Melvil Dewey, the inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, adapted the idea of the library card catalog . . . to produce the vertical filing system we still use today. In this system, consisting of hanging file folders and stored in file cabinets, it was mu

Melvil Dewey, the inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, adapted the idea of the library card catalog . . . to produce the vertical filing system we still use today. In this system, consisting of hanging file folders and stored in file cabinets, it was much easier to add documents to folders, to add new folders, and to move folders around. Vertical files also took up considerably less space than flat files. . . . The new vertical filing system was much acclaimed; it won a gold prize in the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.