000 Generalities 100 Philosophy, paranormal phenomena, psychology 200 Religion 300 Social sciences 400 Language

500 Natural sciences and mathematics 600 Technology (applied sciences) 700 The arts (fine art and decorative art) 800 Literature and rhetoric 900 Geography, history and associated subjects

The provider Cyberdewey gives a broader view of the "indexes" used by the Dewey system. The ten categories are completed by 7 tables:

Table 1: common subdivisions
Table 2: geographical areas, historical periods, people
Table 3: subdivisions for the arts, literature, literary styles
Table 4: subdivisions of languages and families of languages
Table 5: groups: radical, ethnic, national
Table 6: languages
Table 7: group of people

Each of these classes is attributed its own hierarchy and is separated into divisions which are in turn subdivided into sections. This is repeated as many times as necessary.

At each step a precise element is added to the general term. This branched system leads to an accurate definition of the subject of the material (for instance category 500).

The subdivision of each class to give increasingly narrow units leads to each book being given a number (its code) which is the most accurate possible description of its contents. It is this code that is used to locate a book in a library. A book on the ecology of forests in a temperate region like France could have the code 577.30012 FRA e/M. The breakdown is like this:

This code is written on the spine of the book and is used to locate the book on the shelves of the library.

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