Dewey, Melvil(le Louis Kossuth)

(born Dec. 10, 1851, Adams Center, N.Y., U.S.—died Dec. 26, 1931, Lake Placid, Fla.) U.S. librarian. He graduated from Amherst College in 1874, whereupon he became acting librarian there. In 1876 he published A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library, in which he outlined the Dewey Decimal Classification system. He was one of the founders of the American Library Association and of Library Journal (both 1876). He set up the School of Library Economy, the first U.S. institution for training librarians. He also reorganized the N.Y. State Library (1889–1906) and established the system of traveling libraries and picture collections. A cofounder of the Spelling Reform Assn., he respelled his own name.