What Happened to OCLC Classify?

A guide for non-OCLC libraries · ~4 min read · Last reviewed: August 2026

The short answer: OCLC discontinued Classify — both its website and its API — on 31 January 2024. There is no free, official service that replaces what it did. If you just need a Dewey Decimal number for a book, skip to the free options below.

What Classify was

Classify was a free service from OCLC. You gave it an ISBN, an OCLC number, or a title and author, and it told you the Dewey Decimal (and Library of Congress) classification numbers that cataloging libraries had most commonly assigned to that work across WorldCat. It wasn’t a tool for building a number from scratch — it simply showed you the numbers real catalogers had already given the book.

Because it was free and needed no subscription, it became a quiet lifeline for the libraries that don’t belong to OCLC — solo school, church, community, prison, and special libraries — the ones without copy cataloging of their own. For a lot of us it was the one free way to answer “what Dewey number does this book get?”

What happened to it

OCLC retired Classify on 31 January 2024, taking down both the web interface and the API on the same day. The reason OCLC gives is that Classify ran on aging infrastructure, and other products had been prioritized over its lifetime.

For libraries that do pay for OCLC cataloging, OCLC points to two replacements: WorldShare Record Manager and the WorldCat Metadata API (which can return popular Dewey and LC numbers for a given OCLC number). For everyone else, the only thing offered is looking at call numbers one record at a time on WorldCat.org. Both official replacements sit behind a paid OCLC subscription — so if you’re not a member, nothing free reproduces what Classify did. That gap is exactly why this site exists.

Is WebDewey the same thing? (No.)

It’s easy to mix them up, but WebDewey and Classify did different jobs. WebDewey is OCLC’s subscription tool for assigning Dewey numbers — the cataloger’s authoring environment, with the full official schedules and tables for building a number correctly. Classify was for looking up numbers other catalogers had already assigned. WebDewey is still around, but it isn’t free, and it isn’t a Classify replacement — it’s for a different task.

Free ways to find a Dewey number now

Here’s the honest state of things for a non-OCLC library, in the order most people will want:

Read the number from an open catalog record yourself. Many free catalogs publish full records with the Dewey number already in them — Open Library and the Library of Congress (in the MARC 082 field) are the usual starting points. Our companion guide walks through the by-hand methods step by step: How to find a Dewey number without OCLC.
Let a free tool do the looking-up for you. That’s what Dewey Lookup (this site) is for: type or scan an ISBN — or paste a whole list — and it reads the Dewey number a cataloger already assigned from a chain of open catalogs (Open Library, the Library of Congress, HathiTrust, Harvard, K10plus, several public-library consortiums, the British Library), and labels each number with where it came from so you can verify it. It’s the closest free stand-in for what Classify did, built specifically for libraries without OCLC. Try it here.
Check WorldCat.org for a single book. WorldCat.org is still free to search and often shows a call number on a record. It works one title at a time and isn’t the Classify service, but for the occasional lookup it’s a fine free option.

A note on trusting the numberWhichever route you take, treat the result as copy cataloging to verify, not gospel — editions and cataloger judgment vary, and fiction usually carries no Dewey at all. The point is to start from a real number a cataloger assigned, then confirm it fits the book in your hand.

Quick answers

Is there a free replacement for OCLC Classify? Not an official one. OCLC’s replacements require a paid subscription. The free path is to read the number from an open catalog record yourself, or to use a free tool like this one that does it for you.

Does the Classify API still work? No. The API was shut down alongside the website on 31 January 2024. Any old integration that called it stopped working on that date.

Is WebDewey free? No. WebDewey is a paid OCLC subscription, and it’s for assigning numbers from the official schedules, not for looking up numbers already assigned.

Can I still use WorldCat? Yes. WorldCat.org remains free to search and shows call numbers on records, one at a time — but it’s a catalog search, not the bulk classification lookup Classify offered.

Look up a Dewey number

A note on rights: the free methods above use Dewey numbers that already exist in open bibliographic records. “Dewey Decimal Classification,” “WebDewey,” and “Classify” are marks of OCLC, Inc.; this guide and Dewey Lookup are independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by OCLC.