Group items tagged

A short article about Aaron Swartz, one of the founders of Reddit who committed suicide recently. At issue is not that he was accessing an archive of unauthorized articles from Jstor, but if the prosecution and potential sentence fit the the crime and if overall more information should be free

Well, that's an interesting development.

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.

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.

Cool and really in depth article.

Some relevant questions are asked about the recently unveiled PRISM Internet monitoring program of the NSA.

An interesting perspective on the unfolding NSA scandals, regarding how much of the massive surveillance is actually legal.

The study habits of these students are crazy-one legged stools to keep you awake and tables with speakers that whisper lectures- for the person who likes to study during other classes.

This is starting to take off in some libraries.

In good news for readers and libraries, Macmillan, the last of five major publishers in an anti-trust lawsuit, have settled with the DOJ. This means that retailers can begin discounting digital titles they have for sale. Apple is the only publisher still outstanding in the lawsuit.

Really cool article that looks at : "Espresso Book Machines can offer two kinds of services: print-on-demand of any title available through the EspressNet database (which includes Google Books, the Internet Archive, all of Ingram's partnered publishers, and more) and self-­publishing services for authors and small publishers."

I sincerely love the idea of these book machines and have ever since they've become available. I don't know why every library doesn't have one (aside from cost).

This list has some really cool stuff! My favorite is the pocket projector.

Move over OverDrive here comes 3M. Here is my favorite quote : "They're (patrons) able to do it (download books) on their own. [3M] is doing something right." This is huge as someone who worked at B&N for 4 years usability is a big deal. B&N is where people came to troubleshoot and the biggest headache was OverDrive (I hear its easier now). Also it'll be nice having someone else in the e-book market for libraries.

Help via chat isn't a service we've ever offered, but maybe we should. This product looks awesome and it integrates with UserVoice, skype, etc. Could be a stellar new tool.

Help via chat would be very cool!

I've got a free account on here. I'm looking at the various features and possible integrations with other things we use. I think we could really improve the customer experience and get better information about our tickets and have better performance metrics than we are getting out of RT.

"Either the books must go, or they must swallow us up. I calculate that, take the whole world over, from eighty to one hundred thousand books appear every year; at an average of a thousand copies, this makes more than a hundred millions of books, the majority of which contain only the wildest extravagances or the most chimerical follies, and propagate only prejudice and error. Our social condition forces us to hear many stupid things every day. A few more or less do not amount to very great suffering in the end; but what happiness not to be obliged to read them, and to be able at last to close our eyes upon the annihilation of printed things!"

This article is about Google Cultural Institute. So far there are 42 exhibitions about 42 historical events. This article is pretty straightforward, but you should checkout the real deal : http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/#!home All of these are beautifully done and full of great detail. Would be perfect for school projects.

I love reading Bobbi's blogs and I follow her on twitter. She brings up some great points about e-books. This is a really complex issue and I don't think its going to get any easier. Coming from a retail background where I sold e-books and e-readers its interesting to hear the librarians' point of view. I think we've still got a long way to go be for anything will be settled in this big debate.

I had to post one more just for fun. The computers from Desk Set from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory thankfully made the list. And only one computer from a Kubrick movie made the list. I'll let you guess which one.