August 2000

The British Royal Mint has issued a commemorative 50-pence coin celebrating public libraries. It\’s available in silver and gold, and of course you can order online from RoyalMint.com. At around $40 in the US, the silver commemorative could be a great thank-you gift to a dedicated volunteer or outgoing board member, or perhaps to your favorite LISNews.com correspondent. Read on for a brief history of public libraries in the UK…

The British Royal Mint has issued a commemorative 50-pence coin celebrating public libraries. It\’s available in silver and gold, and of course you can order online from RoyalMint.com. At around $40 in the US, the silver commemorative could be a great thank-you gift to a dedicated volunteer or outgoing board member, or perhaps to your favorite LISNews.com correspondent. Read on for a brief history of public libraries in the UK…\”Before [1850] the provision of free libraries had depended wholly on the generosity of benefactors like Dick Whittington, but it was Edward Edwards, the first librarian of Manchester, who spearheaded the Public Libraries movement to allow working men to fulfil their desire for self education. Following the Act, councils were able to fund local libraries, \’street-corner universities\’ as they have been described, and today the public library service lies at the heart of every community in the United Kingdom, underpinning education and enriching the quality of life. It is perhaps the biggest Cultural Revolution the nation has ever seen.\”

R Hadden Writes:
Rex Dalton wrote a short article in Nature, Vol. 406, August 17, 2000,
page 664, \”Deal on Reprints Could Mean Royalties for Scientists.\” It
describes the class action lawsuit with UnCover (now owned by Ingenta, a
British company), a document delivery supply company, over providing copies
of articles where the copyright is not owned by a journal, but is retained
by the individual author.

R Hadden Writes:
Rex Dalton wrote a short article in Nature, Vol. 406, August 17, 2000,
page 664, \”Deal on Reprints Could Mean Royalties for Scientists.\” It
describes the class action lawsuit with UnCover (now owned by Ingenta, a
British company), a document delivery supply company, over providing copies
of articles where the copyright is not owned by a journal, but is retained
by the individual author. The case will have a significant impact on
selling individual articles electronically without the author\’s permission.
Other observers think the agreement will hinder the exchange and
distribution of scientific information. Authors who retained rights to
their work may be eligible for compensation and may be eligible to join the
lawsuit, and further information can be found at:
uncoversettlement.com

Hey, it\’s Wednesday, so it must be the midweek Studio B Buzz highlights. Strap in and stay tuned for Glassbook news, a study that shows Americans aren\’t likely to purchase e-books, and more…

Hey, it\’s Wednesday, so it must be the midweek Studio B Buzz highlights. Strap in and stay tuned for Glassbook news, a study that shows Americans aren\’t likely to purchase e-books, and more…* Adobe plans to acquire Glassbook
PR Newswire: August 28, 2000. Adobe Systems has announced that it is in agreement to acquire Glassbook, Incorporated. As part of the eBook team, Adobe and Glassbook personnel want to develop a simple, accessible, open, standards-based eBook platform, by combining Glassbook Reader with future versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader. PRESS RELEASE.
Read the full press release.

* Glassbook releases Reader 2.0 in Beta
PR Newswire: August 29, 2000. You can download Glassbook\’s Beta version of Reader 2.0 from Glassbook\’s Web site at www.glassbook.com . Features of the new software include text-to-speech capability, sharper text and display rotation. Reader will work with Windows 95, 98, 2000 or NT 4.0, and any Web browser. PRESS RELEASE.
Read the full press release.

* Study shows Americans are not likely to purchase e-books
The Standard: August 29, 2000. Seybold Research has released the findings of a study about how Americans will read e-books. More than 60% of the respondents are willing to read e-books on a electronic device, but the same number said they were not interested in buying an e-book or a reading device in the next year.
Read the entire article.

* ABA members support Booksense program
CNNfn: August 28, 2000. When the American Booksellers Association launched its Booksense program, independent booksellers saw it as an opportunity to compete against Amazon, \”the Wal-Mart of the Internet.\” Now they are recognizing the value of having a Web presence. \”All of us as independent sellers have realized we can\’t ignore this, It\’s mail order — with a new kind of order taking system.\”
Read the full article.

I am working on putting together a trizia quiz to be published on LISNews next week. If you have some interesting trivia to contribute to the 1st annual \”LISNews.com Librarian Trivia Contest\” please Email Me : [email protected].

Be sure to check back next week for the exciting quiz, maybe you can win huge and exciting prizes.
(Grand Prize will be less than $1.00us, so don\’t get too excited.)

Brian writes \”In a Chicago Tribune article on the horrors of looking \”matronly,\” an image consultant is quoted as saying:

\”I don\’t think it requires an age … it\’s an attitude. When people no longer have any sexual zing. It\’s the funky librarian look, Mumsy, skirts full, eyewear outdated, a missing sexual energy, an attachment to the past.\”

chicagotribune.com has the full Story\”

Urbanites are a funny bunch, so preocupied with what others think of them, now that I think about it, so are \”We\”.

The Straits Times of Singapore reports that various sources show books may be losing out to videos. One factoid about the US says that \”in 1998, the number of videos rented each day was double the number of library books checked out.\” Well, sure — it takes more than 90 minutes to read a book.

\”Research into reading habits in Japan shows children are reading fewer books each year. In the US, people are twice as likely to [rent] a video than borrow a book from the library.\”

Here is a cute article from the DesMoines Register about the old lady who said Shhh!! all the time.

\”The thousands of books were well past their prime and so was the woman who ran the place. Miss Library Lady was about 99 years old, wore her hair in a tight gray bun and looked at you over the edge of her half-glasses. Her vocabulary amounted to little more than \”No talking\” and \”Be quiet\” and \”Shhhh.\”

Here is a cute article from the DesMoines Register about the old lady who said Shhh!! all the time.

\”The thousands of books were well past their prime and so was the woman who ran the place. Miss Library Lady was about 99 years old, wore her hair in a tight gray bun and looked at you over the edge of her half-glasses. Her vocabulary amounted to little more than \”No talking\” and \”Be quiet\” and \”Shhhh.\”

\”Since our school didn\’t have a library, this is where they\’d take us on a class trip. Talk about a good time.\”