MOBIUS Libraries

This works amazingly well. The javascript we use to send text messages in the webpacs went from 8.5k to 4.3k. Also this works to combine multiple scripts and optimize them all together.

The author raises a good point: is there really a way to teach information literacy in a transferrable way?  Or does teaching it in a particular enviroinment (i.e., backing up concepts with hands-on experience) go further to illustrate the subject?

The Digital Public Library of America initiative received $1 million to support the creation of the infrastructure for a national open-access digital library.

And why would they do it?  Probably because as it stands, it doesn't work as intended. As people realize that what they're doing isn't buying content so much as leasing it, it's interesting to see how their attitudes have changed towards DRM. 

The Project Gutenberg Text Encoding Initiative is intended to create a machine readable (not intended for human eyes) file that encodes markup and formatting data. When processed by a conversion script it outputs usable formats including PDF and UTF-8, keeping the same formatting across all. While an interesting idea I've heard little about it, and there doesn't seem to be a converted effort to make PGTEI a standard for eBooks.

With eBooks having taken off in the past few years I was curious about the current status of Project Gutenberg, the original resource of online books. Starting in 1971 with the Declaration of Independence Gutenberg initially relied on manually typing in royalty free books into a text format. The project is still continuing, but the founder died last year and as of July 8th the archive is only 40,000 books, an almost miniscule number compared to the digitization efforts of Google.

This is pretty darn huge.  Keep in mind that Tor says nothing about whether piracy is bad, or whether or not electronic books should be cheaper, or more expensive.  But they do concede with this decision that DRM is more a hindrance than a help.

Really great article about how to lead change in academic libraries. Apparently, trust and authenticity is the key.  "Building trust through authentic action helps lay the foundation upon which leaders can sell their vision for change." 

A fairly piece but notable as the reasons are relevant even in today's digital era.

I love the idea of automatically pushing to production after a new commit is made to master.

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.

An article from 1992 about the of books to be replaced by the then-new technology of hypertext. I find it an interesting contrast that back then the change was a new method of reading and access, while today's eBooks are more typically a print book repackaged for an electronic device.

A more doom-and-gloom article, although I note that while eBook sales have increased, so have those of hardbooks.

Forgive me but the bookseller in me found this amusing and disturbing at the same time. I knew this books was "hot" but really? A British charity has called for a burning of the book "50 Shades of Grey" by E.L. James. Wearside Women in Need, which focuses on domestic violence, has asked readers to drop off books for a planned bonfire on Nov. 5.

This has to be my favorite quote of the day! "I couldn't find anything that turned me on, other than the fact that he gives her a rare copy of 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles.' "

Megan, that's my favorite quote of the day, too.

"Steve Jobs had an 'inexhaustible interest' in William Blake; Nike founder Phil Knight so reveres his library that in it you have to take off your shoes and bow; and Harman Industries founder Sidney Harman called poets 'the original systems thinkers,' quoting freely from Shakespeare and Tennyson."

Time Magazine reported on how even Harvard is having trouble affording academic journal subscriptions, and how it may be time for an open access model. Some journals cost up to $40,000 a year, and single articles cost $30-$40.

The Handle System "A digital object may incorporate not only informational elements, i.e., a digitized version of a paper, movie or sound recording, but also the unique identifier of the digital object and other metadata about the digital object." It is the larger group that DOI belongs to and helps with providing electronic resources not only with a persistent link but metadata associated with that resource.

I found this interesting as it covers many of the links we're seeing in our electronic resource records (dx.doi.org) Pat of the larger Handle System the DOI is essentially a stable link for resources and citations.

This is the rest of the story of the Wired.com writer who got hacked. It's really alarming how easily this was done and also the *why*. The hackers just liked his 3 character twitter user name (there obviously aren't a lot of short twitter user names) and were out to hijack it. Dude lost the photos of his kids first year and loads of other irreplaceable stuff when they remote wiped his phone and laptop to prevent him from taking his twitter account back.

E-Textbooks | News Georgia College Produces Student-Written E-Textbook Nine graduate students in an Advanced Technology for Teachers course at Georgia College have published their own e-textbook, Using Technology in Education, through Apple's iBookstore. The free, downloadable textbook is available on the iPad via iBooks.