Who is Melvil Dewey?:
The esteemed librarian Melvil Dewey is remembered fondly for his two very important contributions to our beloved field of librarianship. First and foremost, he was the creator of the renowned Dewey Classification System; a bibliographical scheme which placed library materials in 10 categories. These delightful headings and their respective numerical codes are the fuel used by common inebriates in their attempts at belittling our honest profession. You know the taunts, we experience them all the time at cocktail parties when we explain to these poor souls that we are pursuing a master’s degree in Library Studies. In their pure ignorance they usually respond “so you study the Dewey Decimal system EH?” Don’t loose face my commrades, for we must endure these silly jeers for the rest of our lives. We must, we will persevere; in fact we should persevere just like dear old Melvil. By-God he was a fighter. Melvil’s best remembered battle took place in the 1870’s when he tried to convince the board of directors at Columbia University to establish a school of Library Economy within the school. Regrettably a few thugs on the Board felt that such a school would tarnish the name and integrity of their institution. Fortunately for Melvil, our dear Sir Galahad, the school realized the utility of a library education. And hence it was within Columbia’s hallowed halls that our vocation was transformed from a time honoured apprenticeship into a solid profession. Unfortunately, dear Melvil’s spirit can no longer rest in peace for the School of Library Science at Columbia is but a sweet, fading memory. It was bullied out of the school’s curriculum in a brutish manner which rivaled the savagery and barbarity of Attila the Hun. So there you have it my fellow practitioners of informatics. Melvil Dewey was truly a great man; a man with a vision that was to change the face of humanity forever. Long live the memory of Melvil!!!
by SM
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