Comic Book Artists Illustrate Sci-Fi Legends

Stolen directly from Wired News, Comic Book Artists Illustrate Sci-Fi Legends, an article about a website called Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!!. The illustrations are fun to look at and also educational. Look! Famous sci-fi writers! Though I'm a little unsure about the inclusion of Neil Gaiman, whom I'd identify with fantasy over sci-fi. I like him! I just don't think he's all that suitable for the list.

Then again, he did write the last Batman story... Bless you, Internet. I didn't even know about that one 'til I checked out the related links in that first story.

Google Search Customization Sans Logins

Minus ten points for me, I didn't even realize Google personalized the search results of people logged into their site. Now they're doing it for people who aren't even logged in via cookies. This has some people concerned, as using Google without being logged in was sort of a way to avoid Google's data collection.

According to the article, you can turn this feature off. I'm not sure if I will or I won't. For one thing, I have multiple accounts. I don't run my main email through the megducation address. Otherwise, I wonder if the same problem I have with Amazon's recommendations will come up. The recommendations are all well and good and sometimes useful, but should I happen to buy a book to send to my friend who likes vampires, I'm getting a lot of vampire-related book suggestions I really don't want.

Danish DVD Ripper

From Boing Boing: 'In Denmark, it's legal to make copies of commercial videos for backup or other private purposes. It's also illegal to break the DRM that restricts copying of DVDs. Deciding to find out which law mattered, Henrik Anderson reported himself for 100 violations of the DRM-breaking law (he ripped his DVD collection to his computer) and demanded that the Danish anti-piracy Antipiratgruppen do something about.'

More Library Porn

Now there's a woman in Pataskala, Ohio, wants a sex book banned from the public library. At first she wanted it moved out ot the eyesight of kids, but on further thought decided it shouldn't be in the library at all. Shades of The League of Extraordinary Porn! And just like Sharon Cook in Nicholasville, Kentucky, Marti Shrigley is keeping the book checked out and paying the fines. (Maybe they should find an eleven year old girl to put a request for the book on hold.) And here we go again:

Currently, parents or legal guardians must sign permission statements on card applications submitted by minors.

Other libraries follow similar policies, and Nojonen said libraries find themselves caught in a Catch-22 because what one parent objects to, another parent might not object to.

"Parental responsibility is the foundation of what does and what does not get borrowed," he said.

This is not a difficult concept.

Old Books

Some bits of conversations from the owner of a rare book store.

Hello. I have some old books for sale.
What kind of books?
Old ones.
OK. What subject areas?
Where does it say that?

Going West

I first saw this on Boing Boing and then again on LIS News. So! Excellent marketing from the New Zealand Book Council: Maurice Gee reading a bit from his book 'Going West' with a stunning papercraft video.

The Value of Library Services

Courtesy of a gentleman in my class, here is the Brockville Library's Value of Library Services Calculator. Just type in the amount of DVDs, books, CDs, or other items you've checked out and you will get a total for how much those items would be worth if you bought them.