Melvil Dewey loved order (Organize mother’s jelly jars), efficiency (Why spell his name Melville when Melvil has fewer letters and sounds the same?), and keeping records (Height! Weight! Earnings!).

Melvil also loved books and numbers and decimals. When he realized every library organized their books differently (Size! Title! Color!), he wondered if he could invent a system all libraries could use to ORGANIZE them EFFICIENTLY.

A rat-a-tat speaker, Melvil was a persistent (and noisy) advocate for FREE public libraries. And he made enemies along the way as he pushed for changes. (Like his battle to establish the first library school with WOMEN as students.) Through it all he was EFFICIENT, INVENTIVE, and often ANNOYING as
he made big changes in the world of public libraries—changes still found in the libraries of today!