Pittsburgh and Milwaukee have more riding on tonight's game than just the pride of their hometown teams.

From The Associated Press:

MILWAUKEE — The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Milwaukee Public Library are now getting in on the Super Bowl bets.
If the Green Bay Packers win on Sunday, the Carnegie staff will send an assortment of Pennsylvania cheeses and pierogies and Sarris chocolates along with a promise that the life-size cut-out of Andrew Carnegie or the state of library benefactor Julius Bernd will wear a Packers jersey.
If the Pittsburgh Steelers win, the Milwaukee library staff will send an assortment of Wisconsin cheeses, chocolates from Kehr’s Candies and a promise that the Benjamin Franklin statue at Central Library will wear a Steelers jersey.
The libraries are required to share a photo as proof the wager is satisfied.

-- Cheryl Sadler
CSadler@News-Herald.com

The New York Times announced last week that it will rank the best selling e-books on a separate list, beginning in early 2011.

“To give the fullest and most accurate possible snapshot of what books are being read at a given moment you have to include as many different formats as possible, and e-books have really grown, there’s no question about it,” said Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the Book Review. The new listings, he added, give readers “the fullest picture we can give them about how a book is doing week to week.”

This announcement makes so much sense that it's almost strange it took so long for the Times to begin doing this.

E-books and digital media certainly are the way of the future, but I don't think they're going to push aside traditional print media anytime soon. Books, at least, will continue to be printed on paper for a long, long time. But the popularity of e-readers will increase, and the industry should definitely take into account the titles that are purchased through download versus through traditional means. I'm looking forward to seeing the difference in where titles rank on the best seller and e-best seller lists.


-- Cheryl Sadler
CSadler@News-Herald.com