If you’ve ever wandered through a library and wondered why history is over here, while cooking lives comfortably over there, you have Melvil Dewey to thank.

He’s the 19th-century librarian who looked at the chaotic state of library shelves and said, essentially, “Absolutely not.”

Today on National Dewey Decimal Day, this business begun by two daughters of a librarian celebrates with the world the invaluable system that organized our every thought long before Google, hand-held electronics, and online calendars.

In 1876, at just 24 years old, Dewey created what would become the world’s most widely used method for organizing human knowledge. His big idea? Keep it really simple.

So he built it on a system of tens. Everyone can count by tens, right?

Dewey decided that all human knowledge c

See Full Page