Amazon All Romanitco

Amazon has announced they are starting an imprint for romance books called Montlake Romance.  The imprint will start with Connie Brockway's "The Other Guy's Bride."

I would like to announce my own imprint, coming soon:  Bestiality and Necrophilia Books.  I'm trying to get all Twilight fanfic together.  You know, for kids.

In honor of Amazon's imprint, I give you Shaggy's Boombastic:

New Nook on the Horizon?

CNET announced today that a new version of Barnes and Noble's Nook eReader is likely on the way, this time with e-ink.  Quoting from the Wall Street Journal, the article said a filing to the SEC was released that in part read that a Barnes and Noble would be announcing the release of a new eReader device on May 24th.

Oh, goody.  The summer war for how to confuse even the most tech savvy person is beginning.  Every year the same.  Imagine the questions you will get as a librarian, both in your professional and private life:

"Which eReader is the best?"
"What eReader should I get if I don't wanna spend any money?"
"What eReader should I get if I wanna read library eBooks?"
"My mind says Kindle, but my cat says Nook.  Who's right?"

And on and on and on all summer long until every cool little gadget has been released.  Then we get to show them how to use them.

CNET
WSJ

Food in the Library

There is a monster in the library.  The monster can range from two inches to seven feet tall, spreads like mad, and has a curious sound reported to be "munching or paper rustling, I dunno kinda like a garbage truck with a hemorroid."  I am talking about food in the library.

The following are some of my favorite excuses for food being in the library:

"This is my birthday cake" (it was a two foot by three foot strawberry long cake)
"My blood sugar's low" (a bucket of fried chicken)
"If my son doesn't eat, he gets hyper" (bag of potato chips ground into the carpet)
"But it's diet" (can of soda)
"It's okay, they are communion wafers" (they were, whole bag of them)
"I am checking out movies!" (bag of cheddar cheese popcorn)
"They have bunches of vitamins!" (whole raw carrots)
"But they sell it next door" (venti mocha latte with low fat foam and a dash of cinnamon)
"Because it was here and I am a termite" (wood)
"I am a mouse" (random crumbs)
"I am a snake" (mouse)

Z is for Zombie

Let's set the stage:  On a normal Tuesday in the library, you open the library in a normal fashion.  All the computers are on, the servers are behaving themselves, and the staff is milling around talking instead of setting up for the day.  A group of patrons are at the door, waiting, some oddly pawing at the door...  Then, reports start coming from around the city that the dead have begun to rise.  A car crashes outside.  You notice one of the patrons outside is eating another patron.  The Internet goes down.  Panic ensues.  We have entered into a zombie apocalypse   

Let's see what we have to do to survive:

Stage 1:  Gather and build

Best case scenario, you have supplies on hand at the library:  food in the break room, first aid supplies in the supply closet, and a shotgun under the reference desk.  Gather these supplies into one defensible position, the higher the better.  Here's the sitch on our zombies:  these are the Romero classics.  Slow moving, brain eating, moaning walking dead.  They may move faster if they are freshly dead, but as muscles deteriorate so do their movements.  They are mindless animals with no thoughts other than to kill.  Remember, they are not dead until the brain is destroyed.

Remind you of someone trying to get in the computer lab that's full?

Stage 2:  Stay away from other people

In these cases, you may want your friends and family close.  Resist this notion.  Other people will get you killed, increasing more either the more skilled they are or the more you love them.  The more skilled a person is, the more likely you are either the lesson they have to learn by killing you when you go zombie or you are the comic relief.  The more you love someone, the more likely they are to turn zombie and make you learn a lesson.  Remember, if you are about to marry a Green Beret/Navy Seal/Eagle Scout, you are more likely to die and/or kill them.

One or both of them are dead in a zombie land.

Stage 3:  Get some entertainment

In this situation, after you have all the supplies for a few days and locked yourself away from everyone, the library is your best place to be.  Grab arm loads of your favorite books and hide yourself away.  Books are perfect for a zombie outbreak because they are a silent, portable, and can take you away from your problems.  Also, things like how-to survival guides can give you interesting ideas for when supplies start running low and how to fix any remaining technology.

Not exactly what we're talking about.

Stage 4:  Contact the outside world.

Yeah, you've cut of contact with loved ones, staff and patrons, but that does not mean there are not others out there who can help.  This is why you went as high up as possible.  And collected books.  Start signal fires or if you have one, start sending out radio signals.  Others may get you into trouble, but they may also have valuable information about what's going on in the world.  Just do not let them into your library fort until you are sure there is no problem.

More useful than you think.

Stage 5:  Waiting

There are only a few ways this apocalypse can end.  In most, you are dead.  If you are in the center of the outbreak, more than likely the government will drop a bomb or kill anyone within the area.  Or, zombies could break in and kill and/or turn you.  At best, the zombies are living dead which means without nutrition of the human brain they will slowly deteriorate and die again.  Then, you can walk outside again.  Just remember, random crazy folks may wish to take over your library for Twilight collection.

Do yourself a favor and go ahead and burn them now.

Y is for Yahoo!

Yahoo! is an American company that started out as a search engine and ended up as sort of a joke.  I am telling you right now, if you still have a Yahoo mail account active delete that right now.  What once was the master of all search engines is now the diseased prostitute on the corner, over used and out of luck.

The problem really came with a fun service called "Yahoo Answers."  The Internet equivalent of Jay Leno's "Jay-walking" sketches, all you have to do is ask a random question and a variety of smartasses and morons will give you an answer.  Just read this fun feed for some of the best.  My favorite recent one is:  "Does rubbing peanut butter on your nipples and butt cheeks prevent demonic possession?"    Someone actually tried to answer this!

Still, after all that, they made a pretty funny commercial.

X is for XX

Now's the time for the sexy librarian pics... Cause my shoulder hurts too much to type.  Let's do it.

The O.G. Sexy Librarian, being all strict and shit

The Celebrity Impersonator

The Obligatory Let's Read in the Stacks Hottie

The Costume

For the Ladies

W is for Warrant

Libraries have a longstanding tradition of run-ins with the law.  From irate patrons to the Library of Congress hosting the U.S. Copyright office, the law has often been on the library's side.  There are points of contention, however.  While the library strives to work with law enforcement at every instance, the ideas of patron privacy, patron freedom, and various procedures and policies are there to not only protect patrons but protect the freedom of information.

Patron privacy is kind of a big deal for libraries.  It is also a problem libraries painted themselves into.  See, a lending library has to lend books and services whether they charge for the privilege or not.  It's in the name, lending library AKA most public libraries.  Now, back in the day when a public library wanted to give out books, it took your information (and probably due to bullshit of the times, you were a upper/middle class white man) and gave you the materials.  That patron info was stored on a bunch of cards and that was that.  If someone wanted to know what you read or used, they would have to go through all the cards in all the books and form a list.  With the advent of computers and more accessible database structures, all that information became much easier to locate.  Enter skilled computer no-gooders who would like nothing more than to hack a library system and instantly have thousands of names, addresses, and phone numbers to send advertisements about penis enlargement pills to.  So, there are policies and procedures in place to not only keep your info safe, but what information about you the library collects at all.

So we looked at why the library keeps patron information safe, what about information the patron wants from the library?  Ever seen the movie Seven?  When looking for the heinous John Doe, Morgan Freeman goes to an old government friend to get info on a bunch of "targeted" books that have been checked out from libraries by people.  Well, that's a bunch of crap.  Sort of.  What about the crazy murderous terrorist serial killers that buy their own copies?  Is there another government list for buying odd materials versus being a cheapskate and checking them out?  Now, this is a little over the top, especially in the time that movie was written.  What can happen now, thanks to dem dare 'puter base datas, is that the government can get a warrant for materials a certain person has checked out or the internet history on a public access computer that has been targeted for excess anti-'mericanism.  Most libraries will cooperate fully with releasing this information, either because they feel they should or because they have made their services and patron information nearly useless.  Some libraries only keep check-out records on items with fines, losing all items that are returned in a timely manner, or they delete internet histories on a near daily basis.  So, if you do not want your library use recorded, return your books in a timely manner and, well, just do not use public access computers.  There are ways of making them thar 'puters talk after all.

Special thanks to Library Law for a ton of great sources.
Also, follow the Library Law Blog and twitter, another great resource!