LA Observed is the first blog to have its content licensed by NewsBank, which provides libraries and schools with material from newspapers, TV and radio news, newswires, periodicals, business journals, historical and scholarly documents and more. It means that researchers anywhere in the world will now find LA Observed posts in their NewsBank searches (and could mean some minor royalties for me.) Nationally, NewsBank carries the full text of more than 1,000 newspapers, plus the transcripts from top network news shows and other news outlets. Its expanding roster of Los Angeles-area sources numbers more than a hundred newspapers, magazines and other publications. NewsBank's data robots have been crawling the site for awhile now, but I just got the OK to announce the deal. "The editorial team at NewsBank identified LA Observed as the most significant news blog in Los Angeles," says Peter Simon, Vice President for Product Management at the headquarters in Naples, Florida.

Also: Eric Lynxwiler and I will be at Dutton's Beverly Hills Wednesday night to sign Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles and talk about the book. The event begins at 7 pm—hope to meet some LA Observed readers there.