梅尔维尔·杜威

生平

1874年杜威于阿默斯特学院毕业。他从1874年到1877年在阿默斯特任图书馆助手，并于此时发明了他的杜威分类法。

此后他搬到波斯顿并在那里创办和编辑了《图书馆杂志》，这部杂志成为美国图书馆学的发展和图书馆管理的一部非常有权威的杂志。

杜威与他的同事和朋友查尔斯·阿米·卡特一起组织了美国图书馆协会，在1876年的协会十周年大会上两人都发言。

1883年杜威当任哥伦比亚学院的图书馆管理员，并于1887年1月5日创办图书馆经营学校，这是世界上第一所关于图书馆学的学校。这所非常成功的学校于1890年移到奥尔巴尼，在杜威的领导下它改名为纽约州立图书馆学学校。从1888年到1906年杜威是纽约州立图书馆的馆长，从1888年到1900年他还任纽约州立大学的秘书，在这段时间里他彻底地改变了州立图书馆的组织，由此该图书馆成为美国最有效应的图书馆之一。此外杜威还建立了一个州立移动图书馆和图像收集的系统。

杜威主张改革英语的拼写，在他的影响下在美国英语中目录一词写做Catalog，而不是Catalogue。

杜威还是一个非常积极的自然爱好者。

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.

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.……

Work

Dewey pioneered American librarianship 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.

Dewey Decimal Classification

Immediately after receiving his undergraduate degree, Dewey was hired to manage Amherst's library and reclassify its collections.……

Controversies

Dewey established a pattern of making powerful enemies early in life. Many of his friends found him difficult as well. 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."

Sexual harassment

Another biography refers to Dewey's "old nemesis—a persistent inability to control himself around women" as a chronic cause of trouble on the job. For decades, Dewey refused to stop his "unwelcome hugging, unwelcome touching, certainly unwelcome kissing" with female subordinates and others, according to biographer Wayne A. Wiegand. When Dewey opened his School of Library Economy at Columbia College to women, he asked for a photograph from each female applicant since "you cannot polish a pumpkin".

Antisemitism and racism

The Lake Placid Club banned Jews, blacks, and others from membership, a policy written by Dewey himself.……

Selected publications

1876: Classification and subject index for cataloguing and arranging the books and pamphlets of a library, Hartford, Conn.: Case, Lockwood, & Brainard Company.

1885: Decimal classification and relativ [sic] index for arranging, cataloguing, and indexing public and private libraries and for pamphlets, clippings, notes, scrap books, index rerums, etc. (2nd edition) 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.