Library Stuff

Bloomberg – “Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest Internet retailer, bought a company that makes an electronic-book reading application for the iPhone and iPod Touch media player. The company, called Lexcycle Inc., announced the deal today on its blog. Amazon.com spokeswoman Cinthia Portugal confirmed the acquisition, without giving terms.”

OK, this is really useful – “Certain items at Amazon.com qualify for free shipping, but sometimes purchase fall short of the minimum $25 needed to recieve the free shipping. Enter the amount you need to get free shipping in the box above to see a list of products that will get you free shipping.”

Webware – “Amazon TextBuyIt is designed to let mobile device users window-shop, compare prices, and purchase products from Amazon.”

Ah, now I understand why it’s important for library catalogs to be accessible on mobile devices.

New York Times – “TEN years ago, Nancy Pearl started a program for public libraries here that she hoped would get adults excited about literature. It was called, “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book.” Free copies of “The Sweet Hereafter,” a novel about a tragic school bus accident, were distributed to individuals and book clubs. Posters encouraged people to read the book and discuss it at library-sponsored events.”

Will Richardson – “Holy game changer, Blogman!”

Amazon.com–News Release – “Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that in 2008 the company will begin an international rollout of Amazon MP3, Amazon’s DRM-free MP3 digital music store where every song is playable on virtually any digital music-capable device, including the PC, Mac(R), iPod(R), Zune(R), Zen(R), iPhone(TM), RAZR(TM), and BlackBerry(R). Amazon MP3 is the only retailer to offer customers DRM-free MP3s from all four major music labels as well as over 33,000 independent labels.”

Will libraries try to get in on this? I think they should. Amazon.com has always been friends of libraries.

David Rothman – Adobe-Amazon DRM snafu shows need for librarians to help e-stores back up ‘protected’ books

Mike Adams – “Is the U.S. government trying to profile the psychology of its citizens by secretly data mining their book purchasing habits?”

Nice!! A Q&A with an Amazon lawyer on how they fought for privacy and user records.

Maybe when the feds go after library patron data, they will remember this.