Blake

Alleged Toner Pirate Scam Targets Iowa Libraries

At least 15 public libraries in Iowa have been targeted by a toner pirate scam this year. That’s according to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, which filed a consumer fraud lawsuit against three Orange County, California-based businesses Thursday.

The supposed scam came to light thanks to Cate St. Clair, an attorney by training and library director by trade. When Robey Memorial Library in Waukon received a mysterious bill for about $400 for toner, St. Clair called the number printed on the invoice.

From Alleged Toner Pirate Scam Targets Iowa Libraries | Iowa Public Radio

September 2, 2016 by Legal Issues Libraries

Can Google Help Translate a Classic Novel? (no)

A classic of Argentine literature, Antonio Di Benedetto’s Zama is available for the first time in English. The novel, about a provincial magistrate of the Spanish crown named Zama, is a riveting portrait of a mind deteriorating as the 18th century draws to a close. Esther Allen brilliantly translates Di Benedetto’s novel, and talks about the six-year process of bringing the book to U.S. readers.

No, Google Translate was in no way useful to my translation of the 1956 Argentine novel Zama: let’s get that out of the way first thing.

From Can Google Help Translate a Classic Novel?

September 1, 2016 by Google Technology

A Challenging Future Awaits Libraries Able to Change [From 2001]

Conclusions from the International Summer School on the Digital Library

Fundamental changes are occurring in society, education, technology and publishing. If academic/research libraries want to survive, they must also change. Libraries should, of course:

Provide electronic access to scholarly material;
Customize and personalize information services.
But, more importantly, they should:

Experiment on distribution and business models together with publishers (preferably via library consortia, which should be more than just buying groups);
Support universities and research communities to develop document servers and open archives for their own scientific output;
Stimulate universities to change their cost allocation models in such a way that the library budget is centralized, and decisions about scientific information are no longer made by individual faculties.

From A Challenging Future Awaits Libraries Able to Change: Highlights of the International Summer School on the Digital Library

August 31, 2016 by Libraries School Libraries

The Bloody History of the True Crime Genre

One common thread in Borden literature examines how the police and the courts handled the case. Over the years, writers have explored the investigation and trial to critique both the American justice system and the effects of the press on that system. The coverage of the Fall River murders demonstrates that, even as true crime evolves throughout the centuries, it continuously engages with the culture that surrounds it. Since the early modern murder pamphlet, true crime has asked us to consider how we, as a society, both contribute to and learn from the most shocking acts of our age.

From The Bloody History of the True Crime Genre | JSTOR Daily

August 29, 2016 by Uncategorized

Academic Torrents

Welcome to Academic Torrents!
Making 15.47TB of research data available.

We’ve designed a distributed system for sharing enormous datasets – for researchers, by researchers. The result is a scalable, secure, and fault-tolerant repository for data, with blazing fast download speeds.

From Academic Torrents

August 29, 2016 by Academic Libraries

Libraries and churches

I think about this connection between churches and libraries as I walk down the hall to my office every morning — a new church in an old library. The smell is still more new paint rather than old book, but give it time. It has great potential. Already we have received our first gift of that old smell: books from a retired pastor that wait in the hallway, ready to find new hands.

From Libraries and churches | Local News | daltondailycitizen.com

August 27, 2016 by Libraries

Belgians are hunting books, instead of Pokemon

Inspired by the success of Pokemon Go, a Belgian primary school headmaster has developed an online game for people to search for books instead of cartoon monsters, attracting tens of thousands of players in weeks.

While with Pokemon Go, players use a mobile device’s GPS and camera to track virtual creatures around town, Aveline Gregoire’s version is played through a Facebook group called “Chasseurs de livres” (“Book hunters”).

From Belgians are hunting books, instead of Pokemon | Reuters

August 26, 2016 by Books EBooks Internet School Libraries

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