. At the level of library practice, Metis was influenced by the work done at the Rangeview Public Library, the Markham Public Library, the Children's Department at the Darien Library, and Lyn Donbroski's article about innovations at the East Sussex County Library in the early 1980s.
Features
The stated aims of the system (introduction to Metis schedules) are that it is child-centered and flexible. The 26 main categories and their accompanying sub-categories were devised with reference to the research of Linda Cooper, in her investigations of the categorizing behavior of children from Kindergarten through Grade 4. The system dispenses with coded call numbers, except that the order of the 26 main categories are fixed in alphabetical order using a single alphabetical letter, e.g. A: Facts; B: Machines, C: Science, D: Nature, E: Animals, F: Pets, etc. Aside from this, the call numbers use whole language. Except for chapter book fiction, memoirs, graphic novels and poetry, author cutters are mostly dispensed with. The sub-categories are almost all in alphabetical order.
While in the middle grades room, where fiction comes in the form of chapter books, fiction is divided according to genre, in the lower grades room, with its wealth of picture story books, division by topic is used in addition to genre. Thus, the books about dogs are shelved together regardless of whether they are fiction or nonfiction, as are the books about bullying or trucks or seasons. Colorblind-friendly color coding is used on the spines of the books to denote clearly whether that book is fiction or nonfiction.
Some of the main categories differ markedly from the Dewey main classes. One example is Making Stuff, which includes anything which children like to do for fun, including arts and crafts, collections, games, cooking, putting on plays, and magic tricks. Another is Mystery, which includes nonfiction on codes, crime, optical illusions, puzzles, spies and unexplained mysteries such as the Bermuda Triangle, as well as mystery and detective fiction. In these categories, one can see the principle of user interest at the center of the system.
The system also includes a visual aspect, whereby each book in a main category has a visual label that reflects that category, in addition to a call number consisting of words.
While there are aspects of the system that were devised specifically for the layout and geography of the original library, the system is flexible, so that it can be changed to accommodate different layouts and set-ups, as well as differences in users and collection emphases.