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The chart in this article shows an interesting anomaly. Initially it appears that print ads only take up a small amount of a user's attention, yet the money spent on those ads is considerably more than all other media. However, another chart shows the revenue per user for newspapers is almost 10 times that of Google and 50-100 times that of several websites, so there's a convincing argument that advertisers still see print as a viable medium.

"Everyone's buzzing about Pinterest, a new social media tool that connects people through the things they like-but for a growing number of users in classrooms and media centers, it's fast becoming a powerful resource where teachers and students share images, store lesson plans, read about current events, watch video clips, and collect their favorite apps."

An abandoned Wal-Mart store in McAllen, Texas, has been transformed into a functioning library. The interior space is the size of 2 1/2 football fields making the library the largest single story library in the U.S. Since the building opened user registration has increased by 23% While a great idea for reusing a building--incorporating everything a library needs except aesthetic appeal, I wonder about the heating and cooling costs of the building, which can be monumental.

The Internet Archice is now offering over one million items as peer to peer BitTorrent downloads. While in one sense it is only a different download method for materials that are copyright and royalty free, it is Torrents have been controversial as they are often used to download pirated movies and software. However, the Internet Archive does have a point in that it improves access for users with limited bandwidth. Downloads include 1.2 million books and 9,000 videos and movies.

Paul Otlet was a Belgian inventor who had several visionary ideas, such as a "World City" which would be a gathering of all the leading institutions of the world that would radiate knowledge and the Universal Decimal Classification scheme which is still used in some libraries. He also had a concept in 1934 for a radiated library that was in some ways a precursor to the Internet. It was limited by the technology he knew at the time, and consisted of a center where users would call in to ask for research and information to be displayed, which would then be displayed on a television screen. Aside from the need to call in some of his concepts are similar to early community access cable television.

"Libraries' most devoted e-users aren't choosing using the web over coming to the library in person. Rather, they are choosing to do both."

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 interesting web vendor that is offering interactive textbooks, which is in some ways the repackaging of the original "multimedia" CD-ROM's of the early 1990's, but now offered as a "book." They claim to be partnered with McGraw-Hill and Pearson, and it looks like a user needs to have a perpetual account to use their material although offline access is allowed. Some features such as streaming video and music are separate from the book so they are not true stand alone files, and purchasing a book as an app is currently only for a handful of titles. The list price of several of the books is very steep, and my main concern is how well the multimedia is integrated with the text and if there is any ability to share or transfer a license, which I can't find listed in their website FAQ.

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.

This was a concept that I wasn't too sure if it wasn't ready for prime time or was simply a bad idea. Library patrons could sign up for a "Cloud" account and be given a thin client laptop that would access a Windows 7 image via Citrix which is "their" computer to install programs on or use as needed. However the initial outlay was $300,000 with $5,000 a year ongoing maintenance costs and considerable bandwidth requirements to stream an HD Windows desktop. Further it was limited to only laptops used in the library with a maximum base of 160 users. I honestly couldn't see this as a good idea because of the cost and limited use. It would be cheaper to rent out laptops and re-image when they are returned.

A brief article that raises some questions about the utility of training and "reskilling" as many people take classes and courses to demonstrate value to an employer rather than to learn or use the skills from the training. The result is wasted time and training that poorly fits the user or their job.

Say, Sharla, would this be something our customers might be interested in?  I'm curious about it myself.

FYI, the training list is largely defunct. It was populated by people who were interested in discussing training with the MOBIUS office, but I was the only one who ever posted anything.

Yeah, that's often how lists go. People are always afraid to speak up.

That is soooo cool! I want a pair.

Took less than 24 hours for some genius to come up with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3TAOYXT840

That actually made me LOL! Thanks for that. ;)

The insights in this article were interesting, given that they coming from a trade publication.   I do think Brantley is absolutely right, but I'm not sure what that means for libraries.  The fact still remains that a lot of bestsellers and popular works-- which are still associated with libraries-- are squarely in the hands of the Big Six (Apple, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillian, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster) and it's yet unclear how a large number of independent publishers will have any effect.

Also mentioned in this article is the leak from a few months back of LinkedIn. If you have a LinkedIn account the same advice applies. Hopefully you were using a unique password for all of these services and have nothing to fear ;)

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.

"A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden."