MOBIUS Libraries

"The consequences many libraries have feared-loud objections from faculty members and financial penalties from publishers-have not come to pass."

Not a particularly useful post I admit, but this was the first time I was interested in merging in a single commit from a remote repo rather than an entire branch. The git command 'cherry-pick' does just that.

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.

Pretty amazing and scary how effective it was. It could have so easily offended instead. It does once again show the power of social media.

The state budget for the upcoming year eliminates all funding for public libraries. Commissioner of administration Paul Rainwater stated the libraries could be supported by local, not state dollars. There are two Federal grants within the budget, but they do not cover things such as desktop computer support. Rural libraries with the least amount of property tax are going to be among those most hard hit.

An interesting although perhaps idealistic view of what could happen. The author contends that Google faltered in paying and making arrangements with publishers rather than defending Book Search as fair use, although I'd argue it led directly to the Google Play store for selling media including books. Libraries cooperating to make a Digital Public Library is to me a much more agreeable plan than getting materials digitized and put online by means of a corporation.

This is similar to a problem I'd heard about regarding non-copyrighted books, namely repackaging what could be had for free and charging for it when there's little to no added value. Now books with titles similar to popular offerings but otherwise having nothing in common are coming up in the hopes that buyers not paying attention will click on them. Examples are "I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "Twilight New Moon." This is also a very old trick, as I've heard for years of knock-off electronics being sold under brand names like Panasoanic and JCV.

The librarians of Mali are doing as much to conserve literature as to save their heritage. A vast majority of manuscripts have not been transcribed and remain in their original form, with some dating back to the 13th century. Timbutku is known for it's manuscript libraries, with several publicly accessible collections and at least 24 private collections.

Considering we own more than 1 copy of CS5, this is annoying.

Not necessarily related to anything library-ish, but still pretty cool.  It's easy to forget that the amazing, "invisible" things we can do with technology actually do take up physical space.

This is awesome. Imagine having only one cable to run. ISG does desktop virtualization and with something like this plus fiber to the datacenter the whole thing would be super smooth. I can't wait to see what it ends up costing.

An interesting observation by a British librarian that the new, incoming model of cataloging done and stored in the cloud by vendors will cause some shifting in practices.   Namely, vendors' records will be seen as "master records."  Also, the sheer number of different people using the same "master record" will result on an easing of standards, while at the same time a governing structure will have to be set up in order for libraries to determine which standards to loosen and which to adhere to.

"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 article that notes the dwindling demand for general information specialists at the Free Library of Phildadelphia, which used to field 400 phone calls a day among a rotating staff of 14 librarians, and is now done to 1 librarian and 9 assistants who deal with only a handful of phone calls and more often do front line customer service and technical support work, with many information requests now handled by online chat.

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 Library of Congress has decided the start date for implementation of RDA will be March 31, 2013. More information is here: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/news_rda_implementation_date.html

Florida State University librarians describe a program devised by FSU to encourage faculty to use open access publishing. I like how they focused just as much on educating their library staff and giving them the time and space needed to then go and open recruit faculty, and the resources to keep up the interest.

"Today publishers are spending as much as $20,000 a pop to create book trailers-30- to 90-second teasers, à la movie trailers, designed to generate virtual and word-of-mouth buzz and, of course, to sell titles."

"A new report from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project finds that 12% of readers of ebooks borrowed an ebook from their libraries in the past year, and a majority of respondents (62%) don't know if their local library provides ebooks. "

Not necessarily a library video, but an interesting idea.  By encouraging the audience to approach information the way they approach food (i.e. by emphasizing quality over quantity, as it's impossible to eat all the food), the focus of our information world goes from "information overload" to "information consumption."