December 2012

This was originally found lurking in the comments today attached to a story dating from November:

Books for International Goodwill has donated over 5.7 miillion books to libraries in the U.S. and overseas. We have 150,000 news and used books in our warehosue at any one time. We would be happy to provide books to libraries damaged by hurricane Sandy, but do not have a contact. We will cover the cost of transportation (and even cover the cost of a librariian to come to our site in Annapolis, MD to pick books, if tht is feasible). If anyone has a contact to help us get this off the ground, it would be appreciated.

Steve Frantzich—President Books for Interntional Goodwill 410 721 7344

As a general matter of good practices, it is best not to leave comments on stories over 45 days old as they might not be seen by most users. If anybody wishes to contact Mr. Frantzich in this matter his contact details are shown above.

Silicon Valley visionary, pioneer of virtual reality, recants his faith in Web 2.0: “You can draw an analogy to what happened with communism, where at some point you just have to say there’s too much wrong with these experiments”

Full article – Smithsonian Magazine

Have you ever borrowed an e-book from a library? If the answer is no, you’re a member of a large majority. A survey out Thursday from the Pew Internet Project finds that only 5 percent of “recent library users” have tried to borrow an e-book this year.

About three-quarters of public libraries offer e-books, according to the American Library Association, but finding the book you want to read can be a challenge — when it’s available at all.

Full piece — At the top of screen is a button to “click to listen” audio is 7 minutes 50 seconds.

This episode of “All Things Considered” had other pieces about ebooks and publishing in addition to the library one. They were:
Change Is The Only Constant In Today’s Publishing Industry
E-Books Destroying Traditional Publishing? The Story’s Not That Simple
Margaret Atwood’s Brave New World Of Online Publishing

Piece on NPR

Sometimes “the one that got away” is a book that actually was easy to overlook. And sometimes it’s something you ignore until you just can’t anymore. NPR’s Lynn Neary finally comes to terms with the publishing sensation that is Fifty Shades of Grey.

In the NPR piece they mention that every employee at the publisher got a $5000 bonus because of this book.

Radical suggestion: SAA should do less, not more
Kate Theimer: “So, here’s my radical suggestion, which has two parts: SAA should focus on doing less, but doing it better, and what it should focus on is providing direct, tangible services to members. For example, rather than trying to support public relations and national advocacy efforts, invest those resources in things like strengthening the mentorship program, providing better tools for job seekers, making annual meeting sessions available as free downloads, providing more active support for sections and roundtables, and developing resources to help members be effective advocates for their own archives.”

From the New York Times:

As librarians across the nation struggle with the task of redefining their roles and responsibilities in a digital age, many public libraries are seeing an opportunity to fill the void created by the loss of traditional bookstores. Indeed, today’s libraries are increasingly adapting their collections and services based on the demands of library patrons, whom they now call customers. Today’s libraries are reinventing themselves as vibrant town squares, showcasing the latest best sellers, lending Kindles loaded with e-books, and offering grassroots technology training centers. Faced with the need to compete for shrinking municipal finances, libraries are determined to prove they can respond as quickly to the needs of the taxpayers as the police and fire department can.

“I think public libraries used to seem intimidating to many people, but today, they are becoming much more user-friendly, and are no longer these big, impersonal mausoleums,” said Jeannette Woodward, a former librarian and author of “Creating the Customer-Driven Library: Building on the Bookstore Model.”

Bookworms are choosing e-readers over hardcovers and softcovers more than ever, says a recent Pew Research Center study.

A month-long study found more Americans readers, ages 16 and older, are embracing e-readers. The number of traditional readers dropped from 72% to 67% from last year, while digital bookworms jumped from 16% to 23%.

Facebook can still track users through its “Like” function. And Web surfers’ online data can still be used by law enforcement and “market research” for the employment, credit, healthcare and insurance industries. And let’s not even get into denial of service attacks and cybersecurity…

That said, here are three major privacy issues that everyone should pay attention to in 2013:

1.Transparency
2.Data sharing
3.Dodgy QR codes

Shipments are expected to continue their decline through 2016, with a projected shipment of just 7.1 million units.

If these projections are to be believed, the ereader craze is flaming out as quickly as it ignited. And if you’re in the business of creating content, that’s a good thing.

This week’s program episode falls on Christmas Eve. Except for the installment of Profile America for 24 December 2012, no formal content is presented. An episode of "GI Jive" is liberated from the virtual vaults of Archive.org for presentation as well as anthems of the various armed services. This constitutes the final regular episode of 2012.

NEXT WEEK the production team is taking part in the "Joint New Year’s Eve Special" that will be airing on WBCQ The Planet at 7 PM Eastern/Midnight UTC with special guests such as the team behind the Ubuntu UK Podcast. The show will be a bit of a variety of content that will include Linux, dramatic readings, music, and a little library & information science. The radio broadcast will be released on the podcast feed after it concludes airing on WBCQ. As the broadcast is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License you are encouraged to record it off-air and re-distribute it online and on physical media. The producer at Erie Looking Productions, Gloria D. Kellat, is coordinating the air talent for this show.

Download here (MP3) (Ogg Vorbis), or subscribe to the podcast (MP3) to have episodes delivered to your media player. We suggest subscribing by way of a service like gpodder.net. Especially in light of unanticipated equipment destruction at our principal operations site this past week, gifts of replacement equipment identified here can be purchaed via Amazon and shipped to the crew for use.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/.