March 16th, 2010 Brian Herzog
I’ve had ebooks on the brain lately for a few reasons, so I thought I’d pull together some resources I’ve been bookmarking.
But first, my reasons:
- My consortium will soon be offering ebooks via Overdrive. This is good, as Overdrive ebooks are compatible with Sony Reader and the Nook, but will still include existing Overdrive drawbacks
- The IT Section of the New England Library Association is devoting our spring workshop to ebooks. Speakers will range from libraries already circulating ebooks and ereaders to a certain library that made waves by going digital to a book store that takes digitized books and makes them print again. It will be a great day, and I’ll post more details soon.
Ebooks are certainly in the cards for libraries, and hopefully not like these comic strips. In no particular order, here are a few ebook-related links worth reading:
Ebook Reader Reviews and Guides and Deconstruction
A nice introduction to ereaders and ebooks, “7 Things You Should Know About E-Readers,” from EDUCAUSE, focusing on teaching and learning:
Reviews of ereaders from various sources:
The eBook Buyer’s Guide to Privacy from the EFF talks about how each of the most popular ebook readers rate as far as privacy, tracking of purchases, sharing of information, etc.
I’ve seen a little discussion on the topic of “why digital,” and this is a good evaluation of how and when and why technology matches content:
Ebook Price Wars
This is worth watching, because low prices means lots of people purchased the hardware, but rising prices means people will be coming to the library for ebooks instead of purchasing the content themselves.
Ebooks for Downloading
A few places where people can download ebooks for free - please list additional resources in the comments.
Of course, as soon as I finish typing this post, I’m going to pick up the old-fashion made-of-paper book I’m reading and enjoy flipping through the pages.
Tags: book, Books, e-book, e-books, e-readers, ebook, ebooks, libraries, Library, non-print, public, readers See Also
Posted under Library, Technology | 6 Comments »
March 9th, 2010 Brian Herzog
CoverGuess was released last week, and the LibraryThing blog post explains the what and why better than I can:
What is CoverGuess?
CoverGuess is a sort of game. We give you covers, and you describe them in words. If you guess the same things as other players, you get points.
Why are you doing this?
The goal is to have fun, but also to build up a database of cover descriptions, to answer questions like “Do you have that book with bride on the bicycle?”
You have to have a LibraryThing account to play, but it’s worth a free account to get in on the action.
CoverGuess was inspired by one of my favorite internet timesinks, Google’s Image Labeler. Both of these make the internet a better place, but CoverGuess could actually help in answering reference questions. I’ll be keeping watch for when the search component is released, but for now, racking up tagging points is fun.
See Also
Posted under Library, Technology | No Comments »
February 23rd, 2010 Brian Herzog
I like to think I’m the kind of person open to the opinions of others, and I certainly don’t expect myself to be right all the time. However, it’s still rare for me to advertise when I think I am wrong, yet today is one of those days.
Last week my director received the following email from a patron and forwarded it to all the department heads to see what we thought about it:
Ms. Herrmann,
I just heard about Red Box doing a trial with Libraries across the country. This is a fantastic idea, there currently is no Red Box in Chelmsford Center. Attached is a link for you to look at.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jan/27/henderson-libraries-become-redbox-locations/
In case you’ve never heard of Red Box, they are dvd vending machines which rent new movies at $1 per night. The machines are located outdoors and are available to the consumer 24/7. Red Box pays the library and also allows the library to free up cash from having to purchase current films.
It would be great if Chelmsford could get in on this trial!!
I had heard of libraries using both Redbox and Netflix, but never really gave it too much though. So I was kind of surprised at my response to my director:
Maybe this is just a reaction based on the kind of day this has been, but I have mostly negative feelings about this. Based on http://tametheweb.com/2009/07/01/red-box-rentals-at-princeton-public-library/ is seems any money we get is minimal, and I’m always reluctant to give
businesses a green light to target library patrons.
If we did put one of these in, I sincerely hope it wouldn’t mean we’d be buying fewer DVDs and rely on this as a crutch, because just like Rosetta Stone, they can pull out at any time and we’d be left
scrambling to fill the holes in our collection.
Its biggest benefit would be providing patrons access to DVDs 24 hours a day, but it also means patrons have a reason to be at the front door 24 hours a day, doing who knows what - the police department might not like that idea. Then there’s also the patrons who return the RedBox
DVDs in our dropbox, those who put ours into the RedBox, patrons demanding refunds and tech support from the circ desk, blah blah blah.
More reading on this:
I know Conway makes money off our printers and the FaxVend people do too, but RedBox feels way more commercial - like letting a dealership put used cars in our parking lot to make it easier for patrons to shop for cars. Or letting a bookstore set up a table of bestsellers in the lobby and sell books so patrons don’t have to wait on a long reserve list.
I don’t know exactly why I don’t like it, but right now I’m leaning against it - but again, it might just my mood. Blah.
So my question is this: why I am wrong?
I don’t feel like I’m right, because I can see positive aspects to a Redbox being in front of the library (especially for libraries that already charge $1/DVD), and it’s unusual for me to be this negative. I don’t think that every new idea or technology has a place in every library, but still, my answer on this surprised me.
So I thought I’d ask the wider library world for your opinions on Redboxes and libraries. Lots of good comments were posted on Tame the Web when Michael talked about this last year, but I’m still not entirely convinced. What do you think?
Tags: business, commercial, dvd, dvds, libraries, Library, machine, public, redbox, rental, Service, vending See Also
Posted under Library, Service, Technology | 16 Comments »
February 18th, 2010 Brian Herzog
File this web tool under “why didn’t someone think of this before?” FillAnyPDF.com lets you upload any pdf or image file (such as a blank form), type on it, and then save the completed form as a new pdf file.
It’s not perfect, but it’s easier than a typewriter. I’ll use this both for patrons and myself, and I’m still surprised there aren’t tons of these sites out there.
via LibraryStuff
Tags: add, fill, form, image, libraries, Library, pdf, public, text, tool, type, web See Also
Posted under Resources, Technology | 1 Comment »
February 9th, 2010 Brian Herzog
It’s always sad when good intentions cause problems. This seems to be the case with a donation Massachusetts libraries are receiving from AAA Southern New England and Posit Science.
Massachusetts is considering requiring older drivers to get retested to keep their driver’s license. To help prepare drivers for this possibility, and to help all drivers in general, AAA of Southern New England has partnered with Posit Science, a brain fitness software developer, to provide libraries in the state with $1 million worth of free copies of their DriveSharp software for our patrons to use (read press releases).
Considering the emails and other chatter I’ve seen on this program, here are some of the things that went wrong:
- AAA seems to have announced this to its members before mentioning it to libraries, because many libraries are only finding out about this program when their patrons ask for it
- Libraries are receiving two copies of the software on CD-ROM, and AAA/Posit Science is suggesting we install one on an in-library computer and let one circulate
- CD is a horrible format for software - I will fight for my fax machine before I lift a finger to save the CD format
- Most libraries use Deep Freeze or some other software that prevents any data being saved session-to-session; it appears this software is only useful to patrons if their progress is saved
- Most libraries cannot dedicate one of their public workstations to this software - which is almost required, because if a library installs this on one of their internet workstations, you just know that any time someone comes in to use the software, someone will be on that computer checking their email or something
- The software is limited by the number of licenses
- Each library was sent 25 license codes, and the company recommends library staff include one code with the CD each time it gets checked out. There’s even a place that says “Librarian: Put license code sticker here”
- Except they didn’t send the license codes printed on stickers - just a sheet of paper with 25 code numbers
- This means library staff need to pay for the stickers and spend time typing them up
- And the codes are something like P423ZY78Q which means there is plenty of room for transcription error
- Putting a sticker on something might not sound like a lot of work, but it is prohibitively labor-intensive for most libraries, not to mention a new layer of complexity having to track this particular CD and apply the sticker every time it circulates
- And after the 25 codes are used, the CDs become useless unless we contact them for more codes
A $1 million donation is great and incredibly generous - but I’m sure many libraries are just throwing these CDs away instead of deal with the hassle of offering them. I don’t know if libraries were consulted beforehand or not, but I doubt it.
A much simpler execution would have been to make this software available online - no CDs to pay for or fuss with, less cost of mailing everything to libraries, and patrons could use it on any computer.
Besides: I know this is a useful free tool, and available to everyone. But, if a tax software company (or any company) sent us a free version of their software on CD and said, “hey, install this on your computers and lend it out to patrons,” should we rush to do that?
I don’t mean to whine about how complicated it is to be a librarian, but most people don’t think about what it takes to offer a whole lot of stuff to a whole lot of people. User Experience needs to be evaluated at every step of the chain, not just the beginning and end. Maybe this was the easiest thing for the company to produce, and maybe it’s the best software in the world. However, most end users will never see it, because the middle of the chain - the distribution points (libraries) - don’t have the time, staff, expertise or inclination to deal with it.
Bad UX. Sadly, it sounds like much of that $1 million donation was completely wasted.
And of course, since AAA is telling their customers to get this CD at the library, we either deal with the headache of processing and offering it, or the headache of telling patrons we don’t have it.
In my library, we decided to circulate one of them and keep the other in reserve in case the first disk is lost or damaged. We’re also including the entire list of 25 codes, and asking the patron to cross off the numbers as they use them, instead of messing around with stickers.
UPDATE 2/11/10: I’ve spoken with both Steven Aldrich from Posit Science and Mary Maguire from AAA Southern New England, and they are both researching some of these issues on their end. Hopefully I’ll soon be able to post more information on how the software works and a few circulation models some libraries have found successful.
UPDATE 2/22/10: Steven Aldrich pointed me to a presentation of some models libraries can use to offer this software, as well as how to make it work with programs like Deep Freeze. Very helpful - thank you Steven. Also, check out his blog post for more insight on this program.
Tags: aaa, aaa southern new england, cd, cd-rom, drive, drive sharp, drivers, drivesharp, driving, libraries, Library, posistscience, posit science, public See Also
Posted under Library, Technology | 6 Comments »
