Dewey Proposes Library Classification System
On this day in 1873, Amherst College junior Melvil Dewey made a proposal to the faculty. He had been working in the college library and was frustrated by the lack of logic in the way the books were shelved. Long obsessed with order and efficiency, Dewey pondered the problem until he suddenly thought of using decimals to create a simple, standardized system for cataloging and arranging libraries. The faculty was so impressed with Dewey's plan that they let him reorganize the library's holdings. After graduation, he was appointed Acting Librarian. In 1876 he published a pamphlet about his method, and libraries all over the country soon adopted what has been known ever since as the Dewey Decimal System.
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