The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject. It was first published in the United States by Melvil Dewey in 1876. Originally described in a 44-page pamphlet, it has been expanded to multiple volumes and revised through 23 major editions, the latest printed in 2011. It is also available in an abridged version suitable for smaller libraries. OCLC, a non-profit cooperative that serves libraries, currently maintains the system and licenses online access to WebDewey, a continuously updated version for catalogers.
Melville Louis Kossuth "Melvil" Dewey was an influential American librarian and educator, inventor of the Dewey Decimal system of library classification, a founder of the Lake Placid Club, and a chief librarian at Columbia University. He was also a founding member of the American Library Association. Although Dewey's contributions to the modern library are widely recognized, his legacy is marred by allegations of sexual harassment, racism, and antisemitism.
Charles Ammi Cutter was an American librarian. In the 1850s and 1860s he assisted with the re-cataloging of the Harvard College library, producing America's first public card catalog. The card system proved more flexible for librarians and far more useful to patrons than the old method of entering titles in chronological order in large books. In 1868 he joined the Boston Athenaeum, making its card catalog an international model. Cutter promoted centralized cataloging of books, which became the standard practice at the Library of Congress. He was elected to leadership positions in numerous library organizations at the local and national level. Cutter is remembered for the Cutter Expansive Classification, his system of giving standardized classification numbers to each book, and arranging them on shelves by that number so that books on similar topics would be shelved together.
Justin Winsor was an American writer, librarian, and historian. His historical work had strong bibliographical and cartographical elements. He was an authority on the early history of North America and was elected the first president of the American Library Association as well as the third president of the American Historical Association.
William Frederick Poole was an American bibliographer and librarian.
Mary Salome Cutler Fairchild was a pioneering American librarian, educator, and school administrator. She is known for her contributions to the establishment of library science in the United States through her work at the Columbia College library and New York State Library School, as well as her service in the American Library Association.
Eric Edward Moon was a librarian and editor who had a shaping influence on American librarianship in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s as editor-in-chief of Library Journal, president of the American Library Association, and chief editor at Scarecrow Press. Moon was a trailblazer and influential figure instrumental in transforming library professionalism, polity, and social responsibility.
Arthur Fremont Rider was an American writer, poet, editor, inventor, genealogist, and librarian. He studied under Melvil Dewey, of whom he wrote a biography for the American Library Association. Throughout his life he wrote in several genres including plays, poetry, short stories, non-fiction and an auto-biography which he wrote in the third-person. In the early 20th century he became a noted editor and publisher, working on such publications as Publishers Weekly and the Library Journal. In 1933 he became a librarian at Wesleyan University, eventually becoming director of the university's Olin Memorial Library and afterwards founding the Godfrey Memorial Library of genealogy and history in 1947. For his contributions to library science and as a librarian at Wesleyan University he was named one of the 100 Most Important Leaders of Library Science and the Library Profession in the twentieth century by the official publication of the American Library Association.
Richard Rogers "R. R." Bowker was a journalist, editor of Publishers Weekly and Harper's Magazine, and founder of the R. R. Bowker Company.
Dewey Readmore Books was the library cat of the Spencer, Iowa, Public Library. Having been abandoned in the library's drop box in January 1988, he was adopted by the library and gained local attention for his story shortly thereafter.
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World is a best-selling non-fiction book published in September 2008. The book recounts the life of Dewey Readmore Books, the cat in residence at the Spencer Public Library in Spencer, Iowa.
Herbert Spencer White is an Austrian-born American librarian. He is Dean Emeritus and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the School of Library & Information Science at Indiana University, and Adjunct Professor, University of Arizona, Tucson. A recipient of the ALA Medal of Excellence Award, White is the primary author of at least nine books, and the author of an estimated 200 articles in the professional literature of Library Science. He is a major contributor to current theory and understanding of the role of the special library in contemporary American organizations.
Vicki Myron is an American author and librarian. Director of the Spencer Public Library for more than 20 years, she is best known for her book Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, co-written with Bret Witter. It sold more than one million copies internationally and was on bestseller lists for more than six months. The book is about a cat she found and cared for at the library, and his engaging effects on the townspeople. The library cat's story became internationally known during his life.
Mary Wright Plummer was an American librarian who became the second female president of the American Library Association (1915–1916).
The Southeastern Library Association (SELA) is an organization that collaborates with different library associations within the Southeastern United States, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Klas August Linderfelt was an American librarian. A native of Sweden, he emigrated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and became a teacher and a librarian. As the first librarian of the Milwaukee Public Library, he became a significant figure in the city and in the library profession, becoming the seventh President of the American Library Association. He left both the city and the profession permanently following his arrest for embezzlement.
Josephus Nelson Larned was an American newspaper editor, author, librarian, and historian. As superintendent of the Young Men's Association Library, he presided over its transformation into what is now the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library.
Alice Bertha Kroeger was an American librarian and educator. Kroeger was a student of Melvil Dewey. She founded the library science program at Drexel University in 1892 and directed the program until her death in 1909.
Deanna Bowling Marcum was an American librarian and nonprofit leader who served as president of the Council on Library and Information Resources from 1995 to 2003, Associate Librarian for Library Services at the Library of Congress from 2003 to 2011, and managing director of Ithaka S+R from 2012 to 2016.
The ALA Medal of Excellence is an annual award bestowed by the American Library Association for recent creative leadership of high order, particularly in the fields of library management, library training, cataloging and classification, and the tools and techniques of librarianship. It was first awarded in 1953 to Ralph R. Shaw, Director of the National Agriculture Library.
