Harsh Library Fine Collection

A woman in Wisconsin ended up in jail because she hadn't paid some overdue fees from the public library. Heidi Dalibor, 20, owed about $30 on two paperbacks. After a number of notices and a notice to appear in court, she continued not to respond. So officers showed up with an arrest warrant and carted her off. She was out $30, and her mother, $172, to spring the young woman.

How Many Libraries Is Your Author In?

Someone on a writers' board pointed out this resource: a site that purports to tell you in how many libraries you can find the work of a given author. I have no idea how accurate this is, but it's amusing, none the less.

Gagged by Patriot Act

The Hartford Courant ran an article by the director of the Portland, CT library, who received one of the national security letters seeking information. The letter carried with it a gag order, so that it took the ACLU getting involved before she could even mention the situation to anyone. While her case was high profile, many weren't:

Reportedly hundreds of thousands of security letters have been sent out. The recipients remain gagged and can never speak about their experience, under threat of a five-year prison sentence. They can never describe the scope and nature of the information they give to the FBI.

How much has been passed on regarding how many? Who knows?

Web Site Review: Wordsmith.org

This is a must stop for word junkies. Jeffrey Henning, a friend and creator of tools for creating your own language (and a spot worth going to in its own right), pointed me to the fun that is the A.Word.A.Day mailing list a good dozen years ago. The Wordsmith.org site lets you join the mailing list and offers a chat service, anagram server, and a project to donate books to libraries around the world. It's worth a stop.