The Dewey Decimal Classification—conceived by Melvil Dewey in 1873 and first published in 1876—is a general knowledge organization tool that is continuously revised to keep pace with current knowledge.
At LACC's Martin Luther King Library, the numbers to keep in mind for English/ESL are the 800's for Literature (located on the 3rd floor) and the 420's for English grammar (located on the 2nd floor). We also have an Easy Reading section on the second floor that you can browse.
Some commonly used call numbers for ESL:
| Call Number | Subject |
| 423 | Dictionaries |
| 423.1 | Thesauruses; Idioms |
| 428 | Standard English usage (prescriptive linguistics/applied linguistics) |
| 428.24 | Structural approach to learning English for non-native English speakers |
| 428.34 | Audio-lingual approach to learning English for non-native English speakers |
| 428.64 | English readers (textbooks) for those whose native language is different |
The Dewey Decimal System has ten major subject groupings. Within each subject group, there are classification numbers that lead to more specific topics:
Overview
000 GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
100 PHILOSOPHY & PSYCHOLOGY
200 RELIGION
300 SOCIAL SCIENCES
400 LANGUAGES
500 SCIENCE
600 TECHNOLOGY
700 ARTS & RECREATION
800 LITERATURE
900 HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY