Melville Louis Kossuth (Melvil) Dewey (December 10, 1851–December 26, 1931) was an American librarian and educator, and the inventor of the Dewey Decimal Classification system of library classification. Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey was born in Adams Center, New York, on December 10, 1851, the fifth and last child of Joel and Eliza Greene Dewey. He attended rural local schools and early in life determined that his destiny was to become a reformer in educating the masses. He attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon (Sigma chapter). He graduated in 1874 with a bachelor's degree and received a master's degree from Amherst in 1877. After he graduated in 1874, Amherst College hired Dewey to manage the library and reclassify the collections. For two years Dewey worked out a new scheme that superimposed a system of decimals on a structure of knowledge first outlined by Sir Francis Bacon and later modified by William Torrey Harris. In 1876, Dewey copyrighted the "decimal classification," and moved to Boston. From 1883 to 1888 he was chief librarian at Columbia University, and from 1888 to 1906 director of the New York State Library. From 1888 to 1900 was also secretary and executive officer of the University of the State of New York. In 1895 Dewey founded with his wife Annie the Lake Placid Club at Lake Placid. He and his son Godfrey had been active in arranging the Winter Olympics - he was chairman of the New York State Winter Olympics Committee. In 1926 he came to Florida and established a southern branch of the Lake Placid Club. He died at Lake Placid, Florida.[1] Dewey is a member of the American Library Association's Hall of Fame. Dewey likewise wrote several books, which have been translated into many languages. A selection: