May 2012
58 posts
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“I’d like librarians to forget about content for a little while – we solved that...”
– A failure of imagination – the problem with format neutrality | It’s Not About the Books (via infoneer-pulse)
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Salem Press: Library Blog Center →
The Library Blog Directory is handy (and probably also good as a work-related time suck). :)
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ARL Policy Notes: What does the GSU decision mean... →
arlpolicynotes:
We’ve just added the following set of questions and answers to our FAQ for librarians, which is part of the rich package of resource pages that we’re maintaining to support users of the Code. As you’ll see, the impact of Judge Evans’ decision in the Georgia State University course reserves case on libraries following the Code should be fairly limited. The decision speaks directly...
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Librarian by Day: Why Library and eBooks Issues... →
Makes sense right? They know that libraries have eBooks. If he buys an eReader he should be able to check them out. See that? That there – SHOULD be able to check them out. He SHOULD. With just an eReader without a computer he SHOULD be able to get eBooks from the library. The technology is there, the Kindle/OverDrive option proves that it can work without a computer. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t...
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O'Reilly Radar: Amazon, ebooks and advertising →
Given that Amazon’s goal is to offer customers the lowest prices on everything, what’s the next logical step? How about even lower prices on ebooks where Amazon starts making money on in-book ads? Think Google AdWords, built right into the book. Of course, Amazon won’t want to use Google’s platform. They’ll use their own so they keep 100% of the revenue.
If/when...
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HuffPo, Libraries in Crisis: Confronting The... →
Google has not killed the library and ebooks won’t do it either. The biggest threat to the public library in American culture is limited hours. In the new budget reality if libraries are forced to dramatically decrease their hours then they will be drastically reduced in their ability to serve their public.
[…] The public library in America will only be irrelevant when it is...
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Library Babel Fish: Public Funding, Public... →
If you don’t have time to read this entire blog post, here’s the tl;dr version: if you think, as I do, that the investment we make in basic research should be maximized through making that research accessible to all, sign the petition.
If you’d like to know more, here’s why I think this petition is worth signing.
I’m a huge fan of PubMed Central. Just the other day, a student was desperate to...
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Library Marketing Toolkit: How NOT to Tweet - for... →
A few great pointers especially for those starting out on Twitter (e.g. upload a picture!).
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Hedgehog Librarian: Open Access Tenure: Let’s... →
The NIH Public Access policy began twelve years ago. A decade of medical information online, usually after a year embargo, freely available if you received NIH funding. This is a huge resource to graduating students, unaffiliated researchers, and people of all persuasions trying to find a study about a drug for themselves or a loved one. Certainly there is a lot more than just a decade of...
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GradHacker: Taking Time to Turn Off →
It means that I’m never truly off. I’m always able to contact or be contacted. Both the bane and boon of the technological grad student life.
That is why it is so important to shut off sometimes. Always being able to check our work email or be contacted means that we never fully relax. Try turning off more; it will not only make you more relaxed but less dependent on your phone.
I...
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No one can make up maps!
shitmystudentswrite:
Take lord of the Rings for example, there’s a lot of truth to be found within it’s pages. Can anyone honestly tell me that there is history be be found in Tolkien’s work? Just look at the maps in the back of the books, NO ONE can make that up!
LOL.
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Digitization 101: Is now the time for librarians? →
New librarians are entering the job market fresh from receiving their master’s degree (MLIS). The months and years spent in the classroom are behind them and they are anxious for the next chapter of their lives to begin. Some have already found job opportunities. Others are still in the job hunt and wondering when a job offer will appear. For them, this is a time of doubt. Was getting...
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“Libraries cannot fail to provide their readers with digitized material,...”
– In Defense of the New York Public Library by Robert Darnton | The New York Review of Books (via marincitylibrary)
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National Archives (UK): The Olympic Record →
The National Archives holds a range of records on the modern Olympic and Paralympic Games and Cultural Olympiad, from 1896 to the present. We have made these available online for the first time, providing you with access to this rich resource on sporting and cultural history.
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Agnostic, Maybe: If Information is Food, What Does... →
I definitely recommend watching the TED talk the post refers to, which is based on the premise that information is like food in the way that we create, cultivate, and consume it.
The blog post is good food for thought, but I disagree on a few points (I left a rather lengthy comment).
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The Digital Shift: Ebook Crowdfunding Platform... →
Unglue.it works by allowing the rights holders of an already-published book to set a funding threshold—generally between $5,000 to $25,000—and a deadline for a funding campaign. If supporters pledge sufficient funding prior to the campaign deadline, the book will be released as an “unglued” ebook edition, free of digital rights management (DRM) software, and free to copy and share under a...
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Matthew Reidsma: Libraries and the Myth of Mobile... →
Context is the real-world situation you are in while using the website. The most popular belief about mobile context is that mobile users are distracted, on-the-go, browsing with one eye and one hand.
The problem is that this isn’t how people use their phones.
We can start with your own mobile use. If you are a smartphone owner, you probably use your phone to browse the web at times when you...
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“Chancellor Kaya Henderson said: “We have invested in full-time librarians for...”
– D.C. to cut 34 school librarians as they are a poor investment (via infoneer-pulse)
:(
(via libraryjournal)
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Chris Rechtsteiner: The Greatest Threat to Amazon... →
chrisrechtsteiner:
In effect, while attempting to head down a well designed path to lower physical operating costs, eBooks further diminish a library’s value to its patrons. Patrons can now quickly and easily see what’s not available and go elsewhere, without having to even set foot inside of the library and, accidentally (or coincidentally) learn more about its offerings to the community...
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Digital Book World: Booksellers v. Libraries?... →
Four months ago, it mattered if libraries were or weren’t a direct threat to booksellers. Today, this question is irrelevant. What matters is that the participants in the industry aren’t innovating at the pace readers are seeking and expecting solutions v. reading’s alternatives.
When looking specifically at traditional publishers and booksellers, two questions arise:
Could it just be that...
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Library Babel Fish: The GSU E-Reserves Decision:... →
Figures. As soon as the other post goes up, I find another blog post I like on the subject. :) Some good points re: libraries are made in this post.
That doesn’t mean the decision is a total win for libraries and instructors. It’s a huge relief that most of the uses were found to be fair and that simply asserting possible financial losses would not automatically cancel out the other...
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“All ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million...”
– Mark Twain on the myth of originality in a letter to his friend Helen Keller, who had been accused of plagiarism. (via explore-blog)
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Scholarly Communications @ Duke: The GSU decision... →
Overall there is good news for libraries in the decision issued late yesterday in the Georgia State University e-reserves copyright case. Most of the extreme positions advocated by the plaintiff publishers were rejected, and Judge Evans found copyright infringement in only five excerpts from among the 99 specific reading that had been challenged in the case.
That means she found fair use, or,...
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Krafty Librarian: Are Publishers Too Old To... →
Maybe I got up on a different side of the bed today, but this report got me thinking about the design of ebooks and whether publishers are just too old, to “get it.” Are the powers that be and structure within publishing too steeped in the traditional concept of a paper book to really understand the idea of an interactive ebook? to further explain this let me draw upon my grade school...
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Pattern Recognition: A shot across the bow →
If you had any doubts that Amazon’s Lending Library was eventually going to compete with public libraries, here’s where your doubts get shattered. From Amazon’s homepage today, on the announcement of all 7 Harry Potter books entering the Kindle Lending Library program:
With traditional library lending, the library buys a certain number of e-book copies of a particular title. If all of those...
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RA for All: My Thoughts on the Fifty Shades of... →
Here’s my opinion. People, read what you want. Let others read what they want. And if a book is popular enough, we will have it at the library so that people have access to it, no matter what it is about. We don’t care; we just want people to have access to the books they want to read. So, why should you care? We are buying for the entire community, not just one angry person. ...
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ZDNet: 50 QR code resources for the classroom →
I’m still skeptical about the overall use of QR codes, but these suggestions might be handy for those looking to incorporate them for educational programs (it says classroom, but I imagine some uses would apply to library programs too).
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E-Content blog: Library as Publisher: Your... →
As part of the work of ALA’s Digital Content and Libraries Working Group of ALA (which is tackling our many ebook-related issues), we are seeking some focused feedback before the 2012 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim next month. If you are experimenting with in the creation, publication, and preservation of digital content, we need to hear from you by June 1. Please read on for details,...
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boingboing: Libraries set out to own their ebooks →
The digital branch allows patrons to view and explore digital content using their hands and eyes the same way they might explore a traditional collection, with added functionality like immediate access to staff recommendations, most popular titles, and new content. Digital branch technology and features will change and improve as Douglas County Libraries’ eContent collection grows and patron use...
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HubSpot Blog: 13 Ways to Create a Cringeworthy... →
1) Launching a Private Social Media Account 2) Having a Disproportionate Follower:Following Ratio 3) Writing Updates That Are Too Long 4) The Airing of Grievances 5) Talking Smack About Competitors 6) Making Off-Color Comments 7) Publicly Solving Customer Service Issues 8) Hijacking Hashtags 9) Piling Your Tweets With Too Many Hashtags 10) Insulting Your Customer Base 11) “Targeting”...
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“The backlog of underemployed graduates is growing, not shrinking, so even a...”
– Confessions of a Community College Dean - Adjuncts on Food Stamps
(For librarians, this is old news… maybe all graduate programs will be scrutinized more closely now that it’s recognized as a problem in other fields too.)
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Security4Lib - IT Security For Libraries →
Security4Lib is a Drupal based website, wiki and email list for the discussion of issues relating to IT Security in libraries, including, but not limited to, web sites, email, networks, servers, passwords, services, mobile, wifi, and apps.
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“Perhaps the lesson here is this: before saying something controversial on...”
– Forbes - Yes, What You Say on Twitter Actually Does Matter
NYPL Wire–The New York Public Library: Maurice... →
nypl:
For your contributions to literature, we thank you.
For your contributions to art, we thank you.
For your contributions to our childhood, we thank you.
RIP Mr. Sendak - The Library was honored to present you with the 2000 Library Lion award and you will forever be remembered as creator,…
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ReadWriteWeb: The 7 Best Open Government Sites →
We’ve already established that members of Congress are pretty bad at informing the public via their websites. The good news is that you can find a number of excellent sites for keeping an eye on the U.S. government. Not surprisingly, most of these are provided by third parties, rather than the government itself. To help ReadWriteWeb readers as the election season approaches, we’ve...
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Popular Science Archive Explorer →
See the occurrence of any single word in the Popular Sciencemagazine from 1872 to 2009. You can view the results in a table or in an animated outward spiral.
Fun! :D
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InfoDocket: Link Rot: Georgetown Law Library Finds... →
The Georgetown Law Library and members of the Chesapeake Digital Preservation Group have released new data that shows within a five-year period, nearly 38 percent of online legal reports and web pages preserved through the library’s efforts have disappeared from their original web addresses.
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ReadWriteWeb: Can Barnes & Noble Balance Physical... →
William Lynch, chief executive of [Barnes & Noble], told Fortune magazine Tuesday that he planned to have near-field communication installed in Nook e-readers as early as this year. The technology would make it possible for browsers to touch books in the store with Nooks to get more information, such as reviews, and then purchase titles in whatever format they want.
This will be worth...
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NLM Technical Bulletin: PubMed and Computed Author... →
The author name disambiguation process compares citations with the same author name. The similarity for each citation pair is measured by examining the metadata for both citations, such as co-authors, journal, title, affiliation, abstract, MeSH terms, grants, and publication date. Citations that share like author names are divided into different groups by clustering the citations that are highly...
