February 2014

From Library Journal:

Library participation in World Book Night US is increasing, with libraries hosting launch events around the country for the fourth iteration of the annual April 23 event, which encourages public reading by distributing about a half-million free books and honors Shakespeare’s birthday.

Some libraries and bookstores host a special reception when the books arrive to foster community spirit among the volunteers. Last year, World Book Night US had volunteers in 5,200 towns and cities in all 50 states and a record 1,055 libraries and bookstores participate, program director Carl Lennertz said.

The New York Public Library (NYPL) main building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street will host a public talk April 22 with several authors whose books have been selected for 2014 World Book Night US distribution. This is the first time NYPL is holding official World Book Night launch events; prior World Book Night events were held at the Barnes and Noble store in Union Square.

The guest list at the main library event includes writers Victoria Bond, Malcolm Gladwell, Garrison Keillor, Walter Dean Myers, Esmeralda Santiago, T.R. Simon, and Tobias Wolff. The talk will take place at 6 p.m. in the 250-seat Edna Barnes Salomon Room, and will also be live-streamed on the Internet.

I’m a “giver” for the third time and delighted to be handing out copies of Jamie Ford’s “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.” I will be picking up my books at my local branch library in Brooklyn, how about you?

From The Washington Post:

“We Virginians, we really love our history,” said Laura Wickstead, director of the Virginia Room at the City of Fairfax Regional Library. “That’s for sure.”

“We’re sitting within a virtual stone’s throw of the Library of Congress, the National Archives and these fabulous university collections,” Laura said, “but even these smaller public library collections are superb and have things you don’t find other places.”

There’s certainly a lot to love. After all, this is the part of the country that produced George Mason, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Virginia was a hotbed of the Civil War. More recently, it’s where the mysterious urban legend known as the Bunny Man did whatever it is that Bunny Men do.

President Obama doesn’t leave office until January of 2017, but already the competition has begun for the right to host his presidential library and museum.

A new foundation has been set up to raise money and to begin the site selection process, and there are already bids in the works from Chicago, Honolulu and elsewhere.

Full piece here

A new archive is trying to digitize thousands of hours of tape from TV and radio stations across the country—before those tapes disintegrate. “The scary thing about it is that they are on physical formats that are deteriorating,” Karen Cariani, director of WGBH’s library and archives told me. “Video tape and audiotape is not a stable format. After 40 or 50 years, they are disintegrating. And the information—pictures, sounds on that physical medium—is disappearing. Unlike a piece of paper or a photograph that might last 100 years, media formats are extremely fragile.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/02/the-race-to-save-americas-public-media-history/283381/

http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/jan14/Carver–IT-Security-for-You-and-Your-Library.shtml

STAY SAFE WHILE YOU’RE ONLINE

It’s easy, in theory, to keep your PC safe. It all comes down to three things:

Keep everything patched and updated.
Never trust anything.
Use good passwords.

It’s The End Of The Story For Sony’s E-Bookstore
See: Story on NPR

The Stupidity of Computers
The good news is that, because computers cannot and will not “understand” us the way we understand each other, they will not be able to take over the world and enslave us (at least not for a while). The bad news is that, because computers cannot come to us and meet us in our world, we must continue to adjust our world and bring ourselves to them. We will define and regiment our lives, including our social lives and our perceptions of our selves, in ways that are conducive to what a computer can “understand.” Their dumbness will become ours.

http://nplusonemag.com/the-stupidity-of-computers

http://gigaom.com/2014/01/18/you-dont-want-your-privacy-disney-and-the-meat-space-data-race/

We’re all wringing our hands over the NSA, and meanwhile we’re handing our data as fast as we can to other entities for next to nothing. If the NSA were smart, it would buy Candy Crush Saga, change the permissions, and be done with it.

If we’re honest, we give privacy lip service, but we vote with our keypresses and our dollars, and the bands we strap to our wrists.

Expect your future meat space world to feel very much like your cyber space one. The next time your RFID tag lets Mickey know you’ve got diarrhea, maybe the stall door can make suggestions to you: “Customers who got funnel cake diarrhea also bought Maalox.”

[Thanks Elaine!]

Children’s author, who has himself been ‘falsely accused of crimes’ wants to honour those who have stood up to pressure from would-be book banners.
“Librarians have suffered enough”, according to Lemony Snicket, who is setting up a new annual US prize “honouring a librarian who has faced adversity with integrity and dignity intact”.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/31/lemony-snicket-prize-librarians-book-bans

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2022840140_amazonpublishingxml.html

After forever changing book-selling, Amazon is now embarked on a wide-ranging venture that seeks to alter the book-publishing end of the business. Company officials see it as an experiment where they can tinker with new ways to connect authors and readers.