September 2013

Dateline Tripoli, Libya — The Libyan government has signed contracts to equip and furnish 94 pubic libraries and cultural centers in 22 Libyan cities and villages.

The Minister of Culture Mr. Hbib al-Amin told reporters on Saturday that he signed implementation orders with a number of Libyan companies these centers and libraries to be finished this year.

The cost of these projects is 6.6 million Libyan dinar and come as part of this year cultural projects.

The items will be included in the contracts are office furniture, computers, printers, photocopiers, internet service, air conditioners and stationery.

For those wanting to know more about the country, here’s the Library of Congress site (albeit dated pre-Gaddafi’s death).

One of the things my father, Leonard Shatzkin, taught me when I was first learning about book publishing a half-century ago was that “all publishing houses are started with an editorial inspiration”. What he meant by that is that what motivated somebody to start a book publisher was an idea about what to publish. That might be somebody who just believed in their own taste; it might be something like Bennett Cerf’s idea of a “Modern Library” of compendia organized by author; it might even be Sir Allen Lane’s insight that the public wanted cheaper paperback books. But Dad’s point was that publishing entrepreneurs were motivated by the ideas for books, not by a better idea for production efficiency or marketing or sales innovation.

Full piece

And no, it’s not your library 🙂
http://pandodaily.com/2013/09/05/the-netflix-for-books-is-here-its-mobile-and-it-makes-amazon-look-old/
Today, New York-based startup Oyster is launching the beta version of its iPhone app. (You can request an invite at Oyster’s website). For $9.95 a month, you get unlimited access to the 100,000 titles from a range of publishers, including HarperCollins and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan are so far notably absent from the list of announced partners.) You also see what your friends are reading, get recommendations and staff picks, and find books sorted by curated categories, such as “Sports Stories,” “Business Essentials,” and “Popular Science.” All of this is packed into a highly usable mobile experience.

The students have been heard.

Tampa FL, Tampa Bay Times: Students gathered outside the University of South Florida library Thursday afternoon, prepared for another night of sit-ins and camp-outs to demand the ability to study at all hours of the day and night.

Melissa Grazon passed out pens, encouraging students to write letters to administrators, when news cameras started to gather in the grass. Everyone walked over to see what was happening. They stood there, absorbing the announcement.

After a hotly-contested reduction in library hours, administrators announced that the Tampa campus library will return to a schedule of being open 24 hours a day, five days a week, possibly within a week’s time.

Little known to tourists, the American Library in Paris has existed since books were first sent to WW1 doughboys. Here the LA Times gives us perspective on both the history of the library and its current operations. Here’s the library’s website.

Like every library in the world, it is challenged by changing reading habits. “I’ve understood all along — every library understands this — that if all you’re doing is warehousing books and being a lending library, you’re going to die,” director Charles Trueheart, a former foreign correspondent from the Washington Post says. “You’ve got to offer people all kinds of other stuff, now that they may be going for books in another way. … And our programming is not just authors, but it’s art appreciation, music, fashion, education, politics, current events.”

The library also contracts with U.S. universities to provide services to American exchange students and compiles study material for French students seeking accreditation as English teachers. Indeed, for all its appeal to Americans in Paris, the library has plenty of French members and supporters.

“There are a lot of French people who are very serious about keeping up their English, and they come to events in English at the library,” says author Diane Johnson, who has lived off and on in Paris for decades and chairs the library’s Writers Council, composed of such colleagues as Julian Barnes and Adam Gopnik.

Amazon launches Kindle Matchbook: discounted e-books for those who own the hard copy

if you’ve bought one of 10,000 selected titles from Amazon, you’ll be entitled to snag a digital copy for between $2.99 and nothing. The service launches in October and there’s no limit on when the purchases were made — meaning that you could be offered an awkward reminder of the literature you were gorging back in 1995.

Endgadget press release coverage

NPR piece discussing some of the changes and strategies being implemented in libraries.

NPR piece: Questions For Hugh Howey, Author Of ‘WOOL’

Wool – Part One is a free download on Amazon.

Disclaimer: The free first segment of Wool leaves you at a cliffhanger that makes you want to keep reading. The entire multi-part story is available for $5.99. See – Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1 – 5) (Silo Saga)

You can buy part 2 for .99 if you want to try one part after the free part without investing the full $5.99.