Introduction

The Dewey Decimal Classification is not merely a tool but an established institution of the library profession. Almost the entire library profession globally holds stakes in it. Without it, it is difficult to envisage the face of our discipline. Indeed, the DDC as an institution has survived mostly on its organizational strength. R. K. Olding (1967) aptly wrote: ‘Its next greatest asset is that Dewey provided for a self-supporting agency charged with the responsibility of perpetuating his classification by keeping it as up-to-date as possible.’

When alive, Melvil Dewey oversaw everything personally. Still, he never hesitated to enlist the help of experts, employing one or more of his trusted lieutenants to be ‘editor’ under his supervision – first Walter Stanley Biscoe, then Evelyn May Seymour, then Jennie Dorcas Fellows. His aim was to make the scheme more useful to the profession. The DDC is indeed the ‘lengthening shadow’ of its creator. After its first publication by the Amherst College Library Committee, the DDC was published by the Library Bureau, a library supply company established by Melvil Dewey himself in 1882. The Bureau published the DDC and held its copyright from 1922 to 1958. The first external corporate body that tried to influence the course of the DDC was constituted in 1916 by the American Library Association (ALA) as the ‘Decimal Classification Advisory Committee’. Charged with representing the interests of the profession, it is clear evidence that the DDC was deemed a concern of the profession as a whole already by then. This advisory committee proved to be ineffective and was later dissolved. By 1931, the ALA had again become active to oversee the development of the scheme, resulting in the formation of the Advisory Committee in 1937. In 1922 the Lake Placid Club Foundation was chartered by New York state, to which Dewey signed over all copyrights of the DDC. He directed the Foundation to publish the DDC and to invest the profits accruing from its sale in the improvement and perpetuation of the scheme. In 1933, Forest Press was incorporated as an organ of the Foundation to take over the publishing and marketing of the DDC. The Press remained active in controlling the DDC up until its acquisition by OCLC in 1988. In 2003, OCLC retired the Forest Press name.