December 2008

Could book lovers finally be willing to switch from paper to pixels? Some could…but others, to quote the Times, “maintain an almost fetishistic devotion to the physical book”.

According to the New York Times “the ebook is starting to take hold”. Many Kindle buyers appear to be outside the usual gadget-hound demographic. Almost as many women as men are buying it, Mr. Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex group said, and the device is most popular among 55- to 64-year-olds. Codex is a book market research company.

Nobody knows how much consumer habits will shift. But the technology may have more appeal for particular kinds of people, like those who are the heaviest readers.

Perhaps the most overlooked boost to e-books this year — and a challenge to some of the standard thinking about them — came from Apple’s do-it-all gadget, the iPhone. Several e-book-reading programs have been created for the device, and at least two of them, Stanza from LexCycle and the eReader from Fictionwise, have been downloaded more than 600,000 times. Another company, Scroll Motion, announced this week that it would begin selling e-books for the iPhone from major publishers like Simon & Schuster, Random House and Penguin.

All of these companies say they are now tailoring their software for other kinds of smartphones, including BlackBerrys.

NPR has a story called No Happy Holidays For Publishing

There was this public comment with the story:

I find it interesting that every time someone in the media discusses e-books they only look to the specialized devices like the Kindle. I have been reading e-books for over 10 years, first on a Palm device and now on my iPhone. I find it very convenient, and in addition to carrying a number of books with me I also have the web, my music, maps, and a number of other useful applications.

I understand it is harder to track now many iPhone (or similar device) users take advantage of e-books, but you should at least acknowledge that there are those of us that do leverage this technology and love it.

Julian Shortland posted to the NZ-Libs list in New Zealand about a virtual gift shop he created. Such is geared towards people connected to libraries who want to make charitable donations. The shop can be found by way of TEAR Australia’s gift site.

The Las Vegas Sun reports today that residents said goodbye to Green Valley Library. As a result of a boundary realignment control of the facility is shifting from Las Vegas-Clark County Library District to Henderson District Public Library.

While Henderson District Public Library is facing financial worries, the most recent episode of the LISNews Podcast mentioned at the start one step the local friends group is taking to help.

Five years ago, young Muslims across the United States began reading and passing along a blurry, photocopied novel called “The Taqwacores,” about imaginary punk rock Muslims in Buffalo.

“This book helped me create my identity,” said Naina Syed, 14, a high school freshman in Coventry, Conn.

A Muslim born in Pakistan, Naina said she spent hours on the phone listening to her older sister read the novel to her. “When I finally read the book for myself,” she said, “it was an amazing experience.”

The novel is “The Catcher in the Rye” for young Muslims, said Carl W. Ernst, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Springing from the imagination of Michael Muhammad Knight, it inspired disaffected young Muslims in the United States to form real Muslim punk bands and build their own subculture.

Full article here.

Jean Shepherd was the author of the book “A Christmas Story” and was the narrator in the movie of the same name. In the 1950’s he was a radio broadcaster on WOR in New York. It was there that he created a great literary hoax. You can read the details of the hoax here.

The European Union’s new Europeana digital library reopened on Tuesday after crashing within hours of its launch last month due to surging interest.

European Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr said the website was working after its server capacity had been quadrupled and it had been stress-tested to deal with user interest.

However, a message on the site said that “the user experience may not be optimal in this test phase” and as a result “the number of users will be limited in peak times.” Google News.

A Rocky Creek (Tampa area) man wants to have a film he regards as pornographic removed from the shelves of the Town ‘N Country Regional Public Library.

Frank DeAngelis, a former police officer and retired sociology professor, said he didn’t know what to expect when he checked out “The Films of James Broughton.” DeAngelis said he was shocked to see naked men engaging in various sexual acts. In one the collection’s films, “Devotions,” two men dress up like nuns and embrace and kiss.

But what really concerned DeAngelis is that naked children are shown, albeit in nonsexual situations.

“Why would they put little children in there to infer pornography?” DeAngelis said. “They crossed the line with the little children.” Story continued here.

Librarianship is not always a first career.

Take the career of Gayle Morrow, a 59-year old rollerblading teen librarian. After working as a teacher and accountant, Morrow found herself unemployed and decided to go to school in her hometown of Philadelphia.

When the John F. Kennedy Library in Vallejo (CA) was hiring a young adult librarian, she decided to give that line of work a try. For her, this latest career has been “so much fun.”

She dedicates her days to creating fun activities to draw city youth to the library. Her love of not only the library but the teens she works with is evident. “They keep you young. I love the way they think. It’s fun to be around them,” she said.

Working with the teens has taught her a lot about young people, she said. “They’re what adults would like to be. They’re open. They’re honest. They accept people for what they are,” she said, apparently including herself. Times Herald Online.

ScrollMotion, a New York mobile app developer, has concluded deals with a number of major publishing houses, and is in talks with several others, to produce newly released and best-selling e-books as applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Publishers now on board include Houghton Mifflin, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Hachette and Penguin Group USA.
Having these big names is a big step forward for iTunes itself in becoming an e-book shop and the iPhone in becoming a legitimate e-book reader and competitor to products like the Kindle and the Sony E-Reader.

The first official books will begin to roll out Monday and include titles such as Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight,” Philip Pullman’s “The Golden Compass” and a number of others by Christopher Paolini, Brad Meltzer and Scott Westerfeld.

Full article here