Library Stuff

Amazon.com that is. I was looking up this book, as it had been recommended to me for a light read, and I noticed the "Inside the Book" section of the page, which had the following links:

Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
mysterious articles, betting book, carriage accident
Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Professor Randolph, Miss Bingley, Miss Kendall, Caroline Bingley, Lawrence Kendall, Frederick Parrish, Lord Chatfield, Mont Joyau, New Orleans, Juliet Kendall, Bow Street, Lady Catherine, Charles Bingley, British Museum, French Quarter, Drury Lane, Louisa Hurst, Good Lord, Haye Park, Grosvenor Street

What an odd feature! And there was also a Concordance, which gave me the 100 most frequently used words in the book and Text Stats, which included readability indexes.

Fascinating marketing tool.

Shelby Foote, Civil War historian, had just the sexiest Southern voice I've ever heard. And a real passion for this country's history. From CNN.com:

Foote, a Mississippi native and longtime Memphis resident, wrote six novels but is best remembered for his three-volume, 3,000-page history of the Civil War and his appearance on the PBS series "The Civil War."

He worked on the book for 20 years, using a flowing, narrative style that enabled readers to enjoy it like a historical novel.

"I can't conceive of writing it any other way," Foote once said. "Narrative history is the kind that comes closest to telling the truth. You can never get to the truth, but that's your goal."

The big news in the library world is the Sirsi-Dynix merger. I wish them the best, but I have my reservations. We run Dynix Horizon, and it does NOT rock my world.

Best case: Sirsi's reasonably good end-user interfaces and admin functions allied with Dynix power and database capabilities.

Worst case: other way around...

We'll see.

Scholastic is having a contest to win a signed copy of the new Harry Potter book. Go to http://www.scholastic.com/librarians/ to enter.

Great Pearls Before Swine comic!

Thanks, Tracey.