Group items tagged

A collection of interesting things on the web via MOBIUS staff. So this is my first posting so we'll see if this works. I thought this article was a nice little summary of the virtual conference. Also we need a Mario lamp!

You bookmarked the diigo page and not the article ;)

Of course I meant to do that. I think this is a really great resource and we should use it some time . . .oh wait we already do. I tried reposting we'll see if that works.

This Super Mario Bros.-themed lamp (which cha-chings when punched) was one of many ideas featured at the recent ALA Virtual Conference, where the topic of makerspaces was discussed. The Mario-themed, cube-shaped lamp cha-chings when punched. "That light was awesome," said a Texas participant in the online chat sidebar.

Can we get that lamp for the office?

I was thinking the same thing! It would look great in the living room.

E-Textbooks | News Georgia College Produces Student-Written E-Textbook Nine graduate students in an Advanced Technology for Teachers course at Georgia College have published their own e-textbook, Using Technology in Education, through Apple's iBookstore. The free, downloadable textbook is available on the iPad via iBooks.

The article offers an interesting model of a "Book Place"-- a sort of combination library/bookstore of the future that offers things like printed books on demand if they're not in the store (thanks to the awesome Espresso machine and the 7 million titles it has on EspressoNet), and rental/subscription services for users-- including DRM free options for electronic media.

Tablet Revolution: Healthy Skepticism Tablets and mobile computing have been the subject of a lot of Internet hype. A quick search for "tablet revolution" will confirm this, but if we're appropriately skeptical about the hype cycle, we'll want to test the impact of tablets on our library ourselves.

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.

New stories inspired by books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games people love. Welcome to Kindle Worlds, a place for you to publish fan fiction inspired by popular books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games. With Kindle Worlds, you can write new stories based on featured Worlds, engage an audience of readers, and earn royalties.

Here is more info. about Kindle Worlds. I'm surprised authors are ok with this- it seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Though this could turn into a cool library program. . . or at the very least a lively copyright conversation.

In the final books of The Wheel Of Time series, a few of the characters seemed to behave a bit differently than they had in the previous entries. Some fans responded that they were happy to see emotional complexity added and flowery descriptions give way to salient plot.

I'm not sure how I feel about Kindle Worlds. I some how seems wrong to capitalize on fan fiction. I blame 50 Shades of Grey.

FREE Virtual Conference! October 18-19, 2013 One of the speakers is our teacher from the MOOC (David Lankes). I'll be attending! The dates are set for the Library 2.013 Worldwide Virtual Conference. The third annual global conversation about the future of libraries is scheduled for To be kept informed of the latest conference news and updates, please Altogether, there will be eight conference strands covering a wide variety of timely topics, such as, MOOCs, e-books, maker spaces, mobile services, embedded librarians, green libraries, and more!

As we get more and more databases/ebooks/whatnot this is an interesting read. Esp. since the person complaining about too many clicks is a historian! Its their job to research and they hate clicking too much-what do our average users think? I had an interesting conversation with a faculty member last week that went something like this: "Brian, I want you to know that it's getting harder for me to get students to use the library- especially the databases- anything beyond three clicks is just too many."

A A Here's a sign that e-readers are struggling in the U.S.: E Ink Holdings, the Taiwan-based company that makes e-reader screens for companies such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony, just had its worst quarter in four years. This article had some interesting points and the comments brought up some good questions as well. As a former B&N employee it will be interesting to see what they do in the next coming years with the e-reader/e-books.