author
Charles A. (Charles Ammi) Cutter
1837–1903
A pioneering librarian who helped shape the way modern libraries organize knowledge, he is best known for creating the Cutter Expansive Classification system and for advancing the use of dictionary catalogs. His work made collections easier to navigate for ordinary readers as well as scholars.
1 Audiobook
Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue U. S. Bureau of Education Special Report on Public Libraries—Part II, Third Edition
by Charles A. (Charles Ammi) Cutter
About the author
Born in Boston in 1837, Charles Ammi Cutter became one of the most influential American librarians of the nineteenth century. After studying at Harvard Divinity School, he began library work at Harvard and helped produce one of America's first public card catalogs, an early step toward the kind of access readers now take for granted.
Cutter later served as librarian of the Boston Athenæum, where he developed ideas that shaped modern cataloging. His Rules for a Dictionary Catalog became a landmark in library science, and his emphasis on clear subject access helped make libraries more useful and more welcoming to the public.
He is especially remembered for the Cutter Expansive Classification system, an ambitious attempt to organize all fields of knowledge in a practical way. In the last part of his career, he led Forbes Library in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he continued refining his system until his death in 1903. Even today, the "Cutter numbers" used in library call numbers carry his name and influence.