A further salvo in the war against the precious culture of dusty tomes.

The happily periphrastic entry on Harry Houdini (and the pizzas of Minnesota) is but one recent example of a blog being used to get an institution’s name and mission in front of the public, presumably for less than the cost of an exhibition or even a printed Friends of the Library newsletter. And given all the grumbling in the book trade about the graying of the customer base, perhaps the on-line venue is a relatively easy means of lowering the psychic barriers to entry in building a relationship between the a new generation of would-be collectors and the institutions that nurture the study of rare material. If nothing else, the blog form seems to invite a commentator to point up the relevance of historical material to current cultural preoccupations, a laudable goal.