Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey was always interested in simplifying things for efficient usage. As a young adult, he simplified his name ‘Melville Dewey’ to ‘ Melvil Dewey’ as he thought the letters ’le’ were not needed in his name and dropped his middle names. He worked as an assistant librarian in the Library of Amherst’s college when he invented the DDC at the age of 21.
Dewey established a pattern of making powerful enemies early in life, and many of his friends found him difficult as well. As one biographer put it, "Although he did not lack friends, they were becoming a little weary of coming to his defense (he was a racist and made continuous unwanted advances to pretty much every woman he found attractive), so endless a process had it become."