from Hacker News

A Library in New Zealand Replaces Dewey with System Rooted in Māori Tradition

by Geekette on 5/29/25, 9:40 AM with 32 comments

by Geekette on 5/29/25, 9:41 AM
Non-paywall link: https://archive.is/PWMJS
by PostOnce on 6/1/25, 11:19 AM
I believe this is cut from whole cloth and has no historical basis in matauranga Māori. It's worth noting that Māori did not have writing, and that whatever this classification system is, it's not Māori per se, it's just Māori-themed.
They did have forms of record keeping aids like rakau whakapapa / genealogy sticks, but no meaningful information classification system in the absence of writing.
I feel like I'm being lied to or gaslit or something when this is claimed to be traditional.
by efitz on 6/1/25, 11:47 AM
This seems like a good way to ensure that Māori literature doesn’t ever get discovered unless someone is specifically only looking for Māori literature. Ironically using such a system in a library may contribute to its extinction.
Libraries are not just repositories of knowledge; they are discovery mechanisms. Putting a tiny fraction of your knowledge under a different discovery mechanism makes it only worthwhile for people and tools already targeting that specific niche, to put in the effort to figuring out how to discover new content there.
by amiga386 on 6/1/25, 6:15 PM
Recall the classic essay, Ontology is Overrated - https://web.archive.org/web/20191117161738/http://shirky.com...
Book classification systems take on the the shape of the books being collected, and the books collected have the shape of the curator, who typically has the shape of the society they live in.
It's quite conciveable that any one classification system, designed for one person's idea of "all knowledge", massively biased to knowledge they and their society hold dear, is terrible for cataloguing another society's or sub-group's knowledge. The classic examples given in the essay include the first top-level category in the Soviet library system:
```
    A: Marxism-Leninism
    A1: Classic works of Marxism-Leninism
    A3: Life and work of C.Marx, F.Engels, V.I.Lenin
    A5: Marxism-Leninism Philosophy
    A6: Marxist-Leninist Political Economics
    A7/8: Scientific Communism
```
and the Religion classification in the Dewey Decimal System:
```
    200 Religion
    210 Natural theology
    220 Bible
    230 Christian theology
    240 Christian moral & devotional theology
    250 Christian orders & local church
    260 Christian social theology
    270 Christian church history
    280 Christian sects & denominations
    290 Other religions
```
See the issue? Christianity has 220, 221, 222, 223 ... up to 289. Judaism has 296 alone. Islam has to share 297 with Bábism and the Baháʼí Faith. Buddhism doesn't even get a fucking category.
GUESS THE PREDOMINANT FAITH IN THE SOCIETY WHERE THE DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM WAS INVENTED.
Ultimately, the essay rejects singular classification altogether. The only reason it exists is because bookshelves are linear, and you want to put like books with like. That's it, that's all. And you have to squint a lot, because many books don't kindly stick to a single topic.
So, whatever classification system these Kiwi libraries make up, don't worry about it, it'll be just as bullshit as the Dewey Decimal System, but it'll be better-shaped for the books it's classifying, and it'll be useful as an overview of the collection, and a way to discover and explore it. A more helpful index would use tagging, and an even more helpful index would be a full-text search engine.
by suddenlybananas on 6/1/25, 11:03 AM
[flagged]
by lmpdev on 6/1/25, 11:33 AM
Really disappointingly sour responses from HN ITT
This is a tiny and temporary library in Wellington set up while the main library gets upgraded to deal with the city’s risk of earthquakes
It’s about the size of a house, with only ~20,000 books.
What gives you the right to boo and hiss at something across the world to you? In a culture you’re unfamiliar with. This is a tiny, community focused library, modifying a single section’s ordering and labelling of books.
Why does that offend you?