Shirley Jones, hot librarian .
Posted on 06/30/2019 4:10:48 PM PDT by reaganaut1
American librarians have voted to remove the name of Melvil Dewey, widely seen as the father of modern librarianship, from one of their top awards, citing his history of antisemitism, racism and sexual harassment.
The council of the American Library Association (ALA) passed a resolution this week to rename its top professional award, the Melvil Dewey Medal. The resolution explains that Dewey did not permit Jewish people, African Americans or other minorities admittance to the resort he owned, the Lake Placid Club. He also “made numerous inappropriate physical advances toward women he worked with and wielded professional power over” and was ostracised from the ALA after four women accused him of sexual impropriety, the resolution continues, declaring that “the behaviour demonstrated for decades by Dewey does not represent the stated fundamental values of ALA in equity, diversity, and inclusion”.
Dewey was one of the founders of the ALA. In 1876, he published A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library, which outlined what would become known as the Dewey decimal classification – a system which is now used by libraries throughout the English-speaking world. He was director of the New York State Library from 1889 to 1906, when pressure from petitioners outraged at the exclusion of Jews from his resort forced his resignation. In Dewey’s biography, Irrepressible Reformer, Wayne Wiegand recounts how Los Angeles Public Library head librarian Tessa Kelso wrote in a 1924 letter that “for many years women librarians have been the special prey of Mr Dewey in a series of outrages against decency”.
Writing in the ALA’s magazine American Libraries last June, editor-at-large Anne Ford described how early biographies of the librarian called him a “genius” and “a prophet pointing forward to a glorious promised land”.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids has never used the Dewey Decimal System because of his lack of character.
Of only he had started Drag Queen Story Hour, his everlasting honor would have been assured. /s
Other than the devil, his minions, and certain truly evil people, no one is all bad. Sounds like Dewey might have been a bigoted jerk, but that doesn’t take away from the marvelous system of book categorization he developed. If we knock down every statue, building, etc, named in honor of people who were flawed, we’ll be surrounded by rubble. And none of that destruction will change the mistakes that those flawed human beings made. Did his good outweigh his bad? I don’t know. But where does this sort of history punishment end, and for what good reason? Helen Keller was convinced of a weird form of Christianity, in which the 2nd coming had already occurred; the outstanding author, Pearl Buck, thought Mao Tse Tung was going to be good for China. So let’s burn their books, and take away Keller’s Medal of Freedom. And on and on, til there’s nothing left. That will make those destroyers of history righteous! Until, of course, future “righteous” crusaders want to knock down ALL THEIR work.
“Other than the devil, his minions, and certain truly evil people, no one is all bad. Sounds like Dewey might have been a bigoted jerk, but that doesn’t take away from the marvelous system of book categorization he developed. If we knock down every statue, building, etc, named in honor of people who were flawed, we’ll be surrounded by rubble. And none of that destruction will change the mistakes that those flawed human beings made.”
You are 100% correct! So well stated I had difficulty choosing which part to quote. Thank you for your contribution to this thread.
Tomato Lover
When we re-opened our HQ library (they didn’t like ‘Main’) after a renovation, we had more male librarians that female.
18 years later, none of the male librarians are left (I was the last one still working in the system, and, I retired). The rest had moved on, retired, or, were ‘let go’.
And no offense or upset was taken, or, meant. I encourage sharing of opinion.
Oh, how kind of you! Thank you.
Shirley Jones, hot librarian .
A children’s library division of this leftist association earlier this year stripped Laura Engels Wilder award of her name as she was too racist.
These people are SCUM.
Correction; Shirley Jones, hottest librarian.
This is really getting ridiculous. How far back are the FASCISTS going to go? Who will they go after next?
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