It all started when Melvil Dewey walked into a library at Amherst College,
Massachusetts, USA in 1876. He saw room after room filled with shelves of books.
But the books were arranged by colour and size. There was no card catalogue.
Dewey had to ask a librarian to search the shelves for the book he wanted.
Often
he had to wait hours for the book to be found. This upset Dewey. He thought that
finding a book in the library should be easy and fast. "What ought to be, can
be" was his motto. For months he dreamed night and day that there must be a
solution. Then, one Sunday during a long sermon, it came to him "Eureka! Use
Decimals".
If it weren't for Melvil Dewey, finding books you want in the library might be
as frustrating as looking for a needle in a haystack. Dewey invented a system of
grouping books of similar subjects together, classified by numbers. His
invention, called the
Dewey Decimal System
brought much-needed order to libraries.
