Editing Melvil Dewey (section)

=== Traveling libraries ===
Community libraries began to flourish in the early nineteenth century. The western United States opened to expansion and further exploration, and people wanted services and opportunities to move with them. In New York, Melvil Dewey had "initiated a program of traveling libraries-collections of one hundred books sent to communities without public libraries."<ref>Murray, S. A. (2012). ''The Library: An Illustrated History''. New York: Skyhorse Publishing.</ref> His efforts spurred other state organizations and private individuals to create traveling libraries. Increased library services to small or rural communities and underserved populations fortified the efforts of many to seek out education and self-improvement.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}}
Dewey was also influenced by [[Herbert Baxter Adams]] on ideas about library extension.<ref>Cunningham, Raymond. “Historian among the Librarians: Herbert Baxter Adams and Modern Librarianship.” ''The Journal of Library History.'' 21, no. 4 (1986): 704–22.</ref>