Thursday, September 07, 2006

The big news on the library lists this week is about Google (as it often is); this time, they're reviewing the full-text, copyright-free downloadable books made available and the just-announced historical news archives search. The archives are very seldom free, which might discourage people, but it's actually a good way to look for, say, genealogical articles - and then use your library's databases to get the article in its entirety! The book bits look okay, too, although I am not terribly enthused about reading an entire book online. (You can download them in PDF and print them out, though.)

More fun with words: Omniglot tells you all you'd ever want to know about languages, while the idea of Europanto mashes a bunch of languages together (check out the discussion on Metafilter for some excellent examples of Europanto in action!). When I lived in France, I ended up speaking a sort of mangled Franglais for most of the time (and when I got back to the states, too); I think I'd do excellently well with Europanto as a true language.

Sometimes the headline says it all: Education Department Mined Hundreds of Students' Records as Part of FBI Antiterrorist Operation. Grrreat. In less Orwellian news, or perhaps more Orwellian, depending on your view of alternative history, the Mythopoeic Award winners were announced recently.

Tomorrow: links from others!

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