may06ff.indd


G a r y  P a t t i l l o  

Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@refstaff. 
lib.unc.edu 

Blooker Prize 
The Lulu Blooker Prize is the world’s first literary prize devoted to “blooks”: 
books based on blogs or Web sites. The overall winner for 2006 is Julie & Julia 
by Julie Powell in the nonfiction category. The fiction winner is Four and Twenty 
Blackbirds by Cherie Priest. The third category, comics, was won by Zach Miller 
for his work, Totally Boned. According to lulu.com, a major provider of print­on­
demand books, “blooks are the world’s fastest­growing new kind of book and 
an exciting new stage in the life cycle of content, if not a whole new category of 
content.” Biodiesel Power, a blook written by Lyle Estill about viable, plausible 
alternatives to petrochemicals, was a runner­up in the nonfi ction category. 
“2006 Lulu Blooker Prize for Blooks,” www.lulublookerprize.com. April 5, 2006 

World Information Access 
More computers are produced now than ever before, but they are more con­
centrated in richer countries than they were ten years ago, according to the 
World Information Access Report. Key computing and communication tech­
nologies, including Internet access, cell phones, and Internet servers, are more 
concentrated in a few countries. Internet access in the world’s largest cities is 
still a luxury for most people. In the future, cell phone technology may enable 
more people to gain access to the Internet. “The five billion people who are 
now offline will probably join the information society through their mobile 
phones, not their computers,” said one of the authors, Phil Howard, University 
of Washington assistant professor of communication. 
P. N. Howard, (2006). World Information Access Report. Seattle, WA: World Information Access Project, Department of 
Communication, University of Washington, www.wiareport.org/ 

$100 laptop project 
The United Nations Development Program and One Laptop Per Child signed a 
partnership agreement to work with local and international partners to design 
and develop programs to deliver $100 laptops to schools in the least devel­
oped countries. The $100 laptop (not yet in production) will be an inexpensive 
computer with open­source software and very low power consumption. It can 
also be powered by hand cranking. One Laptop Per Child is a nonprofi t asso­
ciation dedicated to research to develop a $100 laptop. The initiative was fi rst 
announced by Nicholas Negroponte at the World Economic Forum at Davos, 
Switzerland, in January 2005. 
United Nations Development Programme, “UNDP to support innovative child education project,” January 28, 2006. www. 
undp.org/dpa/pressrelease/releases/2006/20060128-laptop.shtml 

Metacritic 
Metacritic is a portal for reviews of film, video, music, games, books, and televi­
sion. It aggregates reviews from several dozen media sites and applies its own 
scoring system, called a Metascore. Metascore combines individual critic scores 
into an overall grade for each item. Individual critic scores are converted to a 
100­point scale, and links are provided to the reviews for each source, mak­
ing it simple to determine positive and negative reviews before reading each 
review. 
Metacritic, www.metacritic.com/. April 7, 2006 

342C&RL News May 2006