1851-1931

"David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake--which sent more than a thousand of his discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life's work was shattered. Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world"--Provided by the publisher.

When Melvil Dewey realized every library organized their books differently, he wondered if he could invent a system all libraries could use to organize them efficiently. Melvil was a persistent (and noisy) advocate for free public libraries. And while he made enemies along the way as he pushed for changes--like his battle to establish the first library school with women as students, through it all he was efficient, inventive, and often annoying as he made big changes in the world of public libraries--changes still found in the libraries of today.

Examines the life and achievements of Melvil Dewey, developer of a classification system for libraries in 1879 that is still used by thousands of libraries in the early twenty-first century.