The Efficient, Inventive Often Annoy..., Alexis ONeill
The Efficient, Inventive Often Annoy..., Alexis ONeill
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The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey

Author: Alexis O'Neill

Narrator: Jonathan Todd Ross

Unabridged: 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 06/27/2023


Synopsis

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!

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kirsten

I adore this ode to libraries from one of my favorite nonfiction authors, Alexis O’Neill, paired with the uber-talented Edwin Fotheringham. With that said, to put it mildly, Dewey was a difficult person and a bigot, which makes writing about him for children difficult. O’Neill addresses these issues......more

Goodreads review by Aliza

Dewey is extremely problematic. He was antisemitic, a racist, misogynist, sexual harasser, and shady businessman. But he also helped create the organizational library system (Dewey decimal system) and the American Library Association. People of great creativity, brilliance, and invention can also be......more

It was Melvil Dewey who set out to put libraries in order by creating a helpful system of numbers to organize books into categories, and who then promoted the idea of creating and maintaining free public libraries for the education of all. Both of these ideas did much to improve the world, and it is......more