LISNews: Librarian News

From the Papergreat Blog.

A renovation plan for the New York Public Library building on Manhattan's 42nd Street is being hotly contested. The plan calls for demolishing seven floors of stacks and moving many of the books to New Jersey. Supporters say the plan will salvage a strapped library system; critics say it will imperil the work of researchers.

Morning Edition on NPR

Digital books are the fastest growing area of publishing. Libraries are seeing a surge in demand for e-book titles as well, but there's a downside. Most major publishers won't allow libraries to lend their titles, while others impose restrictions or charge double or triple the print price.

Piece on NPR (3 minute 41 sec. audio)

Opening to article:

You whippersnappers might not remember, but libraries used to have something called card catalogs. Each book’s index card told you which shelf housed the corresponding volume. You had to go fetch it on foot.

Nowadays, you look up a book on a library computer screen, but you usually have to go fetch it on foot.

Until recently, we’ve had the same situation with searching the Web. You could look up a Web page using Google and Bing, but you still had to go fetch it.

But that’s about to change. In the last couple of weeks, both Google and Microsoft have added new features that try to spare you that last step. Now when you search at Google.com or Bing.com, you don’t just get a list of Web pages that match your search. Off to the right, where the search results page used to be empty, you now see actual information about the subject of your search, carefully packed into a new, concise, attractive panel.

Full article