How Melvil Dewey Invented the Dewey Decimal System in Just One Day Retold and Adapted by Kate Stirk from a Telling She Heard at a Conference, and Fiddled with some More by Judy Freeman, and Fiddled with some more by Freida Headrick

Melvil Dewey was always in a hurry. He loved taking shortcuts, cutting corners, and shortchanging Father Time. In 1876, when he was a student at Amherst College in Massachusetts, he created the Dewey Decimal System for libraries in ONE day! Here’s how he decided what numbers went with each subject or category.

Melvil had lots of books: Books by his chair, Books in the kitchen, Books in the bedroom, Books in the living room, Books in the attic, Books in the basement, and Books even in the bathroom.

His friends said, “Mel, look at this mess. How do you ever find the books you want?”

Well, Melvil pondered this. He went to bed thinking about how he could arrange his books so he could find them. “Oh, oh, oh,” he said as he went to bed. “I have books on every subject. My biggest books are my encyclopedias, and they’re filled with everything: people, places, and things. I know. I’ll put them and all my books of general knowledge in the 000’s !” And he fell fast asleep with his arms above his head, dreaming of BOOKS. (What else?)

Early the next morning he woke up still thinking and worrying about his problem, when a light bulb went off in his head. “I’ve got it! I’ll put the thinking books in the 100’s.” And that’s where he put the books about thinking and the great thought – the philosophy books, and books about feelings and emotions – the psychology books.

He was so excited that he had begun to figure out how to sort his books that he hollered, “Praise God,” and raised his hands in the air, which lead him to put the religion books in the 200’s.

Melvil was so delighted, he ran across the street to tell his friends the tale of book sorting, and they all said, “Melvil, are you making that up?” He said, “No. This is no fairy tale. This is a story for all people to hear!” And then he decided to put all the folk and fairy tales and all the books about people and the way they live - what we call social sciences – in the 300’s.

While he was telling his friends his tale, he thought about all those words in his books. Words, words, and more words. He said, “All those words are just fine for Me! People are talking in the north, south, east, and west – in all four corners of the earth! I’ll put all the language books in the 400’s ”. And that’s where you’ll find all those books that talk: the dictionaries, thesauruses, and books on languages: French, Spanish, Chinese, Italian, and even sign language.

He ran home and started sorting his books. There were hundreds of books, thousands of books, millions and billions and trillions of books! After getting half of his books put away, he took a walk to stretch his legs and air the cobwebs from his brain. As he strolled down the street it started to rain. The thunder rumbled, louder and louder, once, twice, three, four, FIVE times.

KABOOM!!! A flash of lightning struck a tree and it caught on fire. Pure science! He raced home, dried himself off, and counted his fingers and toes. There were still five on each hand, and five on each foot.. So he made 500 the number for all books about pure science: outer space, the planet earth, and all the animals on the earth.

Watching that tree burn reminded him he was hungry. Danger does give you an appetite! “I need to fix some lunch!” he exclaimed. So he threw six hot dogs in a frying pan over a hot flame, and then he put all his Applied Science books - that is, science that people have developed- in the 600’s.

600’s: Books about Inventions Machinery Technology And the most delicious of all Applied Sciences, Cooking. How Melville would have loved to have a computer to help him sort out his books, but computers hadn’t been invented yet.

After lunch he was still hungry. He looked in the cupboards, but they were empty. He said, Hmm. What I’d really like to do is relax and go fishing. He got out his rod and reel, jogged down to the pond – the rain had stopped, of course – and sang himself a song while he tried to catch a fish.

While he was casting his rod and reel, he said, “Hmm. This is so much fun. I wish I could relax like this every day of the week.” So he put all the fine arts and recreation books, including art, music, dance, and all sports, including fishing, in the 700’s for the seven days of the week.

Melvil sat on the bank of the pond and said.... “Oh, how I want And how I wish, I could catch a giant fish. I’d catch four, No, I’d catch eight. For I think that fish are great!” POETRY! All the poetry books went into the 800’s, along with plays and other literature.

As he trudged home, he said, “I think I’ve made history. I’ll travel around the world from now until I’m ninety- nine and let everyone know how to arrange their libraries.” He put all the history, geography, and travel books in the 900’s.

And from that day to this, people have used Mr. Dewey’s classification system of ten hundreds from , with one hundred for each subject, to arrange their libraries.

Go in any library... from Florida to Maine, from California to Kansas from Alaska to Hawaii,

And you’ll see that 031 means encyclopedias, means fairy tales, 419 means sign language, is for weather, is for cooking, is fishing, 811 stands for poetry, And if you look for 973, you’ll find books about the history of the United States.

Dewey Decimal System Melvil Dewey 000 – Generalities, encyclopedias 100 – Philosophy and Psychology 200 – Religion 300 – Social Sciences 400 – Language-dictionaries, etc. 500 – Natural Science and Math 600 – (Applied Sciences) 700 – Arts, Sports, Entertainment 800 – Literature, poetry, plays 900 – Geography and History

Is this story True? Did Mr. Dewey really think up ten categories to arrange his books? Did he invent his system in one day? Well, parts of the story are definitely true. And other parts? We just call them Fiction. But that’s a story for another day.

Let’s see what you know. * Can You Do the Dewey? Let’s Do Dewey. Test your knowledge of the DDC. Let’s Do the DDC. Dewey Browse BULB