Charles Ammi Cutter (
1837-
1903), US librarian
Cutter was born in
Boston to a family of farmers, but he was a sickly, shortsighted child, so his family encouraged him to become a
clergyman instead. At the age of 14, he attended
Harvard College and graduated
Phi Beta Kappa in
1855. He graduated from
Harvard Divinity School in
1860 but was never
ordained, because at divinity school he discovered his true calling: librarianship. He had been hired to catalogue the school's library in
1856, and upon graduation he decided against the
ministry and became assistant to the head librarian of Harvard College, Dr.
Ezra Abbott. During the next eight years, Abbott and Cutter created for the Harvard library the first public
card catalogue in the US.
In
1868, Cutter became librarian at the
Boston Athenaeum, where he remained for the next quarter century. There he produced another catalogue for the Athenaeum's collection. Cataloguing would be Cutter's life's work. He was one of the first people to attempt to systematically define the purpose and methods of cataloguing, as in his
1876 Rules for a Dictionary Catalog:
1. To enable a person to find a book of which either
A. the author)
B. the title) is known
C. the subject)
2. To show what the library has
D. by a given author
E. on a given subject
F. in a given kind of literature
3. To assist in the choice of a book
G. as to its edition (bibliographically)
H. as to its character (literary or topical)
Cutter’s vision was that central agency would produce records used by all libraries in cataloging, one that came to fruition in the
Library of Congress Classification System (LCC), which
Herbert Putnam based on Cutter’s initial efforts at forming a cataloging system. The combination of letters and numbers at the end of call numbers in the
Dewey Decimal System, LCC, and other classificaton systems which usually denotes the author of the book is called a "
Cutter number" in his honor.
Cutter was also present at the formation of the
American Library Association in 1876, serving as head of its cataloging department, editor of
Library Journal, and later president of the ALA for two years.
After 25 years at the Athenaeum, Cutter left for the
Forbes Library in
Northhampton, MA in
1893. That institution was innovative in many ways: the welcoming of children within its walls, the active lending of materials, and the collection of materials in
media other than print. Cutter remained at the Forbes Library until his death.
Sources include:
http://ihanks.com/cutter.html, http://web.utk.edu/~khuddle1/cutter.html, http://web.utk.edu/~ebowker/deadgerman.html, http://www.music.indiana.edu/tech_s/manuals/training/catalog/cutter.html