Cutter, Charles Ammi (1837–1903)

US librarian. In 1869, he became librarian of the Boston Athenaeum where he compiled its influential Catalogue. The Library of Congress is based on his classification system. With his life-long rival, Melvil Dewey and others, he founded the American Library Association in 1876.

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and, after graduating from Harvard Divinity School, he took up his post in Boston, where he remained until 1893. His multi-part Expansive Classification system was designed to help growing libraries expand without the need for complete reclassification.