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Melvil Dewey
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Melville Louis Kossuth (Melvil) Dewey (December 10, 1851–December 26, 1931) was an American librarian and educator, and the inventor of the Dewey Decimal Classification system of library classification.
y was born in Adams Center in Jefferson County, New York. 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 was assistant librarian at Amherst from 1874 until 1876.
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Encyclopedia
Melville Louis Kossuth (Melvil) Dewey (December 10, 1851–December 26, 1931) was an American librarian and educator, and the inventor of the Dewey Decimal Classification system of library classification.
Biography
Dewey was born in Adams Center in Jefferson County, New York. 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 was assistant librarian at Amherst from 1874 until 1876. In 1876 he left for Boston. From 1883 to 1888 he was chief librarian at Columbia University, and from 1888 to 1906 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 - he was chairman of the New York State Winter Olympics Committee. In 1926 he came to Florida and established a southern branch of the Lake Placid Club. He died at Lake Placid, Florida.
Dewey is a member of the American Library Association's Hall of Fame.
Work
Dewey is considered to be the pioneer of American librarianship. He is best known for the decimal classification system that is used in most public and school libraries, but 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.
Dewey is also known for the creation of hanging vertical files, which first premiered at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago.
Dewey Decimal Classification
It was while working as an assistant librarian at Amherst from 1874 to 1877 that Dewey devised his system of classifying and cataloging 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 as 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 decimals.
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 50 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 cataloguing and indexing purposes, but was found to be equally valuable for numbering and arranging books and pamphlets on the shelves.
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American Library Association
Dewey moved to Boston where he created and edited the 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 the Library Bureau library supply company in 1876. The Library Bureau became a major supplier of specialized library furniture, equipment, and services. It was also a major supplier of such things as filing cabinets to business. In the 1920s, it merged with several other companies to form Remington Rand.
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 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
In 1884 Dewey founded the "Columbia School of Library Economy", the first institution in the United States for the instruction of librarians. This school, which was very successful, 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 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 includes 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
In 1895, Dewey 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 43 farms, a general store, a library of 10,000 volumes, sports 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 a founder of the Adirondack Music Festival in 1925, and a trustee of the Chautauqua Institution.
In 1926 he established a southern branch of the Lake Placid Club in Florida. He 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, while his role in the ALA was curtailed by his overly familiar attention to women.
Publications
Dewey wrote several books, which have been translated into many languages. A selection:
- 1876 . (Copy available at Gutenberg.org).
- 1885 Decimal classification and relative index for arranging, cataloguing, 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, Government Printing Office.
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
- —contains biographical information
- , The New York Times, December 27, 1931.
- founded by Dewey in 1876.
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