The International Horror Guild has named Gahan Wilson as recipient of its Living Legend Award. "Gahan Wilson has enriched our lives with his ability to see through the world that everybody else takes as reality and show us, with his wonderfully weird art, wit, and writing, what he sees," said Paula Guran, award administrator.

In what would appear to be a massive oversight, librarian associations around the world neglected to send details of budget allocations, staffing cut-backs and fiscally driven library closures to the Horror Guild.

As the Guild will be presenting its 11th Annual awards during the World Fantasy Convention, November 3-6 in Madison, Wisconsin, there may still be time to put together a late submission for a special additional award ...

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Recent action research at a well-known educational facility has proven the axiom that external appearances generate 99% of third party perceptions.

Although the official report has yet to be released, A.B. Credaro stated that the adoption of a 'corporate coiffure' styled wig for one working day was "a draft hair-do released for public comment and feedback".

Unfortunately the day, selected at random, was one where very few managers were present at the workplace. This probably accounts for the fact that no immediate promotions were offered. However, those colleagues with similar (natural) hair stated approval of the style, whilst those with less corporatized craniums were greatly amused.

Only one co-worker expressed concern over the sanity of the infamous library humorist. This was statistically insignificant, as the vast majority know that Biblia is well off-center ...

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Librarians will feel vindicated knowing that their passion for identification has moved into the public domain.

The website I Park Like an Idiot is selling stickers that will alert the general public to road hazards in the Incompetent Driver classification

The socially responsibe website also cautions potential users of the self-adhesive information against using the stickers on other people's automotive property. But you buy the 100-pack, where else are you going to use them ...

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The Warrior Librarian Flying Squad has detected, reported and condemned René J. Aerdts, Ph.D., EDS Fellow, EDS (not the person pictured here) for language crimes against humanity.

Aerdts' article in Volume 4, Issue 7 of JEDlet was headlined Creativity and E-learning: an Oxymoron?; clearly the use of oxymoron was inappropriate in this context.

In addition to the common usage that states that oxymorons are self-contradictory expressions that are composed of either a compound noun, or a noun-adjective combination, the Squad also referred to definition in the corporate copy of the New World Dictionary(1974 Edition - plastic covered; binding in exceptional condition; pages showing some wear; minor marking in margins).

The relationship between creativity and e-learning, as described in the article, is one that questions the assumption that these two facets are not necessarily mutually exclusive; not that they are contradictory. The fact that a blunder of this magnitude occurs in concert with a name with so many letters after it was 'strongly condemned', according to a report that might be written after the Warrior Librarian Domestic Services team finishes the ironing ...

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Scoop (NZ) reports on the New Zealand government's commitment to spend $5 million over the next four years on adult education. Which, although being just a fraction of the funding required for a serious addressing of the issue, is at least a step in the right direction.

The really weird part is that the announcement was made by Marian Hobbs, former associate education minister who had responsibility for adult and community education. Education Minister Trevor Mallard stepped aside from Cabinet discussions on this initiative because of 'the potential risk of a conflict of interest'.

Conflict of interest? ....

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There seems to be something of a dicotomy developing within the library profession; literature vs information. Although this phenomenon has always existed - particularly in one-person libraries - the division appears to be widening.

As always, there will be those who disagree with the above. And as always, the dissenters are welcome to cancel their subscription to Warrior Librarian. Just as long as they don't want their money back or anything, or write anything churlish about thesse comments. Which would be pretty narky of them, considering that it's just space filling stuff and looks better than a blank space. Although there will be someone who will disagree with that too.

In closing, wordsmiths (of both the informational and literaturific types) might find this really long word amusing, not that it's related to anything else in this issue's colomns. I'm hoping to win a Scrabble tournament with this one, if I get the right letters or enough blanks ...

Some would argue that the "Microsoft" standard is broad (widespread) enough. But we shouldn't confuse standards with monopoly.

Stuart Hasic - www.stuhasic.com

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A fast, advertisement-free website providing access to nearly three million in-print and just out of print books, ISBN.nu seems like a pretty good site.

The results link you directly to the page at the bookstore from which you want to place the order, with the choice of a number of major franchises. The results show shipping if you choose, and can be sorted from fastest to slowest availability (from order placed through arrival at your doorstep), or lowest to highest price.

For customers outside the U.S., you can choose a variety of shipping methods and enter your current exchange rate to see the results in local currency with the full price of the order (for a single book) ...

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Ah ... the sheer luxury of two week's leave. Be assured that the time was well spent in a personal read-fest, intermittently broken with arrangements for a Home Library make-over.

The new shelving, desks etc arrive next week. So the next few days will be spent doing extensive culling. Is it just me, or do others find that it seems just so much easier to cull books at work, as it's not like you paid for them yourself or anything ...

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