LISNews: Librarian News

Interesting story from Rutgers University about an academic librarian who is pursuing a study of what happens to children in popular YouTube videos after their fifteen minutes/seconds of fame have ended.

Child-centric viral videos are turning young stars into internet sensations, but a Rutgers–Camden researcher warns against exploiting the children by cashing in on the fame.

“We just don’t know what kinds of affect this internet fame will have on these children in the future,” says Katie Elson Anderson, a librarian at the Paul Robeson Library on the Rutgers–Camden campus.

Anderson has examined the implications of the YouTube videos for her essay, “Configuring Childhood on the Web,” which is featured as a chapter in the book Portrayals of Children in Popular Culture: Fleeting Images (Lexington Books, 2012).

“Viral videos starring children have become a real phenomenon,” Anderson says. “David After Dentist,” the video in which a father taped his young son dealing with the effects of anesthesia, has been viewed more than 117 million times. “Charlie Bit My Finger,” in which a baby boy bites his big brother, has been seen more than 511 million times.

“I think the early videos — the ones with Charlie and David, for example — were organic,” Anderson says. “People didn’t really know that these videos could become viral. They just posted videos for family. Now, it seems that people are posting videos because they are seeing the fame that can result from it. There’s actually money to be made.”

Officer Selina Sanchez, who manages the library at the Douglas County Correctional Center, receives hundreds of requests, called “kites,” for books, and for some inmates, she makes personal selections. “Selina might be the most popular person in the jail,” says her boss, Barb Glaser.

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This week's program is presented by owner/engineer Mike Kellat as the usual presenter is away.

Related links:

• UK National Libraries Day
• Jessamyn West: Should it be okay to sue librarians for saying your books are bad?

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This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/. -- Read More

Amazon has a patent to sell used ebooks. When I first scanned the headline, I thought it must be some Onion-esque gag, and I'm sure I wasn't alone. Used e-books? As in, rumpled up, dog-eared pdfs? Faded black-and-white kindle cover art, Calibri notes typed in the margins that you can't erase?

Barely-amusing image aside, used ebooks are for real. Or at least have a very real potential to become real. See, Amazon just cleared a patent for technology that would allow it to create an online marketplace for used ebooks--essentially, if you own an ebook, you would theoretically be able to put it up for sale on a secondary market.

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Proposal for libraries to publish unique library owned content.

From the Gazette:

The new library — 11 percent larger than its flooded predecessor but seemingly much bigger, with a roof garden plaza, three walk-and-read treadmills, three fireplaces and a cafe with drive-up window — still will have plenty of printed books even as the rush from print books to electronic books is moving nearly as fast as workers can put on the finishing touches so the new library can open in August.

And no, the e-book revolution doesn’t mean that the city’s new library will be a modern-day dinosaur, an anachronistic testament to tunnel vision in a relentless world of change, assures Bob Pasicznyuk, the Cedar Rapids library’s director.

Walk-and-read treadmills, love it!!

Coeur d’Alene Sen. John Goedde, chairman of the Idaho Senate’s Education Committee, introduced legislation Tuesday to require every Idaho high school student to read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and pass a test on it to graduate from high school.

When Sen. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, asked Goedde why he chose that particular book, Goedde said to laughter, “That book made my son a Republican.”

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Note:Found link to article from this NPR story

A bit of a kerfluffle at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the new cover to an old classic.

“Montgomery’s iconic Anne is a high-spirited redhead with freckles and a pointed chin, whereas this new Anne is a languid blond with dark roots, a round face and a come-hither look,” said Irene Gammel, a Montgomery expert

Read more about it at:
http://blogs.ajc.com/momania/2013/02/08/fans-outraged-by-sexy-blonde-anne-of-green-gables-co...

The American Booksellers Association recently announced that its ranks grew by 43 stores in 2012, as independent shops sprouted up from coast to coast.

Another good sign from that round-up is that six of those new stores are expansions of existing independent businesses, which would indicate that these smaller operations are not merely able to stay afloat, but also grow.

The Consumerist Has More.

Bookish, the Web site built by top publishers to provide information on their books and authors in a literary magazine-like format, opened for business Monday night.

Although the site received financing from just three houses – Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group USA and Hachette Book Group – it will include books by 16 other publishers including Random House and Scholastic.

Meant primarily as a destination for readers, visitors can also purchase books on the site directly from the publishers through bookish.com or other retailers if they’d like.

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Kickstarter distributes an email called "Projects We Love"

In a recent email they featured this Kickstarter project - The People's E-Book

The great English novelist Charles Dickens was born this day in 1812. Happy birthday Boz!

About nine months ago, the founders of Readmill noticed a trend was crystallizing. The makers of the popular book-reading iPad app kept receiving requests for an iPhone version. It was the most common request among Readmill users, and it just kept reappearing. Demand never slowed down; it only increased.
...
So while the practice of reading is breaking out of its traditional confines – first bounded pages, then Kindles and Nooks, and now even away from tablets – its economics will, at least for now, continue to very much be dominated by the Internet-era’s traditional overlords. Sadly, even the snazziest iPhone app in the world isn’t going to change that.

The Future of Librarians in an EBook World

While the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation is funding tech initiatives such as a smartphone app for the Washington State Library, the focus on the human element is key, according to Sue Coliton, the foundation’s vice president. “We believe it’s not either/or,” says Coliton. “The technology opportunities are additive. The librarian should remain at the center.”

Good Marketing?
Giving “Love Your Library Day” a decidedly spicier feel than in past years, the Mayfield Library in Dalkeith, Scotland, offered free pole dancing lessons.

“It’s a day of excitement and engagement and bringing the community into a library, which people who have never been into a library before will see so much happening,” Constable said.

Slashdot's great headline "Internet-Deprived Kids Turning To 'McLibraries' 315" for This WSJ Article on the digital divide was great.... "In many communities, after the library and the computer lab close for the night, there is often only one place to turn for students without internet access at home: the local McDonald's."

Susan Eloise Hinton was a teenager when she wrote The Outsiders, the story of rival gangs in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She used the pen name “S.E.” so readers wouldn’t know she was a girl, and bought a Camaro with the earnings. “Some of [the novel’s] faults, like its over-the-top emotions and drama, are what make it so popular because that’s the way kids really feel,” she says. “You’ve got to have the hormones going before you really appreciate that book.”

Librarian Elizabeth Bird says the novel’s unresolved class struggle resonates as powerfully as ever. “There are always going to be the haves and the have-nots — the divide is getting bigger and bigger all the time. And this book talks about that. A lot of books for kids and teens do not.” -- Read More

A small-town library in Colorado is lending more than just books. Patrons can now check out seeds and farm them. After the crops are harvested, the patrons return the seeds from the best fruits and vegetables so the library can lend them out to others.

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Beyonce has reportedly hired a librarian to catalogue the reams of intimate footage of herself that she has secretly been amassing for almost ten years.

The 31-year-old singer is getting up to 50,000 hours of intimate home videos stored in a digital archive in a temperature-controlled room so she can access moments from her life at the touch of a button, the Sun reported.

During the week she may look like an average elementary teacher and librarian, but in her spare time and during her summer vacations, Diane McCormick has dedicated herself to completing a hike of the Appalachian Trail. The trails stretch across 13 states and total 2,183 miles. Although she never intended on finishing the entire thing, she reached the impressive goal this past summer.

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