Library Stuff

“Amazon-owned audiobook service Audible has today expanded its range of smartphone apps by launching on the Windows Phone platform, allowing users to browse, sample and buy more than 100,000 audiobooks on the go. Utilising’s Microsoft’s unique design experience, Audible’s Windows Phone application also allows users to wirelessly transfer their library to their device, offering background audio (multitasking) support, as well as collating listening statistics and awarding badges as titles are transferred and listened to.

via The Next Web

“This evening, Facebook is launching its new App Center to help its 901 million members discover high quality social apps for the web and mobile. Goodreads is one of the apps participating in the launch event, and the new App Center will serve as another way for people to discover our app.

What makes the Goodreads team particularly proud is that the Facebook App Center only lists high quality apps that rate well on key signals such as highest customer ratings and frequency of user shares. The Goodreads App, with an average 4.5 star rating (out of 5) is clearly winning many fans.”

via Goodreads

“An iPad app by Inkle Studios and Profile Books based on Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” drew some rave reviews for its sophisticated choose-your-own-adventure approach when it was released in April. Now a second ambitious interactive take on the classic monster novel has jolted to life in Apple’s App Store, courtesy of the New York Public Library.”

via NY Times.

Mercury News – “For Rudy Adler and Brett Huneycutt, the future of social networking is the past. The co-founders of the San Francisco startup 1000memories are trying to turn the world’s smartphones into tools to digitalize the estimated 1.8 trillion fading and yellowing snapshots that people have lying around in their attics, garages and picture albums — often among the most prized, and least seen, of people’s possessions. The goal of the two friends since third grade is to add the past tense to the up-to-the-minute stream of social networks. The company’s iPhone app, called ShoeBox, allows users to photograph their old snapshots with the camera in their smartphone, upload the digital image to the Internet, and share it with anyone they choose. The same day ShoeBox launched in late October, Adler got an email from an interested partner. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wanted to impart a pep talk.”

Press Release – “LexisNexis UK a leading provider of content and technology solutions, today announced the release of its first U.K. legal applications. Combining the trusted content of LexisNexis and the ease of use and seamless design of mobile applications, LexisNexis is proud to be the first major content provider to create apps for its U.K. subscribers: Legal Terms and On the Case. Following feedback from customers about the increasing need to access information on the move, LexisNexis has developed two quick and simple iPhone apps that are user-friendly and give customers fast and accurate information. These apps can also be accessed on the iPad in iPhone format.”

LTN – “A mobile application for finding legal ethics opinions is now available from the New York State Bar Association, and two other applications are being developed. Mobile Ethics is free and available to the public on Apple iOS, Google Android, and Research In Motion BlackBerry devices, officials said Wednesday. “Maybe not every attorney is going to view the ethics app as something worthwhile, but certainly for those who work in the ethics field or those who have questions, it is very convenient. I’ve utilized it a few times,” association president Vincent Doyle III said, at Connors & Vilardo, in Buffalo. That kind of search is also accessible through paid services like Lexis Advance and WestLaw Next, but they can be cumbersome, he noted.”

The South End – “Wayne State libraries are implementing new smartphone programs to help students get information quickly. The newest program is the addition of Quick Response codes for smartphones. The library QR codes, developed for WSU two weeks ago, are barcodes that store any kind of data and can be scanned by smartphones. When the library’s QR code is scanned, it goes immediately to an “Ask-a-Librarian” screen to help students find academic resources.”

NYT – “Penguin Classics, that more-than-1,500-titles collection of English-language literary classics, has a new free app for iOS devices available on Tuesday. The paperback publisher, celebrating 65 years of the Classics collection this year, has created a catalog of its titles (which basically includes every author you have heard of, ever) and put it into an easily searchable database.”

NYT – “Gasps went up last week when a digital edition of T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem “The Waste Land” knocked Marvel Comics out of the top spot on the list of top-grossing book apps for the iPad. But wait! Now here comes Jack Kerouac tailgating right behind, looking for a similarly exalted place to park a sleek new iPad app based on his classic 1957 novel “On the Road.”

AP – “If you’ve ever wondered what type of tree was nearby but didn’t have a guide book, a new smartphone app allows users with no formal training to satisfy their curiosity and contribute to science at the same time. The Leafsnap app on display on an iPhone along with tree leaf specimens.
Scientists have developed the first mobile app to identify plants by simply photographing a leaf. The free iPhone and iPad app, called Leafsnap, instantly searches a growing library of leaf images amassed by the Smithsonian Institution. In seconds, it returns a likely species name, high-resolution photographs and information on the tree’s flowers, fruit, seeds and bark.”