Conquering Home Library Clutter

Someone had posted on Slashdot a question about how to organize a 3,500 volume home library. After getting responses and doing research, he came up with a cmprehensive solution and wrote this article about it. From software to scanners and a procedure for adding books, it's an interesting read for readers.

Carnegie Mellon's Online Books

Carnegie Mellon University has scanned more than 1.5 million books into a freely-available online service, according to the Associated Press. Over half the works are supposedly out of copyright or included with the permission of the coypright holders. (Makes me wonder about the other half.) Interestingly, it appears that 970,000 of the books are in Chinese, 360,000 in English, 50,000 in a language of southern India, and 40,000 in Arabic, which would seem to be an interesting statement on the demographics of the school. If you're interested in checking this out, click here.

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?