The 000s
I’d like to recommend my favorite shelf: The 000s! When Melvil Dewey created the Dewey Decimal System, he assigned the hundreds to major subject areas: The 100s are philosophy, 200s are religion, and so on. And he left the numbers from 000-099 for “general knowledge,” which includes everything they didn’t study in 1873. So “The UFO Book,” “The Encyclopedia of Curious Rituals & Superstitions,” and our books on Bigfoot and computers all live side-by-side in the 000s. It’s Dewey’s nonfiction junk drawer.
I’m currently reading “How to AI: Cut through the hype. Master the basics. Transform your work,” by Christopher Mims (call number 006.3). It’s a relentlessly positive title that Sees No Evil in AI, finding the positive even in fields where AI use has resulted in layoffs of half the human workforce. At the same time, I’m reading “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why superhuman AI would kill us all,” by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. It’s just a bit more pessimistic about AI’s potential hazards than the first one, and also at 006.3.
Libraries also fit under “General knowledge,” so a few feet farther down the shelf is “Silenced in the Library: Banned books in America,” by Zeke Jarvis (call number 098.1097). As a librarian and believer in the First Amendment, the threat of mass book bannings is a subject near and dear to my heart. This is pretty much a catalog of what’s being challenged.
The 000s folks. It’s where it’s at in your local public library.