Miscellany of Interest!

Two Three interesting items in the intertubes this Saturday morning:

• The Very Latest on CPSIA and Books from Publisher's Weekly provides greater detail on the (USA) Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act and its impact on children's libraries and publishing, mentioned in a post from a few days ago. This USA legislation will certainly have an impact on Canada, given the amount of cross-border traffic by children's publishers both up here and down south. Hopefully an exemption comes through before the Act comes into effect in mid-February.
  
• A Look at Recessions and Their Impact on Librarianship is written with a USA focus, but has some interesting insights into the history of public libraries during economically depressed periods. Libraries are seen as comparatively inessential beside"core" public services like police and fire, but our usage always spikes during these periods as well.
• Troubled Technologies: An '09 Watch List isn't library specific, but it predicts the vanishing or slimming of many services used heavily by library customers, primarily "free" multimedia content such as Youtube or streaming music sites. An interesting read about the potential year ahead, as various "Web 2.0" services reach maturity and have to prove a valid business model (and profit) to keep content coming and servers running.