January 2010

10 Best Songs About Libraries and Librarians
“So you’re laid up in bed with the flu like everyone else, with nothing to do but chug Emergen-C, ride the NyQuil train, and gaze glassy-eyed at hours of DVRed shows that you’d usually let languish. It’s time for a new playlist! When even keeping your eyes open starts to hurt, queue up this nerdy mixtape and zonk out to the best in library-inspired jams. Thanks to @flavorpill follower Lauren for the smart (and challenging!) idea.”

Westlaw and LexisNexis, the dominant services in the market for computerized legal research, will undergo sweeping changes in a bid to make it easier and faster for lawyers to find the documents they need.

The changes to the research services are a reaction by Westlaw and LexisNexis to lower-priced — sometimes free — rivals and arrive at a time when law firms are working to cut overhead. The two companies also want to cater to a younger generation of lawyers accustomed to slick Web services and the search interfaces presented by companies like Google and Microsoft.

Full story in the NYT

After the earthquake that struck the Port-au-Prince region on Tuesday, January 12, Libraries Without Borders affirms its solidarity with the people of Haiti. LWB and its French affiliate, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières, are involved in a number of projects in the capital and throughout the country. A new container of academic books was scheduled to make its way from France to the Université d’Etat d’Haïti in mid-January.

Many buildings have been destroyed. The Ecole Normale Supérieure, a main partner of Bibliothèques Sans Frontières, is reported to have collapsed. After the relief deployed by various countries and humanitarian organizations reaches Haiti, the country’s need to rebuild its educational and cultural structures will be enormous. Libraries Without Borders is prepared to support the reconstruction effort.

More information about their partnership programs and events at the website.

No Sex Please! We’re Just Kids!:
Perhaps it’s not that surprising that a mother in Menifee, California, asked the Menifee Union School District to ban all copies of the 10th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary after her child stumbled across the term “oral sex.” What is surprising, indeed horrifying, is that district officials immediately complied with her request, and pulled all dictionaries off classroom shelves throughout the Southern California school district, which serves 9,000 kids, kindergarten through eighth grade.

The Kandle ebook light is compatible with any of the hundreds of eBook readers that will be flooding the market. The Kandle’s dual pivoting arms allow it to fold up to a slightly more compact form factor, but it also allows the light from the 2 LEDs to be directed as needed.

O’Reilly drops ebook DRM, sees 104% increase in sales
It’s been 18 months since O’Reilly, the world’s largest publisher of tech books, stopped using DRM on its ebooks. In the intervening time, O’Reilly’s ebook sales have increased by 104 percent. Now, when you talk about ebooks and DRM, there’s always someone who’ll say, “But what about [textbooks|technical books|RPG manuals]? Their target audience is so wired and online, why wouldn’t they just copy the books without paying? They’ve all got the technical know-how.”
So much for that theory.

On the bestsellers page on Amazon you can now select a previous date and see what the bestselling books were at that time. It can be interesting to see what books are popular during historical events in the last decade and a half. For example:
Week before Sept 11, 2001
Week after Sept. 11, 2001

Libraries lament loss of funding for databases
But many of the hundreds of subscription databases offered by Pennsylvania’s public libraries — and the convenient remote access many of them offer — will vanish this year, victims of slashed state and local funding.

“We are talking about dozens of sources of reliable information, vital educational tools that reach tens of thousands of students with little money,” said Glenn Miller, executive director of the Pennsylvania Library Association.

Thanks Gary!

Introduction by Cory Doctorow: Our next guestblogger is the incomparable activist geek librarian Jessamyn West, who, along with other library-hackers like Jenny Levine are part of a movement to redefine librarianship in the information age. I’ve been enjoying Jessamyn’s projects and thoughts for years and it’s a delight to have her here. Here’s her official bio:

I’m a library technologist working in rural Vermont teaching people on the back end of the digital divide how to use computers. I also help run MetaFilter.com, especially Ask MetaFilter and travel around the world talking about library technology issues. My blog, librarian.net talks a lot about the intersection of libraries, technology and politics.

I’m grumpy about the USA PATRIOT Act, threats to open access and bad laws shaping bad culture.

I like moss, snowshoeing, old books and the color orange.

Motoko Rich’s essay in the NYTimes “The Book Club With Just One Member”, discusses the personal side of reading and how ‘sharing’ books, via GoodReads, Shelfari, Twitter, Facebook and book groups socializes the previously solitary occupation of reading.

You are invited to read others opinions and post your own about book groups, etc. here on the Arts Beat Blog.