If you live in Chicago or will be visiting before March 2, you can go to the new Sing-a-Long Wizard of Oz at the Oriental Theatre!

"Sing-a-long with the classic Oscar-winning film. Includes a master-of-ceremonies to lead comical audience participation. Costumes encouraged.

Jan. 4 - Mar. 2
Sundays, 2 p.m.
Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.

Price: $15-$35. Includes sing-a-long fun pack."

As noted in this Chicago Tribune article about it (free registration required), I don't know how much actual "singing along" there will be since there are only two big, well-known musical numbers, but I love the idea of follow-ups for Grease and Singin' in the Rain (imagine Donald O'Connor's "Make 'Em Laugh" number!).

Does your library carry more audiobooks from Recorded Books or Books on Tape? Also, can you tell me how many children/young adult titles you own from each publisher? Please leave a comment or send me an email. Thanks!

Some good links from the most recent Neat Net Tricks newsletter:

• ANTIKEYLOGGER
  A number of issues ago, NNT mentioned software that would log what others have been doing on whatever computer the software is installed on. Now, there's AntiKeyLogger at http://www.anti-keyloggers.com/ that would block installation of such software on a computer. I suppose it's only a matter of time before we see software that will block AntiKeyLogger. Are we having fun yet?
   
• LANGTOLANG
  Ready for one more translator? Try LangToLang at http://www.langtolang.com/
   
• HUMAN FOR SALE
  Perhaps with tongue in check, the site at http://www.humanforsale.com/ asks you 30 questions, then calculates your net worth if you can find someone who's willing to buy.

ISSNs and Z39.50

"Thanks to Alf Eaton, author of HubMed, an alternative interface to the PubMed database, for noting that LibraryLookup could easily be extended to match ISSNs. I've made the change, and if you reacquire (or recreate) your Innovative or iPac bookmarklet, you can look up an article from an abstract page like this one....

The solution isn't complete, though, because while Innovative and iPac systems use a single syntax for numeric lookup by ISBN or ISSN, Voyager and DRA treat these queries separately.

Before I muck around with those syntaxes, I have a question for Jenny's tribe. Over the holiday, I had some email discussion with Bill Oldroyd at the British Library. He reminded me of something I've been aware of for many years, but was never sure how to use: the Z39.50 protocol. Apparently, recent efforts like ZING (Z39.50 International: Next Generation) and SRU are trying to bring Z39.50 into the mainstream of the Web. My questions: Could LibraryLookup use a single Z39.50-style query syntax rather than per-OPAC query syntaxes? How many of the currently-supported libraries could, right now, respond to such queries? And, what would be the mechanism for issuing such queries?" [Jon's Radio]

I don't know enough about this to answer Jon's questions - help! I love the idea of the adding ISSN functionality, too. However, I still think a toolbar would be a good way to collect various bookmarklets and allow direct searches of the catalog. Hopefully I can get back to working on this soon.

For 1,062 Years, the Jews Went Without Chinese Food

"Great article explains the connection between Jews and Chinese food, and why Jews didn't go for Italian the same way. I remember that the only take-out allowed in my grandmother's house was Chinese, but only if we ate it off paper plates in the back-yard.

'According to the Jewish calendar, the year is 5749. According to the Chinese calendar, the year is 4687. That means for 1,062 years, the Jews went without Chinese food...'

Three themes predominate. First, Chinese food is unkosher and therefore non-Jewish. But because of the specific ways that Chinese food is prepared and served, immigrant Jews and their children found Chinese food to be more attractive and less threatening than other non-Jewish or treyf food. Chinese food was what we term 'safe treyf.' Chinese restaurant food used some ingredients that were familiar to Eastern European Jews. Chinese cuisine also does not mix milk and meat; indeed it doesn't use dairy products at all. In addition, anti-Semitism, anti-Chinese racism, and the low position of the Chinese in American society also (perhaps paradoxically) made Jews feel safe and comfortable in Chinese restaurants.

Second, Jews construed Chinese restaurant food as cosmopolitan. For Jews in New York, eating in Chinese restaurants signified that one was not a provincial or parochial Eastern European Jew, not a 'greenhorn' or hick. In New York City, immigrant Jews, and especially their children and grand-children, regarded Chinese food as sophisticated and urbane.

Third, by the second and third generation, Jews identified eating this kind of non-Jewish food -- Chinese restaurant food -- as something that modern American Jews, and especially New York Jews, did together. 'Eating Chinese' became a New York Jewish custom, a part of daily life and self-identity for millions of New York Jews." [via Making Light, via Boing Boing Blog]

Tiny New Hard Drives May Incorporate DRM

"A consortium called iVDR is said to be readying tiny 1.8" and 2.5" hard drives, with removable cartridges, for introduction at the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. While the disks look like a cool idea, it appears that they may be intended as a way of introducing DRM into users' computers as well as into consumer electronic devices of all types.

According to this organizational chart, a key technical working group within the consortium is devoted exclusively to 'security' -- AKA digital content 'protection' or DRM. So, caveat emptor: While these new drives may be neat and high tech, they may also lock you away from, or restrict your use of, the data they contain." [ExtremeTech]