more neat blogs

Every state library association should have a nifty little blog like Library Stories to collect local library news, national news of relevance, and links to useful associations [and me!]. Oklahoma is lucky to have this.

why YOU should read copyfight

I know it says “tech news” at the top, but Copyfight should be required reading for all librarians because it tackles the increasingly legally problematic issue of free information. In the library, we give our information away, freely. We learn about Fair Use to watch our asses, but who is going to sue a library? Well, here is a good post about Fair Use and folks who are challenging the DMCA with their own legislation, the Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act, or DMCRA.

popular books by the book popularizers themselves

Top 100 Library Books, from OCLC, who should know. Sort of a surprising list, in some ways. Chicago Manual of Style appears twice for different editions. I’m not sure why Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Proceedings of the International Symposium At McGill University made the list. They seem to be all either politics, management or reference books, with a few curveballs [no Googdnight Moon? Only three kids books?]

librarybug.org – free public library info

Incidentally, when I was looking for a link for the Wallingford library, I found this new source of US public library demographic data: librarybug.org. The entry for our library is a little out of date, but mostly correct, and they even have our micro-library that I use here in town. Oddly, doing a whois search for the domain turns up nothing. It’s registered to some company that prefers to remain anonymous, but also owns collegebug.org