I have always been a big fan of libraries, even before a random blast of VDT radiation mutated me into TechMan.

But now that I'm TechMan, I'm a big fan of library Web sites, and my guess is that the local Carnegie Library Web site (with many of its features available through your local library site) is one of the best anywhere. And I don't have to put on the blasted costume to go there.

There is a cornucopia of good stuff at www.clpgh.org, most of it free.

By renewing books online, TechMan has been saved a fortune in beer money that would have been spent on fines. You can review what you have checked out and hunt up that book you forgot about and left under a pile of laundry in the basement.

The databases available to search, including those through the state's POWER Library, provide a wealth of information.

You can view a painting by Monet; see the service bulletins and recalls issued for your car; download tax forms and legal forms; look up a term in any one of more than a hundred Oxford dictionaries; look for ancestors in U.S. Census schedules for Pittsburgh from 1850 to 1880; get complete information on a prescription drug; find a novel similar to one you just enjoyed, locate it at any of the county's libraries, request it, have it sent to your local library and get an e-mail when it arrives; request a book from the holdings of more than 9,000 libraries; listen to music online from the Smithsonian collection; find a mutual fund you like; view books, photos and maps of Pittsburgh history; and download eBooks and audiobooks. And that just scratches the surface.

All this for the price of a library card number (free). What a deal.

TechMan encountered an interesting little piece of technology at his local library. Called a Playaway, it is basically a 2-inch-by-3-inch, wedge-shaped digital audio player that holds one book.

It can be checked out like a book. The number of titles is a little limited and is heavy on the classics (out of copyright, after all), at least at my library, but if it goes over, I assume the list will grow. You provide the headphones and fresh batteries if needed.

TechMan hacked his by connecting it to the device that allows an iPod to be played on an FM radio through the headphone jack. It worked just fine, so TechMan could listen to his Playaway in the car.