Book cover of The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey

Book description

Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year

Who was Melvil Dewey? Learn how Dewey's love of organization and words drove him to develop and implement his Dewey Decimal system, leaving a significant and lasting impact in libraries across the country.

When Melvil Dewey realized every library organized…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

All those numbers on the spines of library books? This book tells the story of the man who invented the first widely-used library cataloguing system: Melvil Dewey. Sometimes biographies gloss over difficult personalities, but this one doesn’t pretend Dewey was always admirable. Instead, it suggests that his bull-headedness might have been part of the reason his decimal cataloguing system was ultimately adopted. And Fotheringham manages to make a book about books lively and fun in the illustrations.

From Annette's list on children’s books for library lovers.

If you love The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

Want books like The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 76 books like The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey.

Browse books like The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey

Book cover of Digging for Words: José Alberto Gutiérrez and the Library He Built
Book cover of Dreamers
Book cover of Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt's Treasured Books

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,340

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey, you might also like...

Book cover of Foxfire in the Snow

Foxfire in the Snow by J.S. Fields,

It's a time of change, between magic and alchemy.

Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…

Book cover of The Main Gate

The Main Gate by Yvonne Kjorlien,

Dr. Elise Marquette has spent years burying the past—until the past refuses to stay buried.

Hired to join Earth’s first interstellar contact team, she hopes the vastness of space will finally offer distance from the ghosts of war and the wounds left by a mother who never let her be…

5 book lists we think you will like!