Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Happy birthday Melvil Dewey (1851-1931)!

Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey (known more widely as Melvil Dewey) was born on December 10, 1851in Adams Center, New York. He is considered by many to be the father of modern American librarianship. He is most widely known as the author of the Dewey Decimal Classification System used in libraries around the world. Dewey had his personal flaws and has been strongly criticized for those by some. In any case he left many important legacies to the American library community. Several books have been written about Dewey. By far the best is Irrepressible Reformer by Wayne A. Wiegand (American Library Association, 1996). I have put together an online exhibit of some items in my librariana collection related to Dewey. Previous posts on this blog related to Dewey can be found HERE.

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