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The article is interesting for what it gets wrong and for what it brings up. The phrase "Boise Public Library's new Enterprise Discover System, which was funded by a consortium of more than 15 Idaho libraries" makes it sound like this was a home grown discovery system, but it's actually Sirsi-Dynix's Enterprise system. It's interesting because it's one of the first general news articles I've seen showing awareness of a discovery service, which means they are gradually filtering their way into the public realm of what libraries are supposed to be about.

The FBI raided the Detroit Public Library over allegations a library official had ties to a contractor hired to update the library's computer systems and personally benefited from the contracts--which were in the $2 million dollar range. Interestingly the president of the Detroit Library Commission says the the issues were longstanding the raid was overdue in happening.

This sounds like a good choice, and makes me even more excited for what the DPLA could have in store.

Two important new developments in access to public funded research, the FASTR Act that requires copies of articles done under NIH research to be deposited into PubMed, and a White House directive for federal agencies to develop public access policies for research and digital data.

The Digital Public Library of America opened last Thursday. http://dp.la/

Is the Social Web being integrated into our public libraries? This installment in ReadWriteWeb's Social Books series aims to find out.

HP is offering a service to create magazines and other serial publications in the "cloud." What is interesting is both print and digital publishing is offered. Some of the publications listed do use an ISSN number, but it looks like it's up to the author to obtain it. Print options include worldwide shipping and direct mail, while it looks like the digital version requires a MagCloud account to read the material, although it is available as a downloadable PDF. What I find most interesting is how this service effectively replaces a traditional publisher altogether, although some of the features a publisher can offer--such as marketing and industry contacts, are missing. Digital prices to the consumer are substantially less than print, but I can't find anything about pricing to the user without signing up for an account.

A fairly interesting read how copyright has diminished the availability of books from 1923 (the start of copyright protections for titles), so there is a large gap of material from before then that is out of copyright and widely available, and currently published material. However, material in between those times is scarce. However numbers can be deceiving as these are books in current publication, not available used copies, and it would make sense that copyrighted material not widely in demand would have low publication numbers.

An interesting look at the protest over the proposed remodeling of the New York Public Library's central library and the missteps that led to a poor public reception of the proposal, namely in communication and openness.

I'm just surprised that it took academic libraries so long to catch on-- public libraries were really at the forefront of this movement.

Reports of bedbug demise have been greatly exaggerated, it seems.

That's a relief. I was itchy just thinking about that.

An interesting re-purposing of a card catalog into a collectoin called "Artists in the Archives: A Collection of Card Catalogs." Card catalogs have been redone so they include artwork that is either contributions from other artists or the public, or visual representations of what the cards originally described.

"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.

I think I'd heard of the Digital Public Library of America; I wonder if it will be able to get past the issues Google faced.

I think the article is right that a non-profit organization will get farther than Google did. It will also be nice to have an organization outside of the ALA that will make a stand on the copyright issues involved in digitization.

An interesting resource about Public Domain works leaning towards art/historical material. Works vary from Ebooks to images and articles are well written it not up to scholarly review standards.

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.

Reading a novel triggers lasting changes in the brain Saturday 28 December 2013 - 12am PST Neurology / Neuroscience add your opinion email MNT FeaturedAcademic Journal Add your rating Current ratings for: Reading a novel triggers lasting changes in the brain Public / Patient: 4.3 (12 votes) 1 2 3 4 5 Health Professionals: 5 (3 votes) 1 2 3 4 5 Lovers of literature can rejoice: a new study combines the humanities and neuroscience to take a look at what effects reading a novel can have on the brain. Researchers say exploring a book can not only change your perspective, but also it can change your mind - at least for a few days.

Reading a novel triggers lasting changes in the brain Saturday 28 December 2013 - 12am PST Neurology / Neuroscience add your opinion email MNT FeaturedAcademic Journal Add your rating Current ratings for: Reading a novel triggers lasting changes in the brain Public / Patient: 4.3 (12 votes) 1 2 3 4 5 Health Professionals: 5 (3 votes) 1 2 3 4 5 Lovers of literature can rejoice: a new study combines the humanities and neuroscience to take a look at what effects reading a novel can have on the brain. Researchers say exploring a book can not only change your perspective, but also it can change your mind - at least for a few days.

The Chicago public library now offers 3D printers to any library card holder.

An update on the state of libraries in the Northeast after hurricane Sandy. 85 out of 90 branches of the New York Public Library have reopened. New York has three systems; the NYPL, Queens, and Brooklyn. The Brooklyn system closed 9 out of 60 branches--but some may be long term closings, and Queens closed 7 out of 62. The New Jersey libraries, however, are facing a more chaotic situation and are still assessing their damage.