Dewey Sues Hotel… Who Knew?

Many people were surprised this week that a library-themed hotel in New York was being sued for using the Dewey Decimal System as a theme. Who knew someone actually “owned” Dewey? “The Online Computer Library Center is seeking damages of three times the profits the hotel has made since it opened. Dewey, a librarian, invented the Dewey Decimal Classification in 1874 and devoted his life to spreading it. Over time, it became the most widely employed cataloging system in the world, used today in 95 percent of public libraries in the United States.”