ListServ Life

On the PubLib email list, public librarians are discussing (translation: arguing politely about) blocking MySpace, or not. Someone posted a link to a very funny and interesting piece from the New York Times Book Review, A Space for Us by the novelist Pagan Kennedy. This is a wonderful window into how authors might think about their relationship to (for example) me, the rapacious reader. I don't think the Times locks up the Book Review. If you do need a login, the Waterboro Lib Blog shares theirs, look in the top left corner; or try bugmenot.com.

Anyway this piece, and the discussion which brought it forward, is so far a lot more enlightening than the current endless conversation on DorothyL, the mystery readers' email list, about the Mystery Writers of America's recent creation of an "approved publisher list" for the purpose of accepting submissions for the Edgar awards. Authors and publishers were posting like mad, and they seemed to have forgotten about readers altogether for the moment; the list moderator finally had to call the topic off-limits. And the thread on NGC4LIB ('Next Generation Catalog for Libraries') has once again spun off into acrimony afloat on a sea of acronyms. ACM ASIST&T IEEE MARCXML PERL VIAF OO C ISBD AI FRBR RDA MeSH MTI OAI-PMH CLiMB MODS xISBN