Uh … If I don’t interject here, I’m missing a great opportunity to educate. Melville Dewey did not invent the catalog system. There were many classification systems around before him and there will be many after him. Francis Bacon had one. I think Thomas Jefferson had one. Ranganathan, an Indian (as in someone who lives in the country India, not a Native American), developed a faceted classification system. There were probably systems in Egypt, Greece, Rome, many libraries in Africa and Asia, and all over the world that we don’t know about because we’re so focused on the Western world. And many libraries throughout the world use systems different from Dewey and the Library of Congress. No, I don’t expect nonlibrarians to know about these other systems. I learned about Bacon’s in philosophy class, but I didn’t learn about the others until I was in library school.

And to many librarians, Melville Dewey is no hero. Look at his classification system carefully and you will find that his system reflects many of the beliefs he held, which some people find limited, bigoted, and offensive, to say the least. Was he a man of his times? Or did he hold deeper prejudices?

Dr. Dewey Decimal, inventor of the catalog system

Borges librarian:

” The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings.”