Now for the UnGood News: All in One Go

Okay, like a band-aid, let us get through this bad library news quickly and back to the funny.

A library worker in East Brunswick, NJ has pleaded guilty to having over 600 images of child pornography on his home computer, some graphically violent and sadistic.  I'm gonna be sick. nj.com

After a lengthy fight with the county, the city of Lake Elmo, MN has split from the Washington County library system to start its own library.  What this means for residents of either library system has yet to be decided.  This is what happens when you let your cities go to spring break without you.  twincities.com

The Palo Alto, CA community is in an uproar over the soaring price of the construction of their new library and community center.  The price has risen almost 25 percent since construction began, with only 33 percent of the project completed.  Do you feel better I started with the worst of these stories? MercuryNews

Starbucks Free eBook Is Too Good to Be True

Starbucks has announced that along with the iTunes App Store "Pick of the Week" free song, it will give its customers a free ebook as well.  However, the fine print claims that the ebook is an "extended sample."  For instance, the first book up is Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and contains 330 pages of the complete text.  The book is only 400 pages long.  The last page of the 'free' version has a link to buy the 'full' version for $12.99. This has caused some users to become a little angry at the company.  MyNorthwest

I can not decide if I like this or not.  On one hand, I dislike Starbucks.  I have a coffee maker, it makes coffee.  It cost $35, has a timer and not much else.  In my estimation it paid for itself in three days of not buying my coffee outside.  It makes me feel good to see Starbucks get negative press.

On the other hand, I also like to see suckers mad when they did not read the little writing under "free."  I mean, wow, that's a dick move to charge $13 for 70 pages, but you were also paying $6 for a cup of coffee with foamy milk, whip cream and some flavored sugar powder so I can not feel bad for ya.

Google to Attempt Take Over of English

Google is set to launch it's Google eBooks store simultaneously in the UK, Canada, and Australia.  Both Canada and Australia have seen massive book and ebook system drops in the last year with the collapse of companies such as Borders, and this will be a welcome addition.  No date has been set for the launch of the service, but Google hopes to have it running by the end of the year.  GoodEReader

And so it came to pass, the mighty Google put out its hands and grasped the empires of old.  "Care to Feel Lucky?" the diety said, casting his head back in laughter.

Update Thursday: Cause We Do That

Update:  A mother who went to trial after being asked to leave an Atlanta library because her baby was laughing too loud was found guilty of obstructing a police officer by the jury after a two hour deliberation.  Police had video of her altercation with officers outside the library where she is clearly seen causing a public disturbance outside the library.  She was sentanced to 12 months probation, anger management classes, and parenting classes.  The mother, Donnetta Foster, had this to say:

"I definitely feel like I stood up for myself today... I spoke out against what I felt was wrong." CBS Atlanta

While I sympathize with Ms. Foster feeling wronged, I have the feeling she was led astray into going to trial.  This all seems like she and her lawyer somehow felt this would shift blame and put the library on trial like a Hollywood movie twist when in fact all that was in question for the courts was if she did or did not yell at a police officer.  There were many avenues she could have taken both on that day and after, but instead she chose to act rashly and now has a criminal charge on her record.

Update:  In other news, the Author's Guild is getting many fingers waggled at them for suing universities for allowing Google to digitize their library's "orphaned" books.  Orphaned books are books where the copyright holder cannot be located, and the universities felt that it had an obligation to keep these items in the public mind through digitization, many belonging in the HathiTrust.  So far the Library Copyright Alliance has stepped up to call the Guild's lawsuit 'deplorable" while the Author's Guild has fired back that many of the claimed 'orphaned books' are not orphaned at all but the author's can be tracked down with a simple Google search.   That's ironic in that many if not all of the items in the HathiTrust were scanned during the rocky Google Books project.

People Editors Publish an eBook First, Tomorrow TV Moive!

People Magazine has published their first ever ebook entitled "Outrage: The Casey Anthony Story."  Steve Helling, People staff writer, authored the tome after spending countless hours with the case, from the initial abduction reporting to the final court hearing.  The item is now on sale in ebook and paperback at your local computer wherever you buy that kind of thing as long as its Amazon. BusinessWire

I congratulate People for making their first ebook outing a true crime book and not another 9/11 retrospective.  Now that I have said that, let me check online to see if one is on sale... Nope, not that I can see.  You may now go play with your friends out back and discuss if those are ScarJo's real naked-time pics now, People Magazine.

Magazines, right?  Look at 'em.  They grow up so fast.

Banned Library Blog Anniversary

I haven't read this.

Today celebrates the day I wrote and published the first post for the Banned Library, How to Deal with an Unruly Patron.  Well, the first post was this video filler, but the patron one was the kicker, the idea starter, the meat to my library sam'mich.  The site has changed over the past year, from one-note top ten list style articles to a commentary on the news and what-not, and I feel that it has grown organically.

I want to thank you all for reading this sad little bit of rambling.  I want everyone who sees this to know that by reading this and responding you have kept me sane and in a job.  Without this vent to let out the pressure, I may have quit being a librarian months ago and right now arguing with some grandpa over whether or not his salad is "too cold."  Well, the blog and a mountain of debt, but you guys are awesome!

Okay, enough of this crap.  Thanks for reading, here's looking to another year, who let the dogs out, bark bark, where's the beef?  Hit the jump for links to my most read articles and some really boring statistics for the site.

Top 5 articles ever read on the site:
5 Reasons Libraries Should Not Use Ebooks... Yet.
How to Get Banned From a Library
5 Ways to Prevent Cabin Fever
Used eBook Store? Kindle Lending Club
6 Library Holiday Party Games

Total amount of views as of 8:00 this morning: 30,661

Total amount of posts: 414

Average words per post: Um, math.  More than 5.

Average reading level:  apple

AR Points for blog: 0-15000, I'm working on it.

Post with the most amount of views: 5 Reasons Libraries Should Not Use Ebooks... Yet. 2,270 views

Post with the least amount of views: I don't care to think about that

Average daily view count:  115-150ish

Biggest Traffic Source: Twitter

Followers on Twitter as of this writing: 444

Bots as followers on Twitter: Don't care, numbers are numbers.... I mean... I love talking to you guys... heh...

Countries that viewed the most: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany

Oddest country to view me: Nepal.  Who do I know in Nepal?  

Total money Google and Amazon ads claim I have earned: $9.61

Total money my bank account claims I have earned: $0.03 (to check my account)

Top reasons for continuing to use ads: Filler and copyright-free images

Shape my Overall Statistics graph most resembles: Mt. Everest... which is in Nepal, clever girl.

Biggest WOW moment of the blog:  Mentioned in the NYPL blog for this post.  That really made this little Mississippi boy's year.  Whoever out there reads my drivel, thanks and I hope you didn't get fired for it.

All stats from blogger statistics unless I made them up.  I didn't apply Google Anyalytics until April or so, and the numbers are way sadder anyway as they give an "accurate" view.

Somebody Taught Levi Johnston to Write and Look What Came Out

Deer in the Headlights: Life in Sarah Palin's Crosshairs by Levi Johnston is set to come out September 20 and tell the other story behind the Palin family.  As you may remember, Levi Johnston is the high school boyfriend and baby's daddy to Bristol Palin, former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's daughter.  According to the Associated Press the book claims, among many things, Bristol wanted to get pregnant after her mom did, the two were having sex way before Bristol claims she drunkenly gave it up on a camping trip, and Sarah Palin wished to be called "Mommy Sarah" instead of grandma.  opposingviews

Just look at that cover and tell me that's not a trustworthy guy.  He's in camo for Christ's sake.  However, as a staunch anti-Palin, I have to trust everything he says as truth and not just a quick get rich scheme from some Alaskan redneck.  I will give him BIG props for admitting that not using condoms with the governor's baby-crazy daughter was "dumb."