Hi, Lovelies.
I’m back! It’s time to learn about our dude, Charles Ammi Cutter.
Recap:
If you guys don’t remember, I talked about the Library of Congress Classification System (LCC) last post. While the LCC is a complicated system with lots of numbers and letters, it uses Cutter numbers, created by our man Charles Ammi Cutter. And I had mentioned that I would talk about Charles Ammi Cutter in the next post. (That’s this one.) So here it is.
Childhood:
Charles Ammi Cutter was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1837. His father was a fish-oil merchant and his mother died when he was young. He was raised by his aunts or as the Forbes Library says “three maiden aunts” and “independently wealthy” aka these women were rich ladies who didn’t answer to their husbands, cause they didn’t exist. One of them was a librarian, so Cutter was raised well on books. I want to know more about these ladies. Anyway, these badass ladies raised Cutter and paid for his tuition at Havard.
College Life:
Cutter went to Harvard Divinity School to become a Minister. Obviously, that plan didn’t pan out, but he did graduate third in his class. During his time at Havard, he worked in the Harvard Library like I’m doing right now. Clarification: I’m not working in the Harvard Library, but I am working at my college’s library while I’m going to school. During this time, he was coming up with his own organizational system. After he graduated, he joined the staff of the Harvard Divinity Library. With Dr. Ezra Abbot, Cutter created a new cataloging system for the library, going from book catalogs to index cards. For those of you who are old, you remember going to the index card filing cabinets in your libraries when you were researching stuff.
From my understanding, libraries used to have like book catalogs for their books. Catalog like the ones you get in the mail, that tell you what items are in it. Well, this means it is really hard to add and take away books, which is why they switched to index cards.
Boston Athenaeum:
Later in 1868, he became a librarian at the Boston Athenaeum. He carried on the new cataloging system to the Boston Athenaeum and stayed there for a while, creating new systems like the loan cards in the back of books, interlibrary loans, and delivering books.
It was also during this time that he really started refining his cataloging system Cutter Expansive Classification or EC.
Funnily enough, Cutter and Melvil Dewey, creator of the Dewey Decimal System helped establish the American Library System together. They were ultimately rivals, but it’s interesting that they not only knew each other, but created two of the most used and well known cataloging systems.
He eventually resigned from the Boston Athenaeum and went on a tour of England.
Forbes Library:
The Forbes Library was recently starting up about the time that Cutter was going on a tour of England. For some reason, he offered to buy them books on his tour of England and they agreed, giving him about 50,000 to do just that.
Cutter came back after a year. (Lowkey jealous. Dude toured England for a year.) He returned to the library with 3,000 books and set about organizing them. It took longer than he thought, and he had to push back the opening date. But eventually, he finished and strived to create a library that was open to everybody.
In 1903, Cutter died from pneumonia and unfortunately, he did not finish his Cutter Expansive Classification. However, many of his practices and the main principles of the Cutter Expansive Classification are used today. Charles Ammi Cutter left a lasting impact on the library system and we can thank him for a better cataloging system and interlibrary loans.
Additional Research
Charles Ammi Cutter – Forbes Library
Charles Ammi Cutter – Boston Athenaeum
The Contracting World of Cutter’s Expansive Classification. – EBSCO
