Library Stuff

The Reading Life: ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ turns 50

Steven — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:21:00 +0000

LA Times – “”Cuckoo’s Nest.” Sure, everyone’s heard of it. But is it worth reading? Before Jack Nicholson won his first Oscar, before there was a bus full of merry pranksters, there was a writing student with a swing-shift job in a mental ward. It’s the Ken Kesey of that era who stares from the jacket flap of the 50th anniversary edition of his debut novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”: His curly hair is cropped short, he wears a cotton work shirt and his gaze is steady.”

With grant, libraries make tool to simplify citations

Steven — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:21:00 +0000

Columbia Spectator – “For most Columbia undergraduates, making bibliographic citations boils down to a few formatting styles, like MLA and Chicago, to learn in University Writing. But for professors, researchers, and graduate students, there are over 1900 different styles to contend with. Their lives might be about to get a little bit easier—the Columbia University Libraries received a $125,000 grant last month to build a new digital tool to help manage existing styles and make new ones. In collaboration with Mendeley, a private developer of reference management software, the Libraries hope to develop a simple, graphical interface with which authors can navigate the maze of styles available, and modify them to create their own.”

A Normal Book

Steven — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:21:00 +0000

Cute

FCC Pushes E-Textbooks on U.S. Schools Facing Budget Crunch

Steven — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:15:00 +0000

Bloomberg – “A Federal Communications Commission effort to bring digital textbooks to U.S. students faces resistance from schools with limited budgets for buying devices such as Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPad tablet computer. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced plans yesterday to get all U.S. students from kindergarten through the 12th grade using electronic titles within five years. The initiative, which doesn’t involve any additional U.S. government funding, is meant to speed adoption of e-textbooks. The U.S. spends $7 billion a year on textbooks, and digital versions are the exception, rather than the rule, Genachowski said.”

Ethiopia Power of books celebrated by UN chief as new library opens in Ethiopian capital

Steven — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:29:00 +0000

Relief Web – “Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon celebrated the benefits that books can bring to young people as he opened a library at an Ethiopian primary school that has been established under an innovative United Nations scheme.
At a ceremony yesterday in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, Mr. Ban took part in the hand over of a “Thank You Small Library (TYSL),” which will now be used by the roughly 1,200 pupils attending Keykokeb primary school. At least 110 separate libraries have been created in 15 countries – mostly in sub-Saharan Africa – since 2007, when the so-called TYSL initiative began.” (Thanks Kathleen)

No More E-Books Vs. Print Books Arguments, OK?

Steven — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:29:00 +0000

NPR – “Jonathan Franzen’s in the news again, this time talking about how e-books are chiseling away at the foundations of civilization as we know it. Absurd, isn’t it? That the author of two of the better regarded novels of the past decade (give or take) would be concerned about how you read his books.”

“Little Free Libraries” pop up in MN and across U.S.

Steven — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:49:00 +0000

WESTLAWNEXT IPAD APP ADDS NEW COLLABORATION CAPABILITIES

Steven — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:13:00 +0000

Press Release – “The WestlawNext iPad app now features enhanced folder sharing capabilities. Users can save their research results, including notes and KeyCite® warning flags, in folders that can be instantly shared with others. For instance, an attorney or researcher in an office can share research with an attorney in a court setting or collaborate with a client on a specific matter. Users can also tap into previous research across departments and organizational boundaries, allowing them to access and share a vast repository of increasingly valuable knowledge anywhere, anytime.”

Checking Out – Porn Books & Librarians

Steven — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:13:00 +0000

Paris Review – “Porn books and librarians have always had a passionate, mutually defining relationship—it was, in fact, a prudish French librarian in the early nineteenth century who coined the word pornography. So it comes as no surprise that the sexy librarian, a fixture of the pornographic imagination, is most at home in books. Each year, new titles are added to the librarian-porn bookshelf.” (some images NSFW)

Libraries turn to cloud for e-book lending

Steven — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:28:00 +0000

MPR – “Millions of Americans now own Kindles, Nooks and other e-readers. And libraries are taking notice, expanding their collections of e-books they can loan to patrons. That trend has 3M’s attention. The company has a long history of serving libraries. And 3M sees a big business opportunity in helping libraries build, manage and lend their collections of electronic books. The St. Paul Public Library next month will begin a formal trial of 3M’s “Cloud Library” system, along with ten other major public libraries around the country.”

Brentwood pilot program brings eReaders to homebound

Steven — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:09:00 +0000

Contra Costa Times – “This winter local homebound seniors will have a chance to enjoy a new high-tech way of reading thanks to an innovative new Brentwood Library program that will serve as a countywide model. Under the program, they will have the opportunity to borrow Kindle Touch eReaders to access popular books and magazines through the library. “Many people could benefit from them. It can read to you and you can adjust the size of the type,” local Contra Costa County Library Commissioner Shirley Peck said. “We aren’t the first library to do it, but it is quite unique.”

What If We Asked the Librarians? Or, How The Librarians’ Code Is Different

Steven — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:34:00 +0000

ARL – “Today, with help from our partners at the Center for Social Media at American University, and the Law School at AU, and with support from a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, ARL is proud to unveil the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries. Based on 36 hours of focus group deliberation with 90 academic and research librarians representing 64 institutions in meetings held all over the country, the Code is comprised of eight Principles that describe general circumstances where the groups found library uses to be fair, followed by Limitations that describe the outer bounds of the consensus and Enhancements that the groups thought represented salutary but not necessary steps to protect the interests of other stakeholders.”

President Clinton’s Former Chief Of Staff Says: “Yes We Scan” (TCTV)

Steven — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:53:00 +0000

Techcrunch – “While efforts to digitize the contents of libraries has been going on for years now by organizations such as the Internet Archive and Google, the Library of Congress and, in fact, the U.S. Government, has yet to embark on its own comprehensive digitization program. There are efforts here and there, but nothing tackling all the books, film, and other content owned by the United States. While the topic didn’t make its way into President Obama’s Sate of the Union speech last night, Mr. Obama’s former transition team co-chair, John Podesta, thinks creating a “Digital Library of Congress” comprised of “the vast holdings of the federal government” deserves executive level attention.”

Fair-Use Guide Hopes to Solve Librarians’ VHS-Cassette Problem

Steven — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:24:00 +0000

Chronicle of Higher Education – “The Association of Research Libraries might have a solution to what some librarians call “the VHS-cassette problem.” Here’s the scenario: An academic library has a collection of video tapes that is slowly deteriorating, thanks to the fragile nature of analog media. A librarian would like to digitize the collection for future use, but avoids making the copies out of fear that doing so would violate copyright law. And the institution’s attorneys have advised the librarian that the fair-use principle, which might offer a way to make copies legally, is too flexible to rely on.”

New library e-catalogs offer expanded selection

Steven — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:51:00 +0000

AP – “Library users searching for e-books will soon get to look through a much bigger catalog and help decide what their local branch might carry. OverDrive Inc., a major e-distributor for libraries, announced Wednesday the launch of a vastly expanded list for patrons, featuring not just e-books available for lending, but hundreds of thousands of those which include a collected of Edgar Allan Poe stories edited by Michael Connelly to foreign-language titles. Viewers can look at excerpts, purchase books from a retailer or request that their library add an e-book that wasn’t being offered.”

Audiobooks.com creates unlimited Netflix-like streaming

Steven — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:51:00 +0000

VatorNews – “There has been a lot of news and innovation in the publishing industry as of late. The iPad and the Kindle have been entering houses at record rates and is bringing entire libraries into a touch screen tablet. Apple also recently released iBooks 2 and iAuthors to allow people to independently publish textbook content on the iOS platform in order to lighten the financial and physical load for students. And one other area that is growing and has room to process even further is the world of audio books. The Association of American Publishers released some data a few months ago that showed, that the net sales revenue for publishers has grown annually — with 2010 reaching $27.9 billion (a 5.6% increase over 2008) and $7 million of that came from audio books.”

Longtime library head resigns

Steven — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:51:00 +0000

Chicago Tribune – “With the city’s public library system in transition, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is replacing longtime Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey with a technology-focused administrator from the West Coast. Brian Bannon, chief information officer for San Francisco’s public libraries, will take over in Chicago in March. The change at the top comes amid labor unrest and budget cuts at the city’s libraries under Emanuel.”

Ten Surprisingly Banned Books

Steven — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:50:00 +0000

Huffington Post – “From beloved children’s classics to bestsellers you can’t go through an airport lounge without tripping over, these surprisingly banned books have all, for a variety of surprising reasons, been outlawed.”

Future of reading? ‘Active fiction’ lets readers make the call

Steven — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:50:00 +0000

PostMedia – “What if Romeo and Juliet lived happily ever after, or Van Helsing decided Dracula wasn’t worth the trouble? In a high-tech twist on Choose Your Own Adventure, “active fiction” imbues readers with precisely that kind of power. Launching this month in Amazon’s Kindle Store, Coliloquy e-books are peppered with “choice points” that allow readers to take the story in the direction most appealing to them — whether it’s experiencing a critical moment through another character’s eyes, setting the protagonist on a new path, or seeing what a sex scene would look like with a different partner.”

To get some audiobooks, you’ve got to be blind

Steven — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:50:00 +0000

USA Today – “Generations of young people have thrilled to the crackling wit of Holden Caulfield, the teenage narrator of The Catcher in the Rye. But if you want to hear an authorized audiobook of J.D. Salinger’s seminal 1951 novel, you’ll need what amounts to a doctor’s prescription. Salinger died in 2010, without relinquishing the rights for an audio recording. But U.S. copyright law grants the Library of Congress permission to produce an audio recording or Braille edition of any published work for the blind and physically handicapped, provided the book is distributed free, unabridged and, in the case of recordings, on special digital playback equipment.”

Berkeley protesters claim victory in library occupation

Steven — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:42:00 +0000

Contra Costa Times – “Protesters occupying the UC Berkeley’s anthropology library on campus claimed victory Saturday night when university administrators signed an agreement meeting the protesters’ demands for a fully restored library schedule. UC Berkeley’s Tom Leonard put his signature on the agreement about 7:30 p.m., according to an email from Ronald Cruz, an attorney for By Any Means Necessary, a coalition that defends affirmative action and immigration.”

Emanuel announces plan to reopen libraries on Mondays

Steven — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:35:00 +0000

Chicago Sun Times – “Chicago’s branch libraries will reopen on Mondays, thanks to a political end-run engineered by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The mayor has accused the union representing library employees of blocking a scheduling change that would have averted the all-day Monday closing because they’re using libraries as a “bargaining chip” to “achieve something else.”

Librarians lure students back during Wikipedia blackout

Steven — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:45:00 +0000

USA Today – “Undergraduates trying to look up Bob Dole’s birthday (July 22, 1923), the population of Mauritius (about 1.2 million) or the state insect of South Dakota (the honeybee) had to do so Wednesday without the only encyclopedia many of them have ever known. Wikipedia blacked-out their website Wednesday announcing a 24-hour protest against proposed legislation in the U.S. Congress. With Wikipedia blacked out for 24 hours in protest of a pair of anti-piracy bills under review in the U.S. Congress, students scrambling to write early-semester research papers without the open-source encyclopedia posted panicked remarks to Twitter. And just as fast as the 18-22-year-old cohort tweeted about their plight, 30-somethings nostalgic for late nights spent poring over Encyclopedia Britannica sent snarky retorts.”

Library of Congress Offers Congressional Record As iPad App

Steven — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:26:00 +0000

LOC – “The Library of Congress, at the initiative of House Leadership and under the guidance of the Committee on House Administration, today announced it has made the Congressional Record available as an app to users of iPad tablet devices. The Congressional Record delivered through the app is a PDF document that can be shared via email and be able to be browsed by date and searchable by keyword within an individual document or section; documents can also be saved to the iPad. Content includes Congressional Record issues dating from January 4, 1995 through the present.”

Don’t be an iPhone-y

Steven — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:39:00 +0000