Dewey Decimal System  Tags: dewey library  

• Born 12/10/1851 in NY state
• Graduated from Amherst in 1874
• Received patent for DDC in 1876
• Cofounded ALA in 1876
• Received master's degree in 1877
• President of ALA, 1890/91 and 1892/93
• Died from a stroke on 12/26/1931

Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey was born on December 10, 1851 in a small town of Adams Center, in upstate New York.  He attended Amherst College where he received both his bachelor's and master's degrees. While attending Amherst, Dewey worked at Amherst Library to help pay for his college expenses. Upon graduation, he remained as a librarian in 1874 and continued working on improving library classification systems. In 1876 he published a paper and received a patent for his Dewey Decimal Classification System. The same year he left Amherst and moved to Boston where he founded the Library Bureau, a library supplies company. Dewey and his friend and colleague Charles Ammi Cutter founded American Library Association and organized it's first conference in Philadelphia in 1876.

In 1887 Dewey founded the first college for the instruction of Librarians, as part of Columbia College where he worked as a librarian. Dewey also co-founded New York State Library association in 1890.

A pioneer in Library Science, Melville Dewey was also passionate about upstate New York and Andirondack Mountains. He founded an upscale resort, Lake Placid Club, and also helped bring Winter Olympic games to New York's Lake Placid.

He was married twice and had one son, with his first wife. Melvile Dewey suffered a stroke and died on December 26, 1931.