January 2010

Christmas trees and The National Union Catalog

This LISNEWS post showing a picture of a Christmas tree made of books sparked another library to do the same thing. They used their National Union Catalog books to build a tree. You can see the results here. Another photo showing the building in progress.

With their pictures of the tree building the William H. Hannon librarians also linked to this piece: What are all those green books on Level 3? The piece talks about the National Union Catalog. (The 754 volume, 528,000 page, 13 million+ record National Union Catalog, also known as “Mansell” (after its publisher), took 14 years and $34 million to come to fruition.)

For new librarians that have known nothing but electronic catalogs this piece sheds light on important history in librarianship. The article also has this interesting line:

Although our online catalog and resources like WorldCat have mostly rendered Mansell and others like it obsolete, it can still be a useful tool for researchers needing exhaustive searches for pre-1956 works and for catalogers of rare books. In fact, a 2005 study indicated that 27% of the records in Mansell still cannot be found in WorldCat.

Auchincloss & Zinn Dead

Louis Auchincloss, 92, a novelist, essayist, biographer, editor and lawyer whose literary beat was the decline of the old WASP world of power and privilege to which he belonged, died Jan. 26 at Lenox Hill Hospital, near his home in Manhattan. He had complications from a stroke.

Howard Zinn, US historian and activist, dies aged 87. The American historian, playwright and author of the bestseller A People’s History of the United States, which presents a leftist view of US history, has died

Are free ebooks a good idea or not?

Commentary by Mike Shatzkin

Kindle is certainly engendering a lot of confusion by billboarding the downloads of free ebooks as “sales.” That paradoxical scorekeeping was the lead for an article by Motoko Rich in The New York Times on Saturday that quoted a lot of people, some apparently disagreeing with each other, but none of them necessarily wrong.

There really are three separate questions to consider, which get elided in these conversations.

1. What is the impact of giving away ebooks as a promotional device, either to boost the word of mouth on the book being given away or to promote an author’s other titles?

2. What is the potential impact on the industry overall of ubiquitous giveaways of ebooks that would apparently have commercial value?

3. When ebooks are given away, how should that sale be “scored” in any measurement of the book’s popularity?

Full blog post

What’s New On LISWire – The Librarian’s News Wire

Did you know LISNews has a sister site devoted to PR?

Over at LISWire.com( http://liswire.com/ ) – The Librarian’s News Wire – we have now posted well over 200 releases.

You can subscribe to one of our mailing lists Right Here. You can grab the main LISWire RSS Feed Here. There are a bunch of other feeds you can subscribe to listed Right Here. You can also follow along on Twitter Right Here.

Below the break I’ve posted all the latest releases.

—LibraryWorld Allows Librarians to Customize Reports
— http://liswire.com/node/561/
– Release posted by Blake on January 27th 2010 02:28
LibraryWorld, a leading Web-based library and collection management system, has expanded user options for customizing catalog reports, patron lists, and overdue letter reports. These enhancements are immediately available to new customers and the more than 2,000 libraries who manage their collections using LibraryWorlds secure online portal. Users can now customize a catalog report by selecti…

—Tech Logic offers new TAGSYS security gates
— http://liswire.com/node/560/
– Release posted by Blake on January 27th 2010 02:27
WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn. (Jan. 27, 2010) Tech Logic now offers newly designed TAGSYS Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) security gates that offer advanced protection through high-performance read range and speed. The L-SP3 security gates use advanced digital signal processing and RF front-end technology to achieve breakthrough performance in read range and read speed, providing enhanced secu…

—Trendy Topics 2010: Social Networking for Libraries
— http://liswire.com/node/559/
– Release posted by Blake on January 27th 2010 06:23
Alliance Library System and TAP Information Services Announce Trendy Topics 2010: Social Networking for Libraries! Start your New Year right with a resolution to keep up with quickly changing library trends! Alliance Library System and TAP Information Services are pleased to announce a dynamic monthly series of online workshops you can enjoy right at your desktop on these hot topics. …

—The Future is Now: Libraries and Museums in Virtual Worlds
— http://liswire.com/node/558/
– Release posted by Blake on January 27th 2010 06:22
January 26, 2010 For Immediate Release Everyone is invited to participate in The Future is Now: Libraries and Museums in Virtual Worlds, an online conference to be held on Friday and Saturday, March 5-6, 2010 in OPAL, the webconferencing collaborative service, in Second Life, and in other three-dimensional virtual worlds. Throughout this two-day conference there will be dozens of present…

—Save the Date for A Reference Renaissance 2010
— http://liswire.com/node/557/
– Release posted by Justine on January 26th 2010 04:42
AURORA, Colo., January 26, 2010 A Reference Renaissance 2010: Inventing the Future, co-chaired by Marie Radford and Rivkah Sass, will be held August 8-10, 2010, in Denver, Colorado. This exciting event will feature numerous presentations showcasing the latest reference trends and techniques that will give you new ideas and tools to better serve your customers. Also included are vendor exhibits, …

—Extreme Searchers Internet Handbook: 3rd Edition For Web Searchers Who Want to Go Beyond Google
— http://liswire.com/node/556/
– Release posted by RobColding on January 26th 2010 09:18
January 25, 2010, Medford, NJInformation Today, Inc. (ITI) announced the publication of The Extreme Searchers Internet Handbook: A Guide for the Serious Searcher, Third Edition by award-winning author and internet trainer Randolph Ran Hock. The revised edition covers strategies and tools for searching all major areas of internet content, emphasizing the effective use of se…

— Kelley Armstrong and Tanya Huff Head Roster in Forthcoming All-Canadian Vampire Anthology
— http://liswire.com/node/554/
– Release posted by HadesPub on January 25th 2010 05:11
(Calgary) EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing announced today that Kelley Armstrong, Tanya Huff and twenty-two other Canadian dark fantasy and horror writers will re-imagine the future in the first all-Canadian vampire anthology of original fiction – one of the most unusual and compelling collections ever compiled. EVOLVE: Vampire Stories of the New Undead includes works by: Kelley Arm…

—ByWater Solutions Partners with the Farmington Libraries for Koha Installation and Support
— http://liswire.com/node/553/
– Release posted by ByWater Solutions on January 25th 2010 08:58
January 25th, 2009 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Nathan Curulla (888) 900-8944 [email protected] ByWater Solutions Partners with the Farmington Libraries for Koha Installation and Support ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and official Koha support company, announced today that The Farmington Libraries, of Farmington, CT. has partnered with them for the …

—Backwards Dictionary Helps Gamers and Writers
— http://liswire.com/node/552/
– Release posted by WisdomCreekPress on January 22nd 2010 10:39
ATLANTA Wisdom Creek Press has released a book to assist poets, word gamers and other wordsmiths in their search for just the right word. The opposite of traditional dictionaries, this word list is arranged alphabetically using the LAST letter of each word. My original motivation for researching and writing this book was personal, said author Cherie K. Miller. My husband and I are both au…

—ByWater Solutions Nicole C Engard Presents at the Southwest Florida Library Network
— http://liswire.com/node/550/
– Release posted by ByWater Solutions on January 22nd 2010 07:20
January 22nd, 2010 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Nathan Curulla [email protected] ByWater Solutions Nicole C Engard Presents at the Southwest Florida Library Network ByWater Solutions Nicole C. Engard presented yesterday at a workshop for the Southwest Florida Library Network on Libraries and Open Source: Freedom and Community. The presentation not only introduced librari…

Coming Out Now…the iPad (aka the Apple Tablet)

Wired speculates about the up and coming new device that Apple will be announcing today. Will it be a glorified book reader? An iPod Touch/iPhone on steroids? We will find out very quickly here, and then we can all envision how we could use the device. Will it help you at work? Will it be the perfect commuting partner? Will you use it as the mother of all television remotes? Consider this, though. How will it affect our children? How will they use the tablet?

If your children are anything like mine, they will want to play with it the moment it comes out of the box. They will be amazed at how large their favorite iPod Touch apps look on the larger screen. And the screen will be large enough that they can both play with it at once. We could watch videos from the internet or do interactive educational websites (I’m looking at you, BBC) without leaving our school table. When we go on a trip, we could bring our entire homeschool library with us. Of course, we’d have to have two tablets, since we have two children.

Read More http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/01/how-will-the-apple-tablet-change-our-kids-lives/#ixzz0dpw8HVoK and in the NY Times.

Explorers find rare ancient books

Thanks to Charley Hively for this one.
Explorers find rare ancient books
Work to uncover the tomb in Yancang, a village near Jingmen, began on Jan 17 and experts believe the site dates back to the Warring States Period (475 BC to 221 BC).

“We cannot tell how many we’ve got and we have no idea what’s written on them, but the discovery of bamboo strips itself is exciting,” Shen