DEWEY, Melvil, American educator and librarian: b. Adams Centre, N. Y., 10 Dec. 1851. He was graduated from Amherst Col lege in 1874; was college librarian during, his senior year and for two years after graduation. He then went to Boston where he was active in founding the American Library Association, the Library Bureaus, the Metric Bureau for introducing the metric system, and the Spelling Reform Association. He was the founder and for five years the editor of the Library Journal and also editor of Library Notes and the Spell ing Reform Bulletin. In 1883 he was appointed librarian at Columbia, and in 1887 established the School of Library Economy, of which he was made director. In 1889 he became secre tary of the University of the State of New York, and director of the State Library, the library school being at that time transferred to Albany; in 1891 he became director of the home education department, and organized the sys tem of traveling libraries. In 1895 he pro moted and organized the Lake Placid Club, a co-operative country residence club with an es tate of 6,000 acres, 4 clubhouses, 60 cottages, dairy and poultry farms and forests in Essex County, N. Y., worth over $1,100,000. He is
at present devoting his time to general library and allied educational interests, and the busi ness centering round the Lake Placid Club, of which he is president and treasurer. In New York State he has accomplished much in the raising of school standards, and particularly in the improvement and founding of small public libraries. He has also had much influence on library work in the United States; has twice been president of the American Library Asso ciation, and its secretary for 15 years; he de vised the decimal system for the classification of books which is widely used, and published a set of cataloguing rules, included in his 'Library School Rules.' He has also published a revision of the laws of New York State in regard to education (1892), and the 'Decimal Classification and Relativ Index' (9 editions 1876-1915).