Though it seems like this report could be from just about anywhere, but it’s from Scotland. They say morale in libraries across the Capital is said to be at an “all-time low” as figures show the number of full-time librarians has plunged by nearly a quarter.
The city council has been undertaking a two-year review of its library service and now employs 19 fewer full-time qualified librarians than it did a year ago.
The state of China’s book industry: always marveled at the immense chasm between the Chinese book market and the rest of the world. Of course, issues of translation and appeal abroad have kept the market pretty domestic, but that seems to be changing slowly.
The Bush Foundation has recently asked University Park officials to rezone land so that it can proceed with plans for the presidential library. As the city prepares to hold hearings and vote on the issue, it appears opposition is expected among some residents worried about traffic and road congestion.
A scholar has examined Shakespeare’s works with plagiarism-detection software, not because he believed the Bard was a cheat, but to prove that a previously unattributed work is likely one of his
“In Edward III, it’s quite a typical arrangement; Shakespeare writes three scenes near the beginning and one later on, presumably to guarantee some kind of continuity,” says Vickers. “It’s a very good play, but it suffers from some inconsistencies – characters who appear in some of Shakespeare’s scenes don’t appear later on.” Yahoo News.
…some sellers and owners of electronic reading devices are making the case that people are reading more because of e-books.
Amazon for example, says that people with Kindles now buy 3.1 times as many books as they did before owning the device. That factor is up from 2.7 in December 2008. So a reader who had previously bought eight books from Amazon would now purchase, on average, 24.8 books, a rise from 21.6 books.
……..That point resonates with Candy Yates, a loan officer assistant in Newland, N.C. Ms. Yates owns a computer, a BlackBerry, and an iPod Touch and calls herself a “gadget person.” She says that paper books just feel strange to her, even though she was an avid reader as a child.
The nearest bookstore is also 30 miles away in Boone, and the collection at the local library does not interest her, she said. The Kindle cannot pick up a wireless signal in her home town, but she can plug it into her PC and buy books online.
Barnes & Noble’s Kindle competitor may have been the worst-kept secret since balloon boy’s disastrous appearance on CNN last week.
But the advance hype doesn’t seem to have hurt the launch of the Nook, an impressive-looking $260 device that will go head-to-head with Amazon.com’s Kindle, currently the most successful product in a small but growing market for e-book readers.
Basic details of the Nook were published by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday following leaked images that appeared on Gizmodo last week. And Barnes & Noble leaked product details hours before reporters filed into Pier 60 in Manhattan for the announcement on Tuesday afternoon.
“Simply following the leader is not in our DNA,” said Barnes & Noble president William Lynch.
B&N website about the Nook
The Nook allows you to lend ebooks to friends: Share favorite eBooks with your friends, family, or book club. Most eBooks can be lent for up to 14 days at a time. Just choose the book you want to share, then send it to your friend’s reader, cell phone, or computer.
The money the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh pays for its director’s salary, her membership at the Duquesne Club, her vehicle and part of a trip she took to India last year are reasonable compensation for the job she does, the nonprofit’s chair said Tuesday.
Her direct compensation dropped slightly to $165,643 in 2007 from the previous year, according to tax documents filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. But her benefits package more than tripled to $26,518 from $7,323 in 2006, the documents show.
Bandwidth Boost For Libraries Gaining Support: A plan to put fiber optic technology in public libraries may be a candidate for federal stimulus funding.
The drive has attracted supporters that range from Google and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to Congressman Rick Boucher (D-VA) and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA). Boucher, who is House Communications Subcommittee chairman, has already told FCC chairman Julius Genachowski that a plan to equip public libraries should focus on delivering “extraordinarily high bandwidth” to libraries.
From jconline.com:
Q: What can a reference librarian do that I can’t do on Google?
A: They know about more sophisticated strategies to find information and more efficient ways to find information than Google and teach you. They can teach you to evaluate those sources you find on Google and get better, more accurate results.
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