MOBIUS Libraries

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

An interesting blog for a conference that took place in Telluride, Colorado, last month which looked at risk and rewards and encouraged innovative thinking. Some of the presentation resources are available here: http://rsquaredconference.org/program/resources

SUNY Potsdam is intending to cancel subscriptions to the American Chemical Society's journals as they would consume 10 percent of the library's acquisitions budget. The article looks at one of the biggest problems facing academic libraries and serials, namely journals they are required to carry because of accreditation or approval, yet they either can't afford or carry to carry to the detriment of other departments they try to serve.

I would say this article is focusing more on headlines and making noise than something actually about to happen. The story is about a case going to the Supreme Court where a student from Thailand was studying at Cornell University and found that his textbooks made by Wiley were substantially cheaper in his home country. He began buying books there and reselling them in the U.S. on Ebay, making over $1.2 million. Wiley accused him of copyright infringement, and the student responded this was protected under the first sale doctrine. What is at stake is how this doctrine may be redefined; what is unique is not that the goods were made in foreign country, but owned and marketed by a U.S. company who sought to restrict sales of those items in the U.S.

Since ALA President Maureen Sullivan threw down the proverbial gauntlet to publishers and they've picked it up, there's been a lot of inspired responses.  Jamie LaRue has a radical one himself-- circumvent the publishers, and ask the authors how they'd like their electronic books to be distributed. It's a bold proposition (posing the question, "Are publishers necessary?"), but certainly a way for libraries to work with authors to maximize their profits.

Most exciting article I've read about responsive web design!

When I read the first part of the article I thought "Oh e-books and other electronic resources. That's cool." But then I read on-I just couldn't believe the books were "lost" where have all the books gone? Very interesting article and some of the comments brought up other good points too.

I posted something about this a couple weeks ago and then found this. Very interesting. We'll see how it plays out, but feels very 1984.

Print dies: Newsweek to go all-digital. The magazine will be subscription-based and available on e-readers.

There are some amazingly awesome buildings pictured here! I'm thinking we need to road trip/fly to some of these.

An article that revisits an older issue (Amazon wiping or removing a book from a Kindle), just this time it was an entire eBook collection and was deleted because of a problem with the user's account. It reinforces what copyright holders have always had but weren't able to enforce until the digital era, that users have only rights to access or use a work, not to actually own it, and those rights can be limited. Further, Amazon is a private company that can dictate policies; all the user knows is her account is "related" to a blocked account without knowing why or how.

An article on what is a local issue--the Mission District in San Francisco, but addresses the larger issue of the financial problems local independent booksellers are facing, especially with trying to keep a physical brick-and-mortar presence.