Melvil Dewey

Melvil Dewey
Melvil Dewey
Born	Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey 1851 Adams Center, New York
Died	1931 Lake Placid, Florida
Nationality	United States
Education	Amherst College
Occupation(s)	Librarian-in-chief, New York State Librarian
Employer(s)	Columbia College, New York State Library
Known for	Dewey Decimal Classification system for library classification
Spouse(s)	Annie Godfrey (1st wife), Emily Beal (2nd wife)
Children	Godfrey Dewey
Parent(s)	Joel Dewey, Eliza Greene

Melvil Dewey (1851 – 1931) was an American librarian, educator, and the inventor of the Dewey Decimal Classification system for library classification.

Biography

Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey was born in Adams Center in Jefferson County, N.Y. on 10 December 1851. He attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon. He graduated in 1874 with a bachelor's degree and received a master's degree from Amherst in 1877.

Dewey worked as assistant librarian at Amherst from 1874 until 1876. In 1876 he left Amherst for Boston. From 1883 to 1888 he was chief librarian at Columbia University, and from 1888 to 1906 he was director of the New York State Library. From 1888 to 1900 was also secretary and executive officer of the University of the State of New York.

In 1895 Dewey founded, with his wife Annie, the Lake Placid Club at Lake Placid. He and his son, Godfrey, had been active in arranging the Winter Olympics. Dewey was chairman of the New York State Winter Olympics Committee. In 1926 he came to Florida and established a southern branch of the famous Lake Placid Club of New York, of which he was the founder. He died December 26, 1931 in Lake Placid, Florida.

Dewey is a member of the American Library Association's Hall of Fame.

Work

Melvil Dewey is considered to be the pioneer of American librarianship. While most known for the decimal classification system that is still in use in most public and school libraries, the decimal system was just one of a long list of innovations, among them the idea of the state library as the agency best suited to see to the development of school and public library services within a state.

Melvil Dewey is also known for the creation of hanging vertical files which first premiered at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago.

Example of Relative Index Page of Dewey Decimal Classification.

Spine Books Label show Call Number for Dewey Decimal System.

Dewey Decimal Classification

It was while working as an assistant librarian at Amherst from 1874 until 1877 that Dewey devised his system of classifying and cataloguing books by decimal numbers.

The college library drifted into his management, and at the end of his junior year he was asked by the trustees to become acting librarian. He developed the system of classifying and cataloguing books by decimal numbers, a system known by his name, Dewey Decimal Classification, and used in practically all libraries in the United States in the 1930s. The system provides ten broad topics, each divided into ten sub-topics, each of which is divided into another ten sub-topics, yielding a thousand topics that can be referred to by an integer number. Each of these can be indefinitely sub-divided, using fractional numbers.

The plan of the following Classification and Index was developed by Dewey early in 1873. It was the result of several months' study of library economy as found in some hundreds of books and pamphlets, and in over fifty personal visits to various American libraries. In this study, Dewey became convinced that the usefulness of these libraries might be greatly increased without additional expenditure.

The system was devised for cataloging and indexing purposes, but was found to be equally valuable for numbering and arranging books and pamphlets on the shelves.

American Library Association

Dewey moved to Boston where he created and edited New Ross Standard, which became an influential factor in the development of libraries in America, and in the reform of their administration. While in Boston, he founded Library Bureau library supply company in 1876. Library Bureau is still in operation today and is located in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

With his friend and fellow librarian Charles Ammi Cutter, he helped found the American Library Association (ALA); both men spoke at the First Annual ALA Conference held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1876.

In 1890 he also helped to found the first state library association — the New York Library Association (NYLA) — of which he was the first president, from 1890 to 1892.

New York State Library

New York State Library--Facilities--1880-1900.

In 1884 Dewey founded the "Columbia School of Library Economy", the first institution organized in the United States for the instruction of librarians. This school, which was very successful, was moved to Albany, New York in 1890, where it was re-established as the New York State Library School under his direction.

From 1888 to 1906 Dewey was director of the New York State Library and from 1888 to 1900 was secretary of the University of the State of New York, completely reorganizing the state library and making it one of the most efficient in America, as well as establishing the system of state travelling libraries and picture collections.

Library development services

Dewey lanched the idea of "the state library act as agency", to control the development of school and public library services within a state, now known as “library development services”. By the time Dewey started at the New York State Library, the idea was widely accepted that all citizens needed to be provided with a tax-supported public library. Public libraries were seen as a logical extension of the public school system — a “people’s university” where anyone could continue their education, once their public schooling was completed.

Dewey created the first library school to train librarians, mostly young and female. He broadened his library’s collections so that they could be shared with developing libraries in his state, collecting books in the health sciences, children’s literature and even a "Women’s Library." He pioneered, in 1893, what would become, a little over a decade later, a major service for the Oregon State Library. His "traveling libraries," were collections of 100 general interest books packed into specially made wooden crates that were rotated among small towns and rural areas. Their purpose was to begin to satisfy the need for reading materials until local public libraries could be established.

English language spelling reform

Dewey was an advocate of English language spelling reform and is responsible for, among other things, the "American" spelling of the word Catalog (as opposed to the British Catalogue). He considered changing his own name to simply "Melvil Dui". He also sponsored periodicals on the Ro constructed language, in which the word structure marked its meaning in a hierarchy of categories.

In 1906, Dewey was one of the 30 founding members of the Simplified Spelling Board, founded by Andrew Carnegie to make English easier to learn and understand through changes in the orthography of the English language.

His theories of spelling reform found some local success at Lake Placid: there is an "Adirondac Loj" in the area, and dinner menus of the club featured his spelling reform. A September 1927 menu is headed "Simpler spelin" and features dishes like Hadok, Poted beef with noodls, Parsli or Masht potato, Butr, Steamd rys, Letis, and Ys cream. It also advises guests that "All shud see the butiful after-glo on mountains to the east just befor sunset. Fyn vu from Golfhous porch."

Metric System Advocacy

As an enthusiastic supporter of the metric system, Dewey established the American Metric Bureau. Dewey also served as its secretary

Lake Placid Club

Lake Placid from the Whiteface Mountain gondola.

Later in his life Dewey in 1895 Dewey had founded the Lake Placid Club at Lake Placid, N.Y. as a "restricted" (i.e, Jews were denied membership) health resort. He and his wife had been searching for a resort where they might be free from hay fever and rose colds, and at Lake Placid they found it.

Dewey bought land and started the club, despite the scorn heaped upon "that darned literary fellow" who thought he could run a Summer resort with no bar, no cigar stand, no gambling and no late hours. Instead of going broke, he built up an institution with 1,500 guests in Summer and 1,200 in Winter, 390 buildings and forty-three farms, a general store, a library of 10,000 volumes, sport facilities for all and a reputation as the center of winter sports in America.

Dewey was an early promoter of winter sports in Lake Placid and was active in arranging the 1932 Winter Olympics there. He also was a founder of the Lake Placid Club Education Foundation in 1922. Under his leadership the Northwood School prospered. He was also a founder of the Adirondack Music Festival in 1925, and served as a trustee of the Chautauqua Institution.

In 1926 he established a southern branch of the Lake Placid Club in Florida. Dewey was the proponent of Lake Stearns in Florida formally changing its name to Lake Placid, Florida.

Legacy

While he is remembered for his Dewey Decimal System, Dewey's personal views might be considered racist and sexist today. Even in his own day, his career as New York State Librarian was negatively affected by the anti-Semitic policies of the Lake Placid Club his role in the ALA was curtailed by his overly familiar attention to women

Publications

Melvil Dewey wrote several books, which have been translated into many languages. A selection:

• 1876. Classification and subject index for cataloguing and arranging the books and pamphlets of a library. (Copy available at Gutenberg.org).
• 1885. Decimal classification and relative index for arranging, cataloging, and indexing public and private libraries and for pamphlets, clippings, notes, scrap books, index rerums, etc.. Boston, Library bureau.
• 1886. Librarianship as a profession for college-bred women. An address delivered before the Association of collegiate alumnæ, on March 13, 1886, by Melvil Dewey. Boston, Library bureau.
• 1887. Library notes: improved methods and labor-savers for librarians, readers and writers. Boston : Library bureau.
• 1895. Abridged decimal classification and relative index for libraries. Boston, Library bureau.
• 1898. Simplified library school rules. Boston, London [etc.] Library bureau.
• 1889. Libraries as related to the educational work of the state. Albany.
• 1890. Statistics of libraries in the state of New York numbering over 300 volumes. Albany
• 1894. Library school rules: 1. Card catalog rules; 2. Accession book rules; 3. Shelf list rules, by Melvil Dewey.
• 1904. A.L.A. catalog. Washington, Gov’t print. off.

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Further reading

• George Grosvenor Dawe (1932). Melvil Dewey, Seer: Inspirer: Doer, 1851–1931. Lake Placid Club, N.Y.: Melvil Dewey Biography.
• Wayne A. Wiegand (1996). Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey. Chicago: American Library Association.

External links

• Works by Melvil Dewey at Project Gutenberg
• What's so great about the Dewey Decimal System?—contains biographical information
• "Melvil Dewey dead in Florida", The New York Times, Dec 27, 1931.
• Library Bureau founded by Dewey in 1876.
• Children of the Code - Dewey on Spelling Reform (including online video excerpts)