Melville Dewey Research Paper

On December 10, 1851 Melville Dewey was born in New York. He wanted people to spell his name as it was pronounced, which is Melvil Dui. When he was young he organized his mom’s pantry in alphabetical order. In school he did not like spelling and writing. He taught himself how to make shoes and was also his dad’s bookkeeper. He saved his money to buy a unabridged dictionary and he read it everyday. He became a teacher after graduation. He earned $1.50 an hour.

He went to Alfred University and Amherst College. While at college there was a fire and he tried to save a bunch of the books. He went to the doctor and was told he had 2 - 3 years to live. He graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s degrees. After graduating he was hired to be the librarian at Amherst College. While working he saw how unorganized the books were and tried to figure out an easier way to organize the books, and be able to find them.

He finally figured out how to organize the books in categories. The categories are 000s Generalities 100s Psychology and Philosophy 200s Religion and Mythology 300s Social Science and Folklore 400s Languages 500s Natural Science 600s Applied Science 700s Arts and Recreation 800s Literature 900s Geography and

History. He called them the DDCS The Dewey Decimal Classification System. He copyrighted them in 1876. Then in 1877 he moved to Boston and became the founder and editor of The Library Journal.

He then became the librarian at Columbia College in 1883.

He made 555 notes to the workers on what to do and he had 5 different pens he wrote notes with. While he was there he wanted to have a class for Librarians and he wanted them mostly to be women.He tried to get the school to allow him to teach and they said yes. He taught in a building across from the school and had 17 girls and 4 boys. He could talk 184 words a minute. Later in the year he founded the School of Library Economy, the first school organized for Librarians. 6 years later, he relocated to Albany and brought the classes there. Later it relocated to Columbia in 1926. He was also was the director of the New York State Library from 1888 to

1906.
Later he moved to Florida and there he created the Lake Placid Club with his wife Annie. He didn’t let Jews and other minorities in his club , because of his discrimination people demanded he be removed from his position. In 1905 he resigned as State Librarian. Later in 1922 Annie died. He then married a lady named Emily Beal in 1924. On December 26 , 1931 he passed away from a stroke, but even after his death most libraries kept using the Dewey Decimal System.