Travel Guides Buzz

A few days ago I saw something about Frommer's, (owned by Google), going digital except for their Disney guides.  I can't remember where, it may have been an Ingram or Baker & Taylor e-mail.  This is enough for Harry McCracken to herald the end of printed travel guides in Time Magazine, Print Travel Books Are Dead, and There's No Good Replacement

Now I see at The Guardian that Lonely Planet has been sold by its owner, the BBC, as Kevin Rushby reports in The death of the guidebook will open up new worlds .  It's worth reading the comments on this one for some interesting back and forth.  Some say that the Web does listings of restaurants & hotels better, but that e-book versions of travel guides leave a lot to be desired.

Still, it sounds to me like another groan of tectonic plates shifting in our print collection.  Fiction is bursting at the seams, but non-fiction seems to be withering away in very definite areas.  Still thriving vigorously in print:  cookery and knitting!

A Sentimental Lullaby

A quite elderly Southern lady approached the reference desk.  She must have been in her 80's.  Could I find the words to a poem?  She knew the first lines, and began to sing them to me in a low voice.

Sweetest little fellow
Everybody knows
Don't know what to call him
But he's mighty like a rose

 They are the lyrics to Mighty Lak' a Rose, written by Frank Lebby Stanton .  Her mother had sung it as a lullaby to her and her sister, and she wanted to give the lyrics to her sister as a gift.

She was amazed that I could conjure up the complete lyrics on my computer and print them out for her, along with the Wikipedia entry on the song.

I am sure I have heard of this song, but I didn't know it.  I had no idea that it had been recorded by so many famous singers and bands.