Howdy everyone. You can blame my absence on this pesky World Series, but in trying to catch up, I came across some interesting stuff.

There's been plenty of talk about comment spam lately, particularly amongst Movable Type users, myself included. Since I've installed Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist, I haven't had a single incidence...until yesterday. But this wasn't the garden variety "phentermine and viagra" comment spam. Nope, this was from a PhD student promoting a weblog covering the Invisible Web.

Now, I have mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, the content is interesting, relevant and I'm glad to know about it. However, the author is using my comments as a publicity source, without providing a comment relevant to the discussion. So I won't link directly to this individual's blog, but invite you to check out the last post's comments for the URL.

Having mentioned the comments on the last post, I should add a pronounced "Wowzer!" My innocent little suggestion turned into quite the discussion. There were mentions of blogs, wikis, indexes and collaborative information systems. And all I wanted was a little more discussion of what librarians do, when they do what they do. Let's not get too fancy here and take all the fun out of it.

Oh, and here's an excerpt from an article that sums up some of my sentiments about the Librarian Action Figure:

"Nancy Pearl looks like a very nice person and I'm sure I would like her if I met her. So, my disappointment isn't with whom they picked as the model, but the way she is presented. She is dressed in what could be described as predictable librarian clothes -- a conservative suit, probably extremely comfortable shoes and glasses. I'm sure it is the shallow part of me that makes me want this, but I wish she could look snazzier -- you know, shiny or elegant or glittery -- so maybe some girl somewhere might see her and say to themselves: Wow, I want one of these, she's cool; or something like that. And she would then want to be a librarian because her action figure looks not only intelligent and capable, but also exciting and brave and modern.

I know appearances can be deceiving and so Ms. Pearl is probably all of those. But I wish it was easier to tell by looking."

And since I expect to get my chance to meet her soon, I'll let you know.