Group items tagged

"Today publishers are spending as much as $20,000 a pop to create book trailers-30- to 90-second teasers, à la movie trailers, designed to generate virtual and word-of-mouth buzz and, of course, to sell titles."

LendInk was a site that facilitated legitimate ebook lending by putting people with books to lend in touch with people looking to borrow. This was all done at Amazon and Barnes & Noble's websites LendInk merely put the people in touch. The site was shut down because of their host receiving hundreds of Cease and Desist letters from ebook publishers who didn't even take the time to see what the site actually did or who didn't understand that their books were even lendable. 

In this well-researched and provocative article, the author argues that a "philosophy" of librarianship is needed that is based on "praxis, not practice."  She argues that rather than explaining our value to the public, librarians should explain their philosophy-- "why we do what we do"-- as that will better help librarians adapt to changes in procedure ("practice") that come with changes in technology. Frustratingly, the author never prescribes an actual philosophy of librarianship for her own part, choosing instead to review the work done by others and recap the current philosophy debate in the field.

DeKALB - With the help of a $575,000 grant, a group of university librarians and curators hope to have an answer to a growing problem. Lynne Thomas, curator of rare books and special collections at Northern Illinois University's Founders Memorial Library, learned in October that NIU, along with four other universities, secured a grant to study the best practices for storing digital data.

PeerJ on the surface sounds like an interesting concept where members pay to have their materials published and therefore have a lower overall cost to use and still allows academics to publish. However, this sounds similar to another article I read a few months ago of an explosion of "scholarly" journals that were little more than vanity presses. In particular I'm concerned about how a "qualified academic editor" will find peer reviewers, with little details on how the process will work or the qualifications of everyone involved.

Earlier this week the ALA sent a strongly worded open letter to publishers about the need to figure out way for publishers to sell libraries e-books for "equitable use at a reasonable price."

Interesting.  I wonder what an open-source textbook will be like, or what can be done with it.  Also, the article seems to assume that the information in the textbooks is under the same license.

People are turning to libraries with tech-fueled questions about everything from e-readers to social media - and librarians have the answers.

People are turning to libraries with tech-fueled questions about everything from e-readers to social media - and librarians have the answers.

We'll need this for when we purchase our 3D printer!

An Australian announcement of a study about the cultural impact and relevance of libraries, due in May 2014.