OCLC is disappointed that legal action had to be taken against The Library Hotel. This is an unusual event for OCLC. However, trademark law imposes affirmative obligations on trademark owners to protect their trademarks, or risk losing all rights in those marks through legal abandonment.

See the recent OCLC press release .

Things for boys and girls to do in the big city this weekend:

• Visit Dawn of Photography at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• See Carmen at New York City Opera
• (Window) Shop for shoes
  

Jeffrey and I were married at the Library Hotel, one of the many small boutique hotels that have popped up all over Manhattan in the last few years. Each floor of the hotel is named for one of the ten main headings in the Dewey Decimal System: general knowledge, math and science, philosophy and psychology, medicine and technology, religion and mythology, arts and entertainment, social science and folklore, literature, language, and geography & history.

Rooms are named for subdivisions of their floor’s main category. On the Math and Science floor, for example rooms are named for mathematics, geology, zoology, botany, dinosaurs, and astronomy.

Now the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) is suing the Library Hotel for its unlicensed use of Dewey. OCLC, a non-profit organization, has owned the Dewey system since 1988.

How a stylish Manhattan hotel’s light-hearted use of Dewey might harm the trademark is lost on me at the moment. One has only to look at the unfortunate Librarian Action Figure, whose weapon of choice is the Dewey Decimal System, to see how Dewey and the profession would benefit from more products like the Library Hotel.

Jeffrey and I reviewed the galleys of my book this weekend. Receiving them was a bit like meeting an old friend; it was nice to catch up and see her doing well, but I was just as happy to return to my post-manuscript life when the visit was over. Strange emotions are connected to book writing.

Two Futures

I tend not to duplicate news that my hubby covers (everyone in the web or library biz should be reading him anyway), but I must echo the importance of the news that Microsoft may have to nix plug-in technology in its browser.

The news raises disturbing questions. Will other browsers have to kill plug-in technology? What could happen to sites that use plug-ins? Could Flash go the way of the Black Mamo?

Miracle Product

I’ve written about them before. Tweezerman tweezers. No glamour girl (or boy — I know more than a few who would benefit from a good brow, nose or ear pluck!) should have to live without them. Here’s the thing: the company sharpens the little gems for free.

A few weeks ago, I sent my favorite pair for sharpening, hastily shoving five bucks in the envelope to cover return postage. On Thursday, they came back to me as sharp as they had been when I first picked them up, and with my crumpled five dollar bill still in the box.