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As usual, I forgot! 20 years ago on Nov 2nd I brought LISNews online.

I can’t possibly thank everyone who has helped LISNews over the past 20 years. Steve Glabraith, Steven M Cohen & Nabeal Ahmed, were all instrumental in helping me during the early years (when I needed it most!).

We also had a few authors that posted like bloggers possessed and are still with us, BIRDIE especially, and Ieleene, Aaron, Rochelle, and a few other authors who helped out for awhile and moved on. Behind the scenes Joe Frazee helped me get the original LISNews server up and running. Over the years a few dedicated souls have tirelessly submitted stories; Bob Cox, Martin, Lee Hadden, Charles Davis, and many others. Stephen Kellat, for the podcast, Robin, Troy, Andy, Dan and all the LISNews authors deserve a big thank you and a pat on the back for all their hard work. LISNews is a collaborative site, and we all work together to make it great.

I’d also like to thank everyone who has ever chipped in to pay for the server, submitted a story, wrote in their journal, left a comment, or just dropped by for a visit.

Happy Birthday LISNews. Here’s hoping we have a few more good years ahead of us!

An Arkansas State University alumnus says he was surprised to spot a few curious critters running around the campus library.

Codie Clark, a math tutor, says he spotted at least two raccoons Sunday on the third floor of the university’s Dean B. Ellis Library while waiting for a student to arrive for a tutoring session. Clark says other students then cornered one raccoon.

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/oct/29/multiple-raccoons-take-over-library-arkansas-state/

In addition to his entire personal book collection, late author Phillip Roth also donated at least $2 million to the library in his New Jersey hometown.

The Pulitzer Prize winner, before his death last year, arranged to donate the money to the Newark Public Library, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The money, the report said, a large chunk of his $10 million estate, would be used to bolster the library’s general collection. And the gift included additional funding to help renovate a space to house his 7,000-book personal collection, it said.

https://www.nj.com/essex/2019/10/late-author-philip-roth-left-2m-to-an-nj-library-report-says.html

Driving the news: The American Library Association said libraries are struggling to acquire ebooks because of an “abuse of market power by dominant firms,” as part of a report for the House Judiciary Committee’s digital markets investigation that was made public Thursday.

https://www.axios.com/amazon-library-ala-antitrust-ebooks-679e8e4d-97bc-4b91-98dc-353d607e6cd2.html

In a 1972 book – Man and the Computer – there is a chapter on “The Library of the Future.” The chapter ends with a word of caution. You can see the caution here.

Americans who live in communities with a rich array of neighborhood amenities are twice as likely to talk daily with their neighbors as those whose neighborhoods have few amenities. More important, given widespread interest in the topic of loneliness in America, people living in amenity-rich communities are much less likely to feel isolated from others, regardless of whether they live in large cities, suburbs, or small towns. Fifty-five percent of Americans living in low-amenity suburbs report a high degree of social isolation, while fewer than one-third of suburbanites in amenity-dense neighborhoods report feeling so isolated.

From America Needs More Community Spaces – The Atlantic

Free storage is a great offer, but sometimes you only get what you pay for. The internet is neither secure nor permanent. It never promised to be, and users should not assume that it will become so. Parts are rotting and corroding and collapsing as I type this. Just hope and plan to not be resting on that platform when it falls.

From Your internet data is rotting

From KCRA, Sacramento city leaders honor slain librarian Amber Clark, a supervisor at the branch, who was shot and killed in the library parking lot last December as she was leaving work. Sacramento police arrested 56-year-old Ronald Seay in connection with Clark’s death.

At Merriam-Webster we know that words have the power to shape worlds both real and imagined. And we know that writing is hard work. To distill a story, its characters, and all the associated emotions into a single word is no small feat.

That’s why we’ve partnered with eleven of our favorite authors who have shared the story and significance behind their one-word-title books.

From 11 Authors on Their One-Word Book Titles | Merriam-Webster

It took nearly five years into the internet’s life before anyone made a concerted effort to archive it. Much of our earliest online activity has disappeared.

From BBC – Future – Why there’s so little left of the early internet