• The West Seattle Food Bank is "in desperate need of children’s books and board books" right now, according to the West Seattle Blog. Donate if you can!

• The Orcas Island Literary Festival is coming up in just over a week! Authors include Kim Fu, Adam Johnson, Robin Sloane, and Victor LaValle. Tickets are still available.

• Susan Fried at the South Seattle Emerald reports that Real Change magazine is publishing a resource guide for Seattle's homeless population:

There are over 300 services listed in the guide. The print run of 40,000 copies will be available at over 75 locations around the city including through human service agencies, first responders, and the Seattle Public Library. Both the Seattle Police and King County Sheriff’s Departments will receive copies to assist people in finding needed services. Real Change vendors will also have access to a few copies per day to share with people in need.

• CROWDFUNDING ALERT: City Arts magazine is shifting to a nonprofit, and they're running an Indiegogo campaign to make the leap. The monthly magazine is seeking members to help support a "more robust digital footprint" and "more events." This city is seriously lacking in multidisciplinary arts coverage, and losing City Arts would be a disaster. If you can, kick in.

• CROWDFUNDING ALERT, PART DEUX: In more fun crowdfunding news, Emerald City Comicon founder Jim Demonakos is Kickstarting an updated version of those old-school spinner racks that drugstores used to sell comics from. "The Classic Comic Book Spinner Rack" will come in black and white, it will hold all types of comics, and it will be "whisper-quiet." This project has already been funded, but you can buy your rack over here.

• El Diablo Coffee, the delightful coffee shop right next to Queen Anne Book Company, has to move. Read the whole frustrating tale at Seattle Eater. No trip to QABC is complete without a short, sweet Cuban coffee from El Diablo.

• At Library Journal, Matt Enis offers a librarian's perspective on Amazon's creepy always-on Alexa devices.

Contois does acknowledge that these devices also present privacy and security concerns that new adopters may not fully understand. “We make them aware that they may want to become more knowledgeable about that,” he says. “We do ask patrons, before returning them to the library, to reset everything to the factory settings.”

• Every year at this time, comics shop retailers gather to discuss how their industry is doing. Heidi MacDonald at The Beat reports that this has been a tough year for the industry:

Every retailer I chatted with knew of a shop that had closed, often down the road. The reasons aren’t always simple, though. This shop had its lease raised. This shop expanded too fast. That one’s owner just decided it was time to pack it in.

• Oh my God, please help Project Gutenberg redesign its site. What a nightmare that website is.