Group items tagged

The social worth of libraries and the need for reading and inspiration is examined, in particular I found it interesting how the private prison industry determined it's future cell needs by the percentage of the population that was illiterate.

"Our online history is disappearing at an astonishing rate, creating a black hole for future historians. "

"The main floor looks more like a sleek Apple showroom than a stuffy library. And instead of a Genius Bar, there's an Ask Me alcove, where you can get help on everything from laptops to flash drives. Rather than the Dewey system, color-coded walls, stairs and elevators help you find not just books and research papers, but also media rooms, video game collections and even a 3-D printing lab to create plastic models. But the best part? Built with state funds and private donations, it's open to the public. Welcome to the library of the future."

An article that mainly repeats many current trends in libraries but is notable for appearing in a mainstream publication (Time Magazine) and being surprisingly aware of some new developments such as maker culture.

The two PDF files linked on the pages are reports from the House of Commons about the state and future of libraries in the United Kingdom. One thing I found concerning was how the operation of many libraries has been turned over from Councils to community volunteers.

A somewhat limited article about "ethnic cleansing" on the Internet. What I can agree with is the prospect of countries making their own versions of popular websites such as Youtube, the larger question that has been debated since the beginning of the Internet is who should decide about material outside the borders of a country that it may still try to control.

The Pacific Branch, one of two branch buildings the Brooklyn Public Library intended to sell, has been given a temporary reprieve. However, the future is murky as the building is old and in need of repairs, while the money raised selling on what has become valuable property could be used for other branches in the system.

The feature article "The Future of Library Systems" has a section about Sierra and a summary comparison of new library services platforms.

We're at the dawn of the tablet era now. Earlier this month, Apple sold 3 million of its new iPad during the opening weekend, with some analysts expecting over 60 million of the tablets to be sold worldwide. What's more, e-book readers are selling even more briskly than tablets.

I heard today that after the Govmn't sued Apple and 5 ebook publishers for colluding to keep pricing favorable, 3 of the 5 publishers have already settled out of court. I wonder if Apple thinks they have a strong enough case...

Harvard also had an Oxford style debate about the future or purpose of libraries. While interesting it didn't really cover anything new:

It is amazing what some libraries lend anymore. There is a library in Missouri that lends cake pans. I have seen some libraries lend power tools, guitars and more!

This is starting to sound like a science fiction story just waiting to be written.

I agree about curation. Since we're talking about science fiction now - which inevitably becomes science fact, in the not so distant future we will have desktop biological printers capable of "printing" a seed. Then libraries won't need to keep seed stores, they can just print any seed on demand if they have the DNA on file. Edit: Of course, that just means the e-resource vendors of the future will have another thing to try to license...

Cute!

WE LIVE IN THE FUTURE!

An article about a Maker Space at the Westport, Connecticut library, which includes a 3D printing project. 3-D printing is one of the waves of the future and I know the MST library looked at one; hosting the Maker Space in the middle of the library is a good way to promote it but I wonder if the noise and activity will end up distracting to the other patrons.

This is epic. Someday soon libraries will be repositories of genetic information and in addition to 3D printers they will have biological printers. Even though libraries lending seeds is fairly new, in the not so distant future that function will be obsolete as patrons are able to come into the library and print the genetic materials needed to grow any plant species on record.

The Digital Public Library of America initiative received $1 million to support the creation of the infrastructure for a national open-access digital library.

This is a highly critical but reasoned examination of the state of the Library and Archives Canada. The author feels that the national library is losing focus by breaking up parts of it's collection, putting undigitized materials into remote storage where they are harder to access, cutting hours, and reducing staff by up to 20 percent--all of which contribute to the dissolution of the country's past and heritage. What he doesn't offer is an examination of what brought the national library to this state (unavoidable funding cuts or bad decisions to streamline or both) and what can be done to fix it.

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.

An interview with William Noel, curator of the Walters Art Museum, which recently featured the Archimedes palimpsest in its collection-- both physical and digital.  What's wonderful about that is that its digital collection is under Creative Commons license. I'm a bit confused as to why Noel thinks that libraries don't want to advertise their collections, unless he's referring to the fact that libraries typically contain copyrighted material in their collections.

Oh, and you can get to the digital exhibition of the Archimedes palimpsest at http://archimedespalimpsest.net/. It's not terribly user-friendly (to quickly look at the images, select "Google Book of the Archimedes Palimpsest"), but being able to access the raw TIFF images is pretty darn cool.

This article is the first of a series of two. The author describes how they typical arguments on both sides of the ebook debate, from publishers and libraries, do not actually work, since they have their basis in older models of sales and library use of physical items. Since ebooks are leased, not actually sold, the author suggests a pay-by-circulation model, since it is easier to track and will be less risky for libraries. This model would have to be done carefully, or it may backfire. It certainly is more fair, but I wonder how much of the electronic publishing industry remains afloat from selling packages-- that is, large sets of ebooks that have appeal because, among their numbers, they do have high-demand titles. A pay-by-circulation model could mean that libraries can license individual titles from publishers, completely bypassing unknown ebooks that need libraries for exposure.

An interesting article that mentions slightly over half of Americans 16 or over have visited a library in the past year, and that the proportions of patrons who felt collections should be moved to make way for tech centers and cultural events was less than those who wanted to keep books. Some interesting ideas libraries have started to use include Redbox style lending machines and Rokus with accounts for Internet streaming video services already on them.

An interesting article that may spell bad news for makers of e-readers and particular E Ink. I would tend to agree with the assessment that dedicate e-readers are transition devices--much the same as electronic PDA's have been almost entirely replaced by smartphones. However, I would go further and say it's a format issue; people would tend to devices that are multifunction more often than one dedicated to a single purpose.