Pete

Have you ever dreamt of quitting your cushy job and starting a new life halfway around the world to follow your passion?
Jessica Fox, a NASA employee in Los Angeles, decided one day to move to Scotland to live in a used bookshop.
Jessica told BBC News her story of instincts, falling in love, and road bumps along the way.

BBC News Magazine

The great English novelist Charles Dickens was born this day in 1812. Happy birthday Boz!

Is there anything Public Library programming can’t do? JS Online has the story of a unique exhibit at the River Falls Wisconsin Public Library.

“A library is an unlikely place to see a 1934 Harley or Honda crotch rocket.

In fact it’s a good bet the term “crotch rocket” is rarely uttered inside the quiet, hallowed halls of a book repository.

But the public library in the western Wisconsin community of River Falls is currently a great place to see a small but comprehensive exhibit of vintage motorcycles for free, no library card required.”

In the first of two parts about the new realities of publishing and public libraries, Forbes contributor David Vinjamuri discusses whether the right battle is being fought:

“The solution to the current pricing problem lies in understanding that the argument publishers and libraries are having is the wrong argument. It is based on the paradigm of the printed book and as such presents a series of intractable challenges for both publishers and libraries. By changing the model for pricing an eBook, both parties could find a clear and equitable resolution to the current impasse.”

Wired’s This Day in Tech Blog remembers Paul Otlet and his dream of organizing the world’s information. Sound familiar?

“Some historians see in Otlet’s work a prototype of the World Wide Web and the hyperlink. Although unsuccessful, it was one of the first known attempts to provide a framework for connecting all recorded culture by creating flexible links that could rapidly lead researchers from one document to another — and perhaps make audible the previously unheard echoes between them.”

The lessons of Indie Rock for the publishing industry are pondered in a post at The Scholarly Kitchen,
“Whenever you buy a record from just about any indie band, it comes with either a CD or with a card that contains a URL and a download code so you can get a digital copy at no additional cost…
If implemented in the right way, publishers could kill two birds with one stone: they could support a mechanism for downloading e-books purchased in conjunction with hardcovers that not only makes their best customers happy and extends the life of hardcover sales, but that actually fosters competition in the ebook marketplace.”

This morning Wisconsin Public Radio devoted an hour to discuss the role libraries play in our lives and communities. Guests: –Wayne Wiegand (WEE-ghend), library historian and author of books including Main Street Public Library: Community Places and Reading Spaces in the Rural Heartland. He’s a former professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison –John Cole, Founding Director of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress

A nice, non-legalese summary of the Google Books story from Read Write Web:

“Google’s long-running fight to digitize the world’s written works has closed two more chapters, but the story hasn’t quite reached the end. Despite stakes that include millions of dollars of ad revenue for Google versus the potential loss of revenue and royalties for publishers and authors, however, the epic saga’s climax is turning out to be surprisingly muted.

There are three parts to this story so far, with Google Books the protagonist (or antagonist, depending on your point of view) at the center of all of them. Following two separate court decisions this week and last, two of those parts are now concluded, leaving only one more thread of the tale to wrap up.”

From the opinion page of Milwaukee’s JSOnline,

“Recently, I met Adriana McCleer, a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Information Studies. Aside from being a graduate student, McCleer is a former librarian from Racine. She’s also a visionary.

McCleer wants to build a library in our great city. But not just any ol’ library. She wants Milwaukee to have an underground library of books banned in Tucson, Ariz. If she succeeds, and I hope she does, the library will be one of many popping up across the nation.”

The site for all things sci-fi and fantasy, iO9, has the story:

“Last night, robots shut down the live broadcast of one of science fiction’s most prestigious award ceremonies. No, you’re not reading a science fiction story. In the middle of the annual Hugo Awards event at Worldcon, which thousands of people tuned into via video streaming service Ustream, the feed cut off — just as Neil Gaiman was giving an acceptance speech for his Doctor Who script, “The Doctor’s Wife.” Where Gaiman’s face had been were the words, “Worldcon banned due to copyright infringement.” What the hell?”