December 2008

Article in the New York Times:

Book publishers and booksellers are full of foreboding — even more than usual for an industry that’s been anticipating its demise since the advent of television. The holiday season that just ended is likely to have been one of the worst in decades. Publishers have been cutting back and laying off. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced that it wouldn’t be acquiring any new manuscripts, a move akin to a butcher shop proclaiming it had stopped ordering fresh meat.

Bookstores, both new and secondhand, are faltering as well. Olsson’s, the leading independent chain in Washington, went bankrupt and shut down in September. Robin’s, which says it is the oldest bookstore in Philadelphia, will close next month. The once-mighty Borders chain is on the rocks. Powell’s, the huge store in Portland, Ore., said sales were so weak it was encouraging its staff to take unpaid sabbaticals.

Full article here.

The San Jose Mercury News posted a story originating from the Daily Sparks Tribune. Sparks is connected to Reno as Henderson is connected to Las Vegas. Reno and Sparks are located in Washoe County while Las Vegas and Henderson are located in Clark County.

The county library director in Washoe County is getting ready to take cuts to the county commission. Current estimates peg the cuts at $846,000. There currently is a hiring freeze with four unfilled positions and public access computers that break down will reportedly not be replaced or repaired.

The Washoe County Library System website can be found at http://libwww.washoecounty.us/.

A proposed Internet filter dubbed the ”Great Aussie Firewall” is promising to make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among democratic countries.

Consumers, civil-rights activists, engineers, Internet providers and politicians from opposition parties are among the critics of a mandatory Internet filter that would block at least 1,300 Web sites prohibited by the government — mostly child pornography, excessive violence, instructions in crime or drug use and advocacy of terrorism.

Hundreds protested in state capitals earlier this month.

”This is obviously censorship,” said Justin Pearson Smith, 29, organizer of protests in Melbourne and an officer of one of a dozen Facebook groups against the filter.

Full article here.

Americans are doing less well than global competitors on a key index of literacy, according to a literacy survey by Central Connecticut State University.

From All Headline News: This study attempts to capture one critical index of our nation’s well-being — the literacy of its major cities–by focusing on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources. The information is compared against population rates in each city to develop a per capita profile of the city’s “long-term literacy”-a set of factors measuring the ways people use their literacy-and thus presents a large-scale portrait of our nation’s cultural vitality,” Dr. Jack Miller, CCSU President says.

No holiday cookies from the public: That’s the rule a Louisiana ethics panel is enforcing this season.

Some librarians used to receiving thank-you gifts are feeling frustrated. Janice Butler, the director of the St. Tammany Parish Library, says she has been told that even accepting a Coca-Cola will lead to prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.

“It’s a hard cookie to bite and I really can’t believe that we’ve come down to this,” she tells NPR’s Robert Siegel. “If you’ve lived in Louisiana or know Louisiana, you know it’s about the food.”

Full story on NPR

In the Technology section of the New York Times there is this article:

Could book lovers finally be willing to switch from paper to pixels?

For a decade, consumers mostly ignored electronic book devices, which were often hard to use and offered few popular items to read. But this year, in part because of the popularity of Amazon.com’s wireless Kindle device, the e-book has started to take hold.

The $359 Kindle, which is slim, white and about the size of a trade paperback, was introduced a year ago. Although Amazon will not disclose sales figures, the Kindle has at least lived up to its name by creating broad interest in electronic books. Now it is out of stock and unavailable until February. Analysts credit Oprah Winfrey, who praised the Kindle on her show in October, and blame Amazon for poor holiday planning.

Full article here.

After he’s finished his homework and his chores for the day, 8-year-old Skye Vaughn-Perling likes to read Dr. Seuss. He’s a particular fan of the hijinks that ensue when the elephant Horton hears strange voices emanating from a dust speck in “Horton Hears a Who.”

He doesn’t read from a dog-eared copy of the children’s classic, though. Skye, who lives in Agoura Hills, often reads on his computer, pressing the arrow button when he wants to turn a page. Sometimes the characters move around on the screen like animated cartoons on TV. If he wants, Skye can have the computer read a book to him while he’s curled up in bed.

Full article here.

There is a pretty good chance people across the planet will be getting one personal media player or another. Whether it is an iPod, Zune, Sansa Fuze, or the like more of such devices will be in the hands of patrons. An OPML file has been posted containing approximately 26 different podcasts and vodcasts that can be imported into podcatcher programs. The sampler is not representative but is produced as a starting point for exploring the realm of podcasts. Some of the content providers in the list include the BBC, NHK, CBC, and CityTV.

The import file is a useful tool if you have patrons coming in with questions or if you yourself got a personal media player and are looking for a good starting point.

The latest issue of The Informed Librarian Online ( www.informedlibrarian.com) is up.

Every month we post a new Guest Forum which I am sure your readers would be interested in reading.

This month’s Guest Forum is by: Chaunacey Dunklee, Senior Reference Librarian at Fullerton Public Library

The article is titled: Transparency Isn’t Just for Windows Anymore

It can be accessed full-text during the month of January Here

The idea that the internet is transforming our buying habits was first popularised in an article written by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of the technology magazine Wired, in October 2004. The article, titled “The long tail”, became a blog, a best-selling book and a marketing mantra. In other words, says Page, the extra choice available online is of little economic worth to the retailer. “Scarcity in conventional retailers might be a constraint,” he says. “But it could also be a discipline, representing an economically optimal inventory.”