

He was an advocate of the metric system and English language spelling reform and is responsible for, among other things, the "American" spelling of the word Catalog (as opposed to the British Catalogue). He considered changing his own name from Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey to simply Melvil Dui.[1] He also sponsored periodicals on the Ro constructed language, in which the word structure marked its meaning in a hierarchy of categories.

Late in his life Dewey resided in the community of Lake Placid, New York, which he helped found. His theories of spelling reform found some local success there: there is an "Adirondac Loj" in the area, and dinner menus of the Lake Placid Club regularly offered dishes such as "Rost Bef" "Buttrd Pes" "Bred" and "Ice Crem".

While remembered for his Dewey Decimal System, Dewey's personal views would be considered racist and sexist today. Even in his own day, his career as a public servant, as New York State Librarian, was negatively affected by the anti-Semitic policies of the Lake Place Club (Wiegand 1996:280; Garrison 1983:42); his role in the ALA was curtailed by his overly familiar attention to women (Wiegand 1996:340).


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