Librarian's Rant

From Boing Boing: BookMooch: give away your old books, get others'

Interesting idea, using a points system. "In order to keep receiving books, you need to give away at least one book for every two you receive." You can also donate points to charities.

I also recently heard about a community book exchange in the Chicago area. (Thanks, Jenna).

It makes me think--is the rise in this sort of cooperative trading arrangement a result of the poor economy, the increase in use of social networking websites (well, until DOPA kills them all!), or some other nebulous factor?

In any case, I applaud the concept and those willing to do the organizing work to make these sort of arrangements function. It will be interesting to see if/how they survive.

Proof my buddy Brian should write for The Onion:

Hooray, First Amendment!

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, AUGUST 17: Airports across the country, already reeling from the liquids ban of just a few weeks ago, were again thrown into chaos today, as local agents of the FBI claim they have uncovered evidence of a widespread terrorist plot to plant thousands of venomous snakes on commercial airliners all over the country. According to Jim Jameson, FBI Agent, "this plot is really widespread, and very far along. When we cross-checked the first solid rumor we got against our newest terror-detection tool, the Government Operated Online Global Link Extractor .com, it instantly returned well over 17,300,000 hits."

Via LIS News:

NPR : British History Goes Online

Imagine being able to look up who was living in your house in the eleventh century. Britons can now do that with the online version of the Domesday Book. The book is Britain's nationwide inventory, commissioned by King William I in 1085, and was put on online Friday by the British National Archives.

I just found this...disturbing...to my concept of the universe:

For Now, Pluto Holds Its Place in Solar System

Pluto dodged a bullet today.

In the hope of ending years of wrangling, a committee of astronomers and historians has proposed a new definition of the word “planet� that would expand at a stroke the family of planets from 9 to 12 and leave textbooks and charts in thousands of classrooms out of date.

Update: someone responded with this, and it got me thinking: "Not to mention thousands of years of astrology down the tubes!"

Yeah, I mean, I know what happens when Mercury is in retrograde, but what do you do when Xena is on the rise?! (besides duck)

I seriously have this vision of all these astronomers in Prague next week skulking around cobblestoned corners, having secret meetings in coffee houses, taking sides for the Planet Revolution. Viva Le Pluto!