LISNews: Librarian News

A Carpenter's Life as Told by Houses

From one of Fine Homebuilding’s best-loved authors, Larry Haun, comes a unique story that looks at American home building from the perspective of twelve houses he has known intimately. Part memoir, part cultural history, A Carpenter’s Life as Told by Houses takes the reader house by house over an arc of 100 years. Along with period photos, the author shows us the sod house in Nebraska where his mother was born, the frame house of his childhood, the production houses he built in the San Fernando Valley, and the Habitat for Humanity homes he devotes his time to now. It’s an engaging read written by a veteran builder with a thoughtful awareness of what was intrinsic to home building in the past and the many ways it has evolved. Builders and history lovers will appreciate his deep connection to the natural world, yearning for simplicity, respect for humanity, and evocative notion of what we mean by “home.”

See: A Carpenter's Life as Told by Houses

A biography says the Apple co-founder’s decision to put off surgery infuriated his family, friends and physicians.

Article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/technology/book-offers-new-details-of-...

The book: Steve Jobs

Story about Amazon lockers in NYC. These lockers allow for packages to be delivered to a locker. Buyer is given a code to open the locker. I assume these are for people that do not have a good drop off location at their apartment.

See article at engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/17/amazon-lockers-come-to-nyc-no-more-getting-caught-by-ups-...

One thing the video shows is Kindle x-ray that is a feature people may not be aware of even if they are generally very knowledgeable about ebook readers.

Kindle Touch, Wi-Fi, 6" E Ink Display - includes Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers on Amazon

The company said it had decided to keep its DVD-by-mail and online streaming services together under one name.

Story in the NYT blog - Media Decoder

Lucid Food: Cooking for an Eco-Conscious Life is the first library ebook that I checked out on my Kindle. The checkout process was smooth.

The only thing that is different is that you have to download via wi-fi vs. 3G. Amazon does not let you use 3G for library books. A friend has a Kindle 2 that does not have wi-fi. It has 3G only. To get library books on their Kindle they have to download the file and move it via USB to the Kindle. Not that big a deal but a step that needs to be done.

All the new Kindles have wi-fi so this will not be an issue for anyone that got a Kindle recently.

Essay by Neal Stephenson at WorldPolicy.org

Stephenson is the author of Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash and Reamde: A Novel

Innovation Starvation -- Read More

so I just read the Lifehacker story, "Facebook Is Tracking Your Every Move on the Web; Here’s How to Stop It" and came up with this video. Please laugh.

Facebook Privacy Movie by: tom

Erie Looking Productions regretfully announces that the release of normal programming is delayed until Tuesday this week.

We apologize for any difficulties caused.

Neal Stephenson’s novel involves a multiplayer online game, a computer virus, Russian thugs and a Welsh terrorist.

Review in the NYT Sunday Book Review

Click here for excerpt from book.

Link to book on Amazon: Reamde: A Novel

Thanks to those who completed the book-a-librarian survey. It wasn't official or anything and didn't affect my job or earn me any financial compensation.

Most of the results appear in this very large image. You'll need to use the zoom feature. And the colors sure are pretty.

But depending on how one answered the questions, a few other questions appeared. So if you look at the results and see that a few questions had many fewer responses, that's because of the branching.

There are 20 sets of responses.

There were also place for comments. And again, depending on previous answers, some of those questions appeared to fewer participants.

In response to Please describe the experience (of participating in a book-a-librarian service), these comments were offered:

It is very convenient and helpful

Our students tell us ahead of time what their project is, so one can prepare for appointment. It saves time for everyone.

We wind up doing a lot of technology coaching, particularly with regards to the library's downloadable collections and transferring items to the patron's gadgets. We have also gotten a handful of interesting reference questions.

Mostly we help patron one-on-one with computer training. It is easier than trying to set up a class where everyone has different agendas for what they want to learn. -- Read More

Book --Time for Outrage: Indignez-vous!
Story on NPR about book - WWII Survivor Stirs Literary World With 'Outrage'

Book - Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks
Story on NPR: Love Longitude? 'Maphead' Locates Geography Buffs -- Read More

The following books have come into the Amazon top 100 bestsellers in the last 3 days.

Wicked Success Is Inside Every Woman

The Ultimate Question 2.0 (Revised and Expanded Edition): How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-Driven World

Hungry Girl Supermarket Survival: Aisle by Aisle, HG-Style! -- Read More

In a comment to a previous post this comment was made - How is Netflix "clearly" pushing people toward streaming?

Seems pretty clear now: Netflix Spins DVD Service Into Separate Business

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has announced that Netflix is splitting into two businesses. It's an admission that Netflix just could not integrate its DVD service and its streaming service. The DVD business will now be called Qwikster. It will offer DVDs and video games. The streaming service will still be called Netflix.

Cites & Insights 11:9 (October 2011) is now available for downloading at http://citesandinsights.info/civ11i9.pdf

The 28-page issue (PDF as usual, with HTML versions of each essay available, either from the C&I home page--which will, incidentally, remind you that contributions or sponsorship are both welcome and might help keep this nonsense going--or from the title links below) includes:

Making it Work: Websites and Social Networks pp. 1-17

Some notes on sampling public library websites (2,406 of them in 25 U.S. states) as part of the research for my 2012 book, a few idle thoughts on public library websites, and a Making it Work roundup and commentary on librarians and social networks.

T&QT Retrospective: Far-Away Services with Strange Sounding Names pp. 17-22

Remember Cuil? Remember Knol? Oddly enough, the latter's still around--but the former may have been a Bigger Deal as a one-week web wonder. Looking back and sideways with a little bemusement.

Offtopic Perspective: 50 Movie Comedy Kings, Part 1 pp. 22-28

Better than the Legends of Horror multipack, with occasional flashes of brilliance (and occasional flashes of stereotyping and schtick). -- Read More

Amazon sale on Kindle books. 100 Kindle books that are $3.99 or less.

the survey is finished; thanks for participating.

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This is a survey on "book-a-librarian" programs in libraries.
As the name says, this is an appointment based service with a librarian or library associate for personal assistance for a fixed, short time period.

Michael Hart, who was widely credited with creating the first e-book when he typed the Declaration of Independence into a computer on July 4, 1971, and in so doing laid the foundations for Project Gutenberg, the oldest and largest digital library, was found dead on Tuesday at his home in Urbana, Ill. He was 64.

Full piece in the NYT

What smaller publishers, agents, and authors need to know about ebook publishing

As the shift from a print-centric book world to a digital one accelerates, more and more digital publishers are creating themselves.

The biggest publishers, with the resources of sophisticated IT departments to guide them, have been in the game for years now and paying serious attention since the Kindle was launched by Amazon late in 2007. But as the market has grown, so has the ecosystem. And while three years ago it was possible to reach the lion’s share of the ebook market through one retailer, Amazon, on a device that really could only handle books of straight narrative text, we now have a dizzying array of options to reach the consumer on a variety of devices and with product packages that are as complicated as you want to make them.

Free or very inexpensive service offerings through web interfaces suggest to every publisher of any size, every literary agent, and every aspiring author “you can do this” and, the implication is, “effectively and without too much help”. Indeed, services like Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) service, Barnes & Noble’s PubIt!, and service providers Smashwords and BookBaby, offer the possibility of creating an ebook from your document and distributing it through most ebook retailers, enabled for almost all devices, for almost no cash commitment. -- Read More