Archive for December, 2009
City’s libraries will expand, and improve
December 31st, 2009NOLA – “The coming year will be a history maker for New Orleans Public Library. We are opening and renovating a half-dozen libraries, adding programming and upgrading our technology.”
Happy New Year – From the Cohens
December 30th, 2009New and Creative Leniency for Overdue Library Books
December 29th, 2009NYT – “Since the beginning of the economic downturn, librarians across the country have speculated that fines for overdue items are keeping people from using the library — particularly large families whose children take out (and forget to return) many books at a time. Some libraries learned that the fines, which are often as low [...]
Dissertations on His Dudeness
December 29th, 2009NYT – “Where cult films go, academics will follow. New in bookstores, and already in its second printing, is “The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies,” an essay collection edited by Edward P. Comentale and Aaron Jaffe (Indiana University Press, $24.95). The book is, like the Dude himself, a little rough around the edges. But it’s [...]
Google faces China lawsuit over book scanning
December 29th, 2009AP – “A Chinese novelist is suing Google Inc. for scanning her work into its online library. Mian Mian, a counterculture writer known for her lurid tales of sex, drugs and nightlife, filed suit in October after the U.S. search giant scanned her latest book, “Acid House.”
David Levine, illustrator for New York Review of Books
December 29th, 2009LA Times – “David Levine, an artist and caricaturist whose work illustrated the New York Review of Books for more than 40 years, died today. He was 83.”
More here from AP
E-books spark battle inside the publishing industry
December 27th, 2009WP – “The evolution of publishing from print to digital has caused a schism in the reading world. There are now two constituencies: readers (and writers) on the one hand, and the publishing world on the other. And they don’t want to hear each other.”
Rogue Fiction
December 27th, 2009from Mudflats, where the Sarah Palin book is shelved in one bookstore. *snicker*
Libraries on the book case for overdue fines
December 26th, 2009Boston Herald – “The value of the materials is fairly high. We need to replace them,” said Martha Holden, director of the Peabody Institute Library, which has sent the law after a trio of overdue culprits. The Peabody library filed criminal complaints against 19-year-old Alyssa Toste and 23-year-old Jeramie Crane on Dec. 15. Despite repeated [...]
VIC CHESNUTT [1964-2009]
December 26th, 2009Michael Stipe – “We have lost one of our great ones.”
Helping Children Find What They Need on the Internet
December 26th, 2009NYT – “Benjamin is one of 83 children, ages 7, 9 and 11, who participated in a study on children and keyword searching. Sponsored by Google and developed by the University of Maryland and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, the research was aimed at discerning the differences between how children and adults search and identify [...]
Vic Chesnutt Dead From Suicide
December 25th, 2009So sad.
Canadians get a Kindle surprise
December 24th, 2009Macleans – “The e-book reader available in Canada isn’t Amazon’s top-of-the-line device”
Books…
December 24th, 2009…The other channel
Shopping guide: Books for the gamer in your life
December 24th, 2009From USAToday.
Fighting Internet Censorship in Australia
December 24th, 2009EFF – “Our fellow Internet freedom advocates at Electronic Frontiers Australia are gearing up for an important fight in the new year as the Australian government proposes mandatory national Internet filters with a secret blacklist.”
More here from SMH.
Amazon’s Kindle has copyright protection hacked
December 23rd, 2009BBC – “An Israeli hacker claims to have broken the copyright protection on Amazon’s Kindle e-reader, reports say. The hack will allow the ebooks stored on the reader to be transferred as pdf files to any other device.”
OLPC unveils slimline tablet PC
December 23rd, 2009BBC – “The group behind the $100 laptop has revealed the design for its latest computer aimed at connecting children in the developing world. The XO-3, as it is known, is a slim-line touchscreen tablet PC.”
Stephen King: My Top 10 Books of 2009
December 23rd, 2009His list, published in EW
The Customer Is Always Right
December 23rd, 2009Newsweek – “No one has been more surprised by the success of the Kindle than Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. The electronic book reader has become the online retailer’s bestselling product. Bezos spoke to NEWSWEEK’S Daniel Lyons about the device, how the Apple tablet might affect it, and the next phase of digital distribution.”
Security Breach…
December 22nd, 2009…at NC Community College libraries
The Diverse And Digital Workforce
December 22nd, 2009Forbes – “Employers must meet the needs of a new generation of workers.”
China to require Internet domain name registration
December 22nd, 2009Reuters – “China has issued new Internet regulations, including what appears to be an effort to create a “whitelist” of approved websites that could potentially place much of the Internet off-limits to Chinese readers.”
Learning from the Growth of the Internet — the New Broadband Grants
December 17th, 2009The White House – “Today, Vice President Biden is in Georgia to kick off over $2 billion in Recovery Act grants and loans to bring broadband to communities that currently have little or no access to the technology, all rolled out over the next 75 days. The initial $182 million investment announced today [...]
Book 99 years overdue returned to Mass. library
December 15th, 2009AP – “The book returned to the New Bedford Public Library in Massachusetts this week wasn’t overdue by a week, a month or even a year. It was nearly a century overdue, and the fine came to $361.35. “Facts I Ought to Know about the Government of My Country” was supposed to have been returned [...]
How to loan ebooks on the nook with LendMe service
December 15th, 2009ZDNet – “One of the unique features of the nook compared to any other ebook reader is the capability to loan books to friends, almost like you can with a real book. There are limitations put on from the publishers, but the process is fairly straight forward. The LendMe capability is in beta and support [...]
WTC rebuilding on social networking sites
December 15th, 2009AP – “New pictures and video showing the rebuilding at the World Trade Center site are now on two social networking sites. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says it added the views from One World Trade Center to photo sharing site flickr.com and online video service YouTube.com on Tuesday.”
Flickr site here
YouTube [...]
UCF Taps U.S. Library of Congress to Energize History Education in Florida
December 15th, 2009UCF – “Thanks to a $300,000 grant, two University of Central Florida researchers will teach Florida teachers how to bring more than 16 million digitized historical treasures from the U.S Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., to life for today’s tech-savvy students. The project, TPS @ SUNLINK, focuses on teaching with primary sources — allowing [...]
Ethical Issues for Lawyers, Judges Using Social Networking
December 15th, 2009Technologist – “Trying to head off such situations before they occur, the Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee has issued an opinion about the ethical issues that crop up when Florida judges use social networking sites. While this opinion addresses Florida judges, it highlights ethical issues that all legal professionals should think about.”
Australian government to introduce Internet filter
December 15th, 2009AP – “Australia plans to introduce an Internet filtering system to block obscene and crime-linked Web sites despite concerns it will curtail freedoms and won’t completely work. Adopting a mandatory screening system would make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among the world’s democracies. Authoritarian regimes commonly impose controls. China drew international criticism earlier [...]
