The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Melvil Dewey's love of organization and words drove him to develop and implement his Dewey Decimal system, leaving a significant and lasting impact in libraries across the country.
When Melvil Dewey realized every library organized their books differently, he wondered if he could invent a system all libraries could use to organize them efficiently. A rat-a-tat speaker, Melvil was a persistent (and noisy) advocate for free public libraries. And while he made enemies along the way as he pushed for changes--like his battle to establish the first library school with women as students, through it all he was EFFICIENT, INVENTIVE, and often ANNOYING as he made big changes in the world of public libraries--changes still found in the libraries of today!
From TI 9781684371983 HC.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
O'Neill's breezy biography caroms through Melvil Dewey's quirks of efficiency simplifying the spelling of his name, lecturing at "180 words per minute" and achievements advocating for public libraries, establishing the Dewey Decimal System, founding a school for librarians at Columbia, and educating women against the trustees' will, among other things. But the presentation of the efficiency-minded Dewey as an "appealing or annoying" person buries key information: an author's note reveals that his racism, anti-Semitism, and harassment of women were significant enough to impact his career in the early 1900s, and relegating this to a footnote sours the charm of O'Neill's narration. Fotheringham's crisp pictures, however, capture Dewey's whirlwind energy, showing him on the move and transformed into a speeding train. Back matter includes a timeline, a breakdown of the Dewey Decimal System, and information on the figure's other reforms. Ages 7 10.
