Archive for August, 2009
CA Supreme Court Briefs For Cases To Be Argued – Now Online For Free
August 28th, 2009This is a new feature from the California courts. Very cool!
Main Branch Of Louisville Library Reopens
August 27th, 2009WLKY – “Library Workers Still Cleaning Up Damage From Flash Flood”
Guy Busted For Stealing WiFi At NYC Library – To Play Halo
August 26th, 2009Kotaku Australia – “In a public library, a dude sitting at a monitor with his hands in his lap, covered by a newspaper, implicitly means bad things. Fear not, he’s only sneaked in an Xbox to steal the free WiFi and play Halo.”
Clive Thompson on the New Literacy
August 26th, 2009Wired – “As the school year begins, be ready to hear pundits fretting once again about how kids today can’t write—and technology is to blame. Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into “bleak, bald, sad shorthand” (as University College of London English professor John [...]
Sony Reader Devices Can Now Borrow E-Books From Libraries
August 26th, 2009The Wired Campus – “The new feature involves a service by a company called OverDrive Inc., which distributes electronic books to about 9,000 libraries, about 100 of which are academic libraries.Now libraries that use the OverDrive service will give patrons the option of downloading the e-books to their Sony Readers. A few weeks after a [...]
Download Over a Million Public Domain Books from Google Books in the Open EPUB Format
August 26th, 2009Inside Google Books – “I’m excited to announce that starting today, Google Books will offer free downloads of these and more than one million more public domain books in an additional format, EPUB. By adding support for EPUB downloads, we’re hoping to make these books more accessible by helping people around the world to find [...]
Wikipedia: No longer the Wild West?
August 26th, 2009CNN – “Today’s Internet is governed by the idea that crowds of people can create the news, share information and collaborate on online projects. So when Wikipedia, the user-written encyclopedia that’s built an empire on this ideal, decided this week to add a layer of oversight to its system, the Web erupted in debate.”
R.E.M.’s “Accelerate” Rehearsal Gigs Turn Into “Olympia” Live LP
August 25th, 2009Drool
OCLC announce agreements in Europe to extend coverage in WorldCat
August 25th, 2009OCLC – “OCLC today announced four new agreements have been signed with European national libraries and affiliated institutions which significantly increase the coverage of records in WorldCat and the visibility of libraries in WorldCat.org in the Europe and Middle East regions.”
Federal Courts Wary of Document-Sharing Plugin
August 25th, 2009Wired.com – “The federal court system doesn’t seem to like Harlan Yu and his fellow merry pranksters who made a tool to free court documents from an unwieldy computer system that has a nasty habit of charging 8 cents a page for public documents. In fact, the court system’s IT managers is warning that [...]
Deal to end land fight between SMU, ex-condo owners falls apart
August 25th, 2009Dallas Morning News – “A deal that was supposed to end a long-running lawsuit against SMU – and smooth the path for George W. Bush’s presidential library – has fallen apart amid charges that both sides broke the terms of a confidential agreement. Last month, Southern Methodist University and two former condominium owners announced [...]
Opposition Grows in Europe to Google Book Deal
August 25th, 2009NYTimes – “Opposition is mounting in Europe to a proposed class-action settlement giving Google the right to commercialize digital copies of millions of books. Skip to next paragraph Related Times Topics: Google Book Search The settlement would permit Americans to buy online access to millions of books by European authors whose works were scanned [...]
A Wireless Touch-Screen Reader From Sony
August 25th, 2009NYTimes – “The company also announced a partnership with the New York Public Library to make the library’s 29,000 electronic titles available on all Sony Readers, which now include the Reader Pocket Edition and Reader Touch Edition. Borrowers will be able to download a digital library book onto their readers. The electronic titles, which are [...]
What’s Wrong With Lexis & Thomson Reuters/West? – Desperation
August 24th, 2009I was enjoying the latter part of a few days off today (at the Bronx Zoo with the family), so I didn’t read about this until I got home. Apparently, the West marketing geniuses sent out the following e-mail blast:
"Are you on a first name basis with the librarian? If so, chances are, you’re spending [...]
Borrow tools from a local library
August 23rd, 20096abc.com – “A library in West Philadelphia isn’t offering books, but tools. It’s called “The Tool Library,” and people stop by to borrow hammers, saws, and even power tools.”
See also
A Library’s Approach to Books That Offend
August 23rd, 2009NYTimes.com – “If you go to the Brooklyn Public Library seeking a copy of “Tintin au Congo,” Hergé’s second book in a series, prepare to make an appointment and wait days to see the book. “It’s not for the public,” a librarian in the children’s room said this month when a patron asked to see [...]
Download Wikipedia With Okawix To Access The Data Locally
August 22nd, 2009Ghacks – “Okawix now offers a solution to download the full Wikipedia archive (and the archives of all sister sites) to the local computer system. The software offers its own web browser that can be used to navigate the websites normally once they have been downloaded to the local hard drive. This is an excellent [...]
Broward County running out of money for parks, libraries
August 22nd, 2009Sun-Sentinel – “After a decade of expanding its parks and libraries, Broward County government is running out of money to keep them open. Nature centers and most regional parks could close two days a week, libraries could shut on Sundays and free computer classes and recreational programs might be abolished.”
Google Cuts Online Book Deals with European Libraries
August 22nd, 2009PC World – “Google Inc. is preparing for a significant expansion of its book digitization program with agreements reportedly imminent with public libraries in France and Italy.”
Google breaks into French National Library
August 18th, 2009Times Online – “Get ready for some Anglo-Saxon gloating. We hear today that France is giving up its four-year struggle to keep the barbarians of Google from Gallic gates, at least in their literary form.”
Article on Outplacement Firm Backfires for Brooklyn Public Library
August 18th, 2009Library Journal – “For readers, a long Washington Post article published August 9 and headlined The Art of Letting Employees Go, was an intimate look at the work of the Five O’Clock Club (FOCC), an outplacement firm that charges clients “about $2,000 per fired employee in exchange for providing layoff victims with a year of [...]
Google Continues to Lead Microsoft, Yahoo in Search Engine Satisfaction
August 18th, 2009eWeek – “The American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business report from ForeSee Results and the University of Michigan said Google leads rival search engines from Yahoo and Microsoft in customer satisfaction, with a score of 86. Microsoft’s new Bing search engine was not a factor in this report, though it will be in 2010.”
Waiting at Heathrow, the Literary Experience
August 18th, 2009NYT – “Travelers passing through Heathrow Airport in London this week may be surprised to encounter, in the middle of bustling Terminal 5, the writer Alain de Botton, author of popular books including “How Proust Can Change Your Life” and “The Art of Travel,” seated at a desk and tapping away at his laptop computer. [...]
Yale Surrenders
August 18th, 2009Slate Magazine – “Why did Yale University Press remove images of Mohammed from a book about the Danish cartoons?”
Courtport Announces its Launch of FreeCourtDockets.com with Free Pacer Docket Access
August 18th, 2009Press Release – “Courtport, LLC, a legal research and technology company, today announced the launch of its free federal court docket retrieval site, FreeCourtDockets.com, which enables anyone to retrieve full court dockets from any U.S. district civil, criminal, or bankruptcy court, as well as from the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Claims, and [...]
Why free ebooks should be part of the plot for writers
August 18th, 2009Cory Doctorow – “I don’t think we can stop others from copying – it’s a lost cause. Copying is actually wonderful, and I have copied my head off since I first snuck into the photocopy room at my dad’s office in 1980. My problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity, and free ebooks generate more sales than [...]
Online catalogue showcases museum & gallery products
August 18th, 2009Springwise – “Long gone are the days of boring mugs and faded postcards, as museums and other cultural institutions have become increasingly savvy retailers. Aiming to build on that strength, CultureLabel showcases products from over 60 galleries, museums and other cultural entities, ‘exploring the space where culture and consumer culture meets’.
California users file civil suit against Facebook
August 17th, 2009Associated Press – “Five Facebook users filed a civil lawsuit Monday alleging that the social networking site is violating California’s privacy laws and misleading members about how their personal information is used. The lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, asks for damages and attorney’s fees and includes a request for a jury trial.”
Access [...]
White House says it did send unwanted e-mails
August 17th, 2009AP – “After insisting no one was receiving unsolicited e-mails from the White House, officials reversed their story Monday night and blamed outside political groups for the unwanted messages from the tech-savvy operation. White House online director Macon Phillips said in a blog posting that independent groups — he didn’t name them — had [...]
Bloomington Public Library to offer free online tutoring
August 16th, 2009Pantagrapgh – “The Bloomington Public Library has contracted with Tutor.com to provide free, one-on-one tutoring via an instant messaging format for Bloomington residents with a Bloomington Public Library card. The tutoring, for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, college students and adults, is offered in both English and Spanish.”
