March 2011

The ebook revolution is really beginning to remind me of the mass-market paperback revolution.

The mass paperback was really “invented” by Sir Allan Lane when he created Penguin in Britain before World War II. (Wikipedia credits a German publisher with the first cheap paperbacks a few years earlier, but Lane was certainly the first in English and deserving of some extra credit because the company he started continues in the same business to the present day.) Pocket Books in the US was also born just before the war. During World War II, historian and polymath Philip Van Doren Stern (who wrote, among other things, the New Yorker short story on which the movie classic “It’s A Wonderful Life” was based) ran a program for the US military by which inexpensive paperbacks were made available to the troops.

Full blog post here.

The Pareto Principle and the True Cunning of HarperCollins
So here’s the cunning. By focusing on popularity-driven revenue mechanisms, HarperCollins is pushing money towards the smash hits and away from the long tail. Libraries may be adversely affected, but they’re collateral damage. It’s the long tail publishers that HarperCollins is trying to destroy.

Following up on our story about the injunction against carrying guns in Lansing (MI) Libraries:

The co-founders of Michigan Open Carry Inc. a gun-rights group currently challenging a Capital Area District Library policy that bans guns from the library, have written a children’s book titled, “My Parents Open Carry” published by White Feather Press of Hamilton.

Brian Jeffs, a state geologist from Bath Township, and Nathan Nephew, a software developer from DeWitt, told columnist John Schneider the book’s message is: “You can’t rely on others to protect you. You have a natural right to self-defense. The cops do the best they can, but can’t be there all the time.”

Washington Post : The Madison Building at the Library of Congress in Washington has reopened Friday after being briefly evacuated because of a small electrical fire in the basement.

The fire broke out in the morning and was contained to a basement. D.C. fire department spokesman Pete Piringer says the fire stemmed from an electrical problem involving a generator, but the exact cause has yet to be determined.

U.S. Capitol Police say there were no injuries and no immediate reports of damages. The building on Independence Avenue was evacuated and neighboring streets were shut down.

Additional details from The Hill.

From PC World: Taiwan’s international airport has opened what it calls the world’s first in-transit e-library, offering 400 e-book titles to ease waiting-hall boredom while showcasing the island’s high-tech capabilities. More info on the library’s offerings at China Post.

The e-library at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport allows passengers to consult the Chinese and English-language books, and around 2,000 books on paper, in a special waiting area in the larger of the airport’s two terminals. The terminal commonly handles stopovers between North America and Southeast Asia.

The e-books are stored on around 30 devices, a mix of iPads and e-readers with e-ink screens. The e-books are stored in the ePub and Zinio formats. The airport is loaning out the devices on a first come first served basis. Passengers can’t download the books to their own e-reader, limiting the usefulness of the service.

The duty-free shop manages the library, which was proposed by Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou. The shop worked with Taiwan’s government-funded Institute for Information Industry and the project cost more than NT$3 million (US$102,000).

Are you familiar with LISWire.com (www.liswire.com) – The Librarian’s News Wire? It’s the other half of LISNews.org.

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.

Title: ByWater Solutions Welcomes Jesse Maseto as Lead Sales Specialist
Link: http://www.liswire.com/content/bywater-solutions-welcomes-jesse-maseto-lead-sales-specialist
Title: LS2 Kids shines at Brevard County Libraries
Link: http://www.liswire.com/content/ls2-kids-shines-brevard-county-libraries
Title: LAC Group Celebrates 25 Years of Female Entrepreneurship in a Challenging Economy
Link: http://www.liswire.com/content/lac-group-celebrates-25-years-female-entrepreneurship-challenging-economy
Title: OCLC introduces a redesigned CONTENTdm
Link: http://www.liswire.com/content/oclc-introduces-redesigned-contentdm
Title: EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) Continues to Expand as Credo Reference Content Becomes Searchable Through EDS
Link: http://www.liswire.com/content/ebsco-discovery-service%E2%84%A2-eds-continues-expand-credo-reference-content-becomes-searchable-thr
Title: i2S to acquire a majority interest in KIRTAS TECHNOLOGIES
Link: http://www.liswire.com/content/i2s-acquire-majority-interest-kirtas-technologies
Title: WBENC Endorses LAC Group’s Continuing Commitment to Diversity and Excellence
Link: http://www.liswire.com/content/wbenc-endorses-lac-group%E2%80%99s-continuing-commitment-diversity-and-excellence
Title: EBSCO Publishing to Release Chemical Hazard Information Library™—Providing Comprehensive Data for Human and Environmental Hazards
Link: http://www.liswire.com/content/ebsco-publishing-release-chemical-hazard-information-library%E2%84%A2%E2%80%94providing-comprehensive-data-h
Title: ExPub and Merck Publishing Agreement Brings Valuable Resource to Chemical Professionals
Link: http://www.liswire.com/content/expub-and-merck-publishing-agreement-brings-valuable-resource-chemical-professionals
Title: Learning Unleashed: Cengage Learning ‘Taps’ Into Minds of Students With MindTap™, First-of-its-Kind Personal Learning Experience
Link: http://www.liswire.com/content/learning-unleashed-cengage-learning-%E2%80%98taps%E2%80%99-minds-students-mindtap%E2%84%A2-first-its-kind-personal-l

Sarah Glassmeyer set up a wiki where librarians and other interested parties can share information about all aspects of the library/vendor relationship. It can be found at www.LisVendor.info. She says “It’s really a product of my own greed and laziness – I find that the more I get into looking at Library-Vendor relations, the more I realize that I don’t know. And I want a one stop shop to collect that information and learn from what others know.” She explains more Here. Head over, teach and learn from each other on this very important topic.

From the LA Times:

Voters passed Measure L, which would set aside a greater share of property tax revenue for the city’s cash-strapped library system. That measure was backed by library advocates but opposed by the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which feared the measure would result in budget cuts to public safety.

More on Measure L.

Rachael Morrison: Having a job as Senior Library Assistant at The Museum of Modern Art Library has been a big influence on my artistic practice. I use the library for research and inspiration, and as a site of investigation. In early 2010, I began the performance “Smelling the Books“, which consists of me smelling every book in the MoMA Library collection. This performance was recently highlighted in New York Magazine as one of the many reasons to love New York.

My performance started with the first call number in the Library of Congress classification system AC5.S4 1934, Sermons by Artists, and I will smell until I reach ZN3.R45, Bibliography of the History of Art. I document the performance in a ledger, recording the call number, title, and a description of the smell of each book. The goal of this personal olfactory exploration is to foster a discussion of the future of print media, the ways we read, methods of classification, and the way in which smell is entwined with memory.

Smelling notations:

A court order that bars people from openly carrying a firearm onto Capital Area District (Lansing MI) Library property will stand until at least June.

Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina on Tuesday broadened a Feb. 16 ruling to now keep anyone from openly toting firearms on the library’s grounds. Her previous restraining order had applied only to members of Michigan Open Carry or associated people.

“I wish I could say that you could all carry weapons wherever you wanted, but I can’t say that,” Aquilina said during a hearing attended by gun rights advocates and library officials. “I do believe the library can regulate whether weapons come in or don’t come in the library.”

Library officials requested an injunction to bar people from openly carrying firearms on the premises in February, after four incidents since December where people believed to be members of Michigan Open Carry brought firearms into the building. Lansing State Journal reports.