Melville Louis Kossuth "Melvil" Dewey (December 10, 1851 – December 26, 1931) was an American librarian and educator who invented the Dewey Decimal system of library classification. He was a founder of the Lake Placid Club, a chief librarian at Columbia College, founder of what would later become the Columbia University School of Library Service, and a founding member of the American Library Association. Although Dewey's contributions to the modern library are widely recognized, his legacy is marred by his sexual harassment of female colleagues, as well as his racism and antisemitism.
Education and personal life Dewey was born on December 10, 1851, in Adams Center, New York, the fifth and last child of Joel and Eliza Greene Dewey. He attended rural schools and determined early on that his destiny was to reform the education of the masses. He briefly attended Alfred University (1870), then Amherst College, where he belonged to Delta Kappa Epsilon, and from which he earned a bachelor's degree in 1874 and a master's degree in 1877.
While still a student, he founded the Library Bureau, which sold high-quality index-cards and filing-cabinets, and established the standard dimensions for catalog cards.Michael Dewe (1968), "Historical aspects of library supply". In: Library World Vols 70–72, Grafton (eds), pp. 27–28.
As a young adult, he advocated spelling reform; he changed his name from the usual "Melville" to "Melvil", without redundant letters, and for a time changed his surname to "Dui."
From 1883 to 1888 he was chief librarian at the Columbia College Libraries. During his time as director of the New York State Library (1888–1906), Dewey established a program of traveling libraries. From 1888 to 1900, he served as secretary and executive officer of the University of the State of New York.
In 1895, Dewey and his wife Annie founded the Lake Placid Club. He and his son Godfrey had been active in arranging the Winter Olympics, which took place at Lake Placid—he chaired the New York State Winter Olympics Committee. In 1926, he went to Florida to establish a new branch of the Lake Placid Club.
Dewey married twice, first to Annie R. Godfrey and then to Emily McKay Beal. He and his first wife had one child, Godfrey. Dewey became a member of the American Library Association's Hall of Fame in 1951.
He died of a stroke in Lake Placid, Florida.
Work Dewey pioneered American librarianshipWeigand, Wayne A., and Donald G. Davis (1994). Encyclopedia of Library History. Taylor & Francis, p. 388. and was an influential figure in the development of libraries in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for the decimal classification system that many public and school libraries use. Among his other innovations was the idea of a state library operating as the state's school and public library services controller. In Boston, Massachusetts, he founded the Library Bureau, a private company "for the definite purpose of furnishing libraries with equipment and supplies of unvarying correctness and reliability." Its investigative unit, devoted to studying the best practices of library loss-management, circulation and data retention, recovered 3,000 books in its first year of existence.Lee, Michael M. Melvil Dewey (1851–1931): His Educational Contributions and Reforms. 1979. Print.
Dewey's Library Bureau company is also said to have introduced hanging vertical files, first seen at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago.Erik Larson (2003). Devil in the White City. In 1905, Dewey established the American Library Institute, which was an organization conceived to provide for the investigation, study, and discussion of issues within the field of library theory and practice.
Dewey Decimal Classification
Immediately after receiving his undergraduate degree, Dewey was hired to manage Amherst's library and reclassify its collections. He worked out a new scheme that superimposed a system of decimal numbers on a structure of knowledge first outlined by Sir Francis Bacon. For his decision to use a decimal system, he may have been inspired by two library systems that he includes in the acknowledgments in the first publication of his system in 1876.Comaromi, John Philip. The eighteen editions of the Dewey Decimal Classification. Albany, Forest Press Division, 1976. p. 10. In that preface, and the following thirteen editions, Dewey cites the card system of Italian publisher Natale Battezzati as "the most fruitful source of ideas".Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library, Amherst, Mass., 1876. p. 10.
Dewey copyrighted the system in 1876. This system has proved to be enormously influential; though many American libraries have since adopted the classification scheme of the Library of Congress, Dewey's system remains in widespread use.
American Library Association In 1876, Dewey moved to Boston, where he founded and became editor of The Library Journal, which became an influential factor in the development of libraries in America and the reform of their administration. He was also one of the founders of the American Library Association. The proceedings of the 1876 organizing conference were published by Frederick Leypoldt in the first volume of Library Journal. Library Journal 1 1876-1877. Dewey was secretary from 1876 to 1891 and president in 1891 and 1893."DEWEY, MELVIL (1851–)", in: Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.), Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), Cambridge University Press.
School of Library Economy
In 1883, Dewey replaced Beverly R. Betts as librarian of Columbia College and, in the following year, founded the School of Library Economy there, the first institution for the instruction of librarians ever organized. The college's board of trustees approved the proposal to establish the school on May 5, 1884.Sarah K. Vann. Training for Librarianship Before 1923. Chicago: American Library Association, 1961. p. 28. After preparation, the school was officially opened on January 5, 1887, with an enrollment of 20 students—three men and 17 women. Women were admitted to the program at Dewey's insistence and against the wishes of the college's Regents.Vann, p. 39. Although the school had a promising start, Dewey's conflicts with college officials, in particular over the issue of the presence of women, led to its future being cast in doubt, and by 1888, it was apparent that Columbia intended to close it.Richard E. Rubin, Foundations of Library and Information Science. 3rd edn. New York: Neal-Schuman, c2010, p. 81.
However, at that point, Dewey, upon accepting a position with the New York State Library in Albany, successfully secured the agreement of its Regents to have the school transferred there. The formal transfer was accomplished in 1889,Vann, pp. 50–52. and the school, which was ultimately very successful, was re-established in Albany as the New York State Library School under Dewey's direction. The school returned to Columbia's Manhattan campus in 1926.Saxon, Wolfgang, "Columbia to Close Library", The New York Times, June 6, 1990. Dewey did not forget his Columbia students. He petitioned the University of the State of New York, which granted degrees to those students who agreed to submit to examinations and produce a bibliography and thesis. Two students participated, including future ALA registrar and college archivist Nina Browne.Biographical Note, Nina Elizabeth Browne Papers, 1860 – 1954, Smith College Archives, (accessed August 5, 2016).
From 1888 to 1906, Dewey was also director of the New York State Library, and until 1900, he was secretary of the University of the State of New York as well. In that function, he completely reorganized the state library, making it one of the most efficient in America, and established the system of state traveling libraries and picture collections. In 1885, he founded the New York Library Club there.
Traveling libraries Community libraries began to flourish in the early nineteenth century. The western United States opened to expansion and further exploration, and people wanted services and opportunities to move with them. In New York, Melvil Dewey had "initiated a program of traveling libraries-collections of one hundred books sent to communities without public libraries."Murray, S. A. (2012). The Library: An Illustrated History. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. His efforts spurred other state organizations and private individuals to create traveling libraries. Increased library services to small or rural communities and underserved populations fortified the efforts of many to seek out education and self-improvement. Dewey was also influenced by Herbert Baxter Adams on ideas about library extension.Cunningham, Raymond. “Historian among the Librarians: Herbert Baxter Adams and Modern Librarianship.” The Journal of Library History. 21, no. 4 (1986): 704–22.
Metric system advocacy As an enthusiastic supporter of the decimal metric system of weights and measures, Dewey established in July 1876 the American Metric Bureau. He edited the Bureau's official publication, the Metric Bulletin (later called Metric Advocate), first issued in August of that year. He campaigned for this reform vigorously, but by 1901 the Bureau was almost defunct. Later in his life, he was a member of the advisory board of the All-America Standards Council (a California-based organization that promoted metrication for all countries in the Americas), and he functioned as a member of the advisory board and chairman of the Metric Education Committee in the American Metric Association (today the U.S. Metric Association).Hector Vera, "Melvil Dewey, Metric Apostle", MetricToday: The U.S. Metric Association Newsletter, vol. 45, no. 4, July–August 2010, pp. 1, 4–6.
Lake Placid Club and other reforms Late in his life, Dewey helped found the Lake Placid Club as a health resort in New York state.
His theories of spelling reform (to which end he founded the Spelling Reform Association in 1886 and later the Simplified Spelling Board) found some local success at Lake Placid. There was an "Adirondak Loj" in the area, and the dinner menus of the club used his reformed spelling. 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 before sunset. Fyn vu from Golfhous porch."
Lake Placid also acted as a conference center hosting meetings promoting reform movements, such as the September 1899 conference on "home science" chaired by Ellen Swallow Richards, a pioneer of what later came to be called "home economics"..
Dewey was an early promoter of winter sports in Lake Placid and was active in arranging the 1932 Winter Olympics there. He was also a founder of the Lake Placid Club Education Foundation in 1922. Under his leadership, the Northwood School (Lake Placid, New York) 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 supported the idea of Lake Stearns in Florida formally changing its name to Lake Placid, Florida.
Controversies Dewey established a pattern of making powerful enemies early in life. Many of his friends found him difficult as well.Wiegand, passim As one biographer put it, "Although he did not lack friends, they were becoming a little weary of coming to his defense, so endless a process had it become."Rider, Fremont (1944), Melvil Dewey. American Library Association, p. 105.
Sexual harassment