LISNews: Librarian News

I just turned in two auctions on eBay for copyright issues. The auctions are numbers 7006544986
and 7004476037. The seller has a CD listed with copies of numerous (more than 30) Star Wars ebooks. I am curious if eBay will end up doing anything. A few examples of the titles on the CD-ROM: Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina,

Tales of the Bounty Hunters,

Shadows of the Empire,

Truce at Bakura

The iBookWatch blog has an entry about how the book "Marley and Me" is beating out the new Steph King novel. The blog entry links out to an interesting newspaper article.

Book: Wal-Mart Effect
Story on NPR There is a one minute intro to some other business news at the beginning of the NPR story but then they get into the Wal-Mart story. This is the blurb on the story from NPR. Wal-Mart is a business with 1.6 million employees in the United States alone. It does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined. And more than half of all Americans live within 5 miles of a Wal-Mart store. David Gardner talks about the big, big business of Wal-Mart with Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works - and How It's Transforming the American Economy. This interview was on the Motley Fool Investment show on NPR.

Bush proposed the use of more ethanol as one solution to the oil issue during the State of the Union. I think the way to force innovation is to guarantee that the cost of oil will go up at a steady predicatable amount. I think the way to do this is to add a $1 per gallon tax per year for the next five years. This will force the issue of creating vehicles that can get 70-100 miles per gallon or the use of electric vehicles. 100 mpg can be obtained if we had smaller lighter vehicles.
I have great faith in the innovative ability of this country. If we created this tax I am confident we could create a transportation infrastructure that could operate under the higher gas taxes.

iBookWatch.com now has a blog. It can be found at http://www.javarisoftware.com/ibookwatch/blog/

I need some help here. Read this line from the sales description of a Seiko watch. Water-resistant to 30 meters, this watch can handle splashes of water or rain, but it should not be worn while swimming or diving. It has a battery life of five years.

Water resistant to 30m (100 ft) but I can't go swimming with it? I hope I am never in a 30m splash of water.
Link to the: Seiko Watch

I was thumbing through this book tonight. Very interesting. California Lighthouse Life in the 1920s and 1930s

For those who know what they are the 2005 edition of the Lakeside Classics is out. Additional details can be found at Bibliofuture.org

I entered some photos in the Laughing Lemur contest that is being held for the book Ambient Findability. Here are some of the pictures I submitted:
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Save the Lemur Picture

Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter

Busting Vegas : The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees

If you are a NetFlix subscriber you received an email discussing a class action lawsuit settlement.

CNet story.

The lawyers in the case are getting over 2.5 million dollars. If enough NetFlix subscribers opt out of the class action the settlement will not go through. Details on how to opt out can be found here.

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes a three volume, slip-cased, hardback set is now out. If I had more money several of my friends would be getting this for Christmas.

A friend asked me this question. Anybody know the answer?
Bibliofuture - I have a friend at work who says that quite some time back he was browsing the web and found a map that showed a US Map and it showed a sort of overlay of various maladies and ailments and the percentage of cases for each of the major ones. He said it was interesting to see all the midwest and the diseases caused by pesticides and so on. I did a quick search for it and was unable to find it. Think you might be able to put your massive resources to use for me? This sounds like a cool map to see.

I don't know if it still exists, but if you find it, please let me know. I did some quick poking around at cdc.gov and a few other gov sites.

Photo that would be great book cover. If the book was a murder mystery or a sci-fi murder mystery.

Picture

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=43944129&size=o

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bibliofuture/43617209/in/set-954883/

There is an article in the New York Times with the title Bush Urges Conservation as Retail Gas Prices Rise

This means it might be a good idea for you to park your Hummer, Yukon, Denali, Armada, Navigator,Expedition, Explorer or anything else named after a mountain or fleet of ships.

See www.bibliofuture.org

Someone sent me this email about a post I made in my journal that contained two poems by Ted Kooser. (U.S. Poet Laureate)
I feel uncomfortable with your publishing two complete poems of Ted
Kooser's on lisnews unless he has given you copyright clearance? Maybe
link to the poems he chooses to publish on his own website?
http://www.tedkooser.com/excerpts.html
The email was signed and it was from an identifiable email address. Kudos to the librarian in question for having the intestinal fortitude to sign their email. I have removed the post with the poems. On a philosophical note I object to taking down the poems. I think it is the responsibility of every librarian to operate on the very edge of 'fair use". Numerous copyright forces work to push back the definition of "fair use" and I think every librarian should push back. Here are links to the poems at Kooser’s site and the Library of Congress.
Flying at Night
Selecting a Reader

Original Post minus poems
Ted Kooser is the current Poet Laureate of the United States. The Nebraska Center for Writers has a short bio here.

One of the poems I like is called "Selecting a Reader"

Selecting A Reader

(poem was here)

The other poem I really like is:

Flying at Night

(poem was here)