SOME QUOTABLE QUOTES BY AND ON CUTTER AND DEWEY

Either tlte DDC or Cutter's Expans ive Class iCica- * ** tion migat have been in use in the of Con- Both Cutter and Dewey had first met their life gres s. But how the destinies of bo t'a the schemes part ner s in the Harvard library. Both of them were changed has been told by W P Cutter, nephew married within the profession. The following and biographer of , in the quotations reveal this delicate side of the two great persons: ' following words: "When ChaIres Cutter became Dr. Abbot's "When the decided to as si st ant in the Harvard library, he met a young make a new classlfication, a committee of three woman of the library force ~ho was to become his (Dr Putnam, of Congress, Mr. Martel,in- helpmeet for the rest of his liCe. This was Miss charge of the classification division in the library, Sarah Fayerweather Appleton ... They were married and myself) made an extensive trip to visit on May 21, 1863 .... " US ing either the Dec imal or the Expansive clas sl- fication. We called on Mr Cutter and on Mr Dewey, "One of the lad ies who attended the libr ary and suggested to both certain changes in their classi· conference in Philadelphia was' Annie R Godfrey, fications waiclt seemed perhaps desirable, some the young librarian of Wellesley College. She had of which 'had been suggested by whom attended Vassar College through the junior year we had previously visited. Mr. Cutter expressed before acc epting the Welle sley College. Dewey's himself as perfectly willing to make any changes diary of April 18, 1876, recorded their chance which after careful consideration seemed necessary. meeting at Harvard that day where she had listened, Mr Dewey absolutely refused to make any, basing along with Harvard library assistants, to a talk by hi s argument on the inconvenience which would Dewey on the classification scheme he had devised, result to the large number of libraries already Her deep interest and her desire to carryon the using the Decimal classification. Wellesley work successfully sent Annie Godfrey to the Philadelphia meeting and al so to the meeting in The final decision was, of course, left to ,London in 1877. Her marriage to Dewey took place Mr Martel, and he recommended that the Expansive on October, 19, 1878. be taken as the basis for the new classification. Unfortunately, Mr Cutter died soon after this * * * [September 6, 1903], and his help was not ava ilabl e;' Charles Ammi Cutter had great incer eet in dancing * * * and he believed he was a good dancer too. But, the following is wr.at his biographer writes about one Cutter's idea on the general principle of book selec- of his danc e performances: tion is revealed in the following passage: "N0 ref erenc e to Mr. Cutter's activities at "Wear e to buy the best boo ks ... This means the American Library Association conventions tn e best books for the particular library in question, would be complete without some allusion to his and that is the same as the best books that its people dancing. He was an indefatigable devotee of the will use; for an unused book is not even good. Not terpsichorean art, and was perhaps the most fami- the best books for the librarian, nor for the book liar figure on the ballroom floor. He was not really co mmittee, nor for the self - elected boo k committee a very good dancer, but his enthusiasm took the outside the library, nor for the shelves (to keep place of proficiency. Once he arrived at the con- them warm by never leaving theml; but the best vention in a r ouga gray flannel shirt and tweed books to satisfy the just demands of our clients for knickers, having just finished a walking trip. His amusement and knowledge and mental stimulus and luggage did not arrive, and he was forced to borrow spiritual inspiration. The library should be a practi- one of my suits for the evening dance. The trousers cal thing to be used, not an ideal to be admired". were at least six inches too long, and were there-

Vol 23 No 4 Dec 1976 285 QUOTABLE QUOTES fore turned up at the botto m in an awkward fold. The parts of the service- the children's room and the sleeves. were too long. and were also turned up. information desk, perhaps." But he danced every dance in this incongruous co stu me , and wo re it every evening - for hi 8 * ** luggage d id not c orn e at alL" It maybe recalled that the L C printed cards did not carry DDC numbers till 1930. In 19209 more There is one more reference to Cutter's than 80 percent of the customers subscribing to the performance in dancing. This time the quotation is card service were DDC libraries. This absurd from Immroth's article in. the Encyclopedia of situation prompted Dewey to wr ite to Herbert Library and Information Science. It reads as Putnam. then Librarian of Congress, the following: follows: "lOOs of libraries weep and wail because DC "While very fond of dancing, Mr Cutter was numbers are not on your printed cards". not e ap ec ial.Iv good partne r-. It is said that at a leap year party he r erria in ed a wallflower during a Commenting on this issue John P Comaromi good part of the evening. With ht s delightful gentle- has said recently: ne s s , politeness, and gGc(1 hu mo r he bore his lot patiently and slyly rem.arked that he had made a c ar e- "Of course, weeping and wailing are out of ful note of all the lad ie s who had slighted him and place in a cataloging department, nevertlleless, should, when his turn came the following year. ask the same title was classed thousands of times in everyone of them to dance with him". the DDC libraries of America. and such an eco- nomic imposition did not give rise to br o ad smlles". ** '" * * * Dewey was an dh'~siastic supporter of the idea of c entr al i sed cataloguing. He expressed this in the Commenting on that 'unmitigated di saster', the DDC . meetings and conferences, and fifteenth edition. the so-called standard edition. also in correspondence. But, -he put it me st convin- Comaromi has written: cingly, perhaps. bef o r e-the Joint Committee orrthe Libraryoi the U.S. Congress in !896. Thefollo- "In order to understand the extent to which wing is an extract from Dewey's evidence before the numbers were cut back. let me cite the same the Committee. classes in the different editions. Diseases of women and children. 618. had sixty-seven entries "We have perhaps 4.000 public librar ies in in the fourteenth edition. L'1.the fifteenth edition the country of 1,000 volumes or more. If a book it was labeled gynecology and obstetrics and had is published that 500 of these libraries will buy, only two subdivisions - 618.9 pediatrics and where can you think of a greater waste than that 618.97 gerontology. Such attrition caused agi- everyone of the 50C should have to undertake, tation to even the most confirmed bachelor". each for itself, with. in most cases, limited bibllo- graphic machinery and insufficient force, to On the credit side of the fifteenth edition, Coma- catalogue that book when it has been already cata- romi has said: logued in the National Library by the most expert staff in the count r v, having at their disposal every "Did any good come from the fifteenth edition? known resource? Printlng is very cheap. Any Well, even the Niles flooding has its good side. The library willing to pay the cost of paper and postage simplified spelling, that had grown increasingly could have a copy of these cards furnished without atrocious, was almost shed ... The format, done extra expense to the Government, wh ica has already by Kingsport Press. waS elegant for the first time. paid for making its own cards ... It would mark an A gr eat deal of deadwood had been eliminated ... era when the National Library was ready to do And a few areas. such as sociology, had been this incalculable service to the libraries and stu- improved ... " dents Of the country". * * * As is known, the era dawned in 1901 with the Dewey was christened as Melville Louis introduction of the Cataloging Distribution Service Kossuth Dewey. But his enthusiasm for simplifica- of the Library of Congress. Looking at tlo.e success tion and spelling reform did not spare even his own of the project, Cutter wrote: name. He found no use for the two middle names, that is, Louis and Kossuth, which he dropped with- "I cannot help thinking that the golden age of out regret. He retained the first name but reformed Cataloging is over. and that the difficulties and it. Thus, he became . At one time discussions which have furnished an innocent plea- he extended his spelling reform zeal t~.hJ_~_surname sure to so many will interest them no more. Another also and started spelling his name as "Du i". Surely. 10 at art. But it will be all the better for the pockets he had friends around him who must have pointed of the public, or rather it will be better for other out how atrocious the spelling w as . That made him

286 Ann Lib Sc i Doc QUOTABLE. QUOTES restore his name as Melvil Dewey, the form in clever brain may construct one. It differs in effi- which the nam.e is cherished and remembered by us. ciency from the ideal as a mob of men differs from a well disciplined army. Piles of bricks and mortar We do not know how many persons Dewey was are not a temple any more than heaps of type. are abl e to convert to his idea of spelling reform in Shakespeare's works, though if 'clas sified'·;md set, . name. But one such person was surely Miss Dor ka s each in right relation to the rest, the tranaforma- Fellows, that 'walkins. encyclopedia who had all the ~~o~ ~~~~~ abou~ __ charm of- such a-book':" Her original name was Jennie Dorcas Fellows. Thus, like Dewey, she not ** * only shortened her name but reformed the spelling also. It has been said that Dewey rearranged, at the age of five, his mother's larder in a more systematic fashion .. Surely, an early revelation of a sys- * * * tematic mind. The fr am.e of mind of a class ific a- tionist is often--Zompared to that ';f lexicographers Cutter's reference to 'a mob becoming an army' to and encyclopedists. This Was also revealed by describe the effective strength of cro ss reference s Dewey, as a boy, as the following extract from in a subject catalogue is well known and oft=quote d. R.S. Parkhi substantiates: Dewey also used the same analogy, and much more, to express the virtues of classification. The follow- " ... With his accumulation of a little over ing passage by Dewey reveals this: ten dollars, gradually saved, by running errands, . shovelling coal and shoemaking, he walked from "A succes sful man is usually a classifier and Adams Centre to Watertown - a distance of eleven a chart maker. T hi s applie s as much to modern miles, while still under fifteen to buy a book on business ~s to science or libraries ... A large which his heart had been set for several years and business or work unclassified or uncharted is not a for ~hich he had done many long hours of work: worthy org anization but mere material from which a Webster's unabridged dictionary".

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