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 15th, 2010 Brian Herzog
Library Journal’s 2010 Movers and Shakers list was released today, and I’m happy to be part of it.
Librarian By Day posted a nice linked list of all 50 librarians - thank you Bobbi. Thanks also to the other Movers and Shakers and everyone else out there that I learn from. I enjoy what I do, but generally feel quite stationary compared to many both on and off the list. Thank you.
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Posted under Library, Personal | 11 Comments »
March 13th, 2010 Brian Herzog
Here’s a good example of the danger of jargon.
We have one semi-regular patron who often appears to be drunk when she’s in the library. Despite our suspicions, as long as she doesn’t violate our general behavior policy*, we treat her like any other patron.
One day this week she came up to the desk and asked if I could help her on the computer. Back at her workstation, she was on the website of a heavy-duty makeup product she said she wanted to purchase. They had an online order form, but since she didn’t have a credit card, the patron wanted to find a list of local stores carried it.
I helped her navigate around the website, but there was no link to or listing of local retailers. There was an email contact form, and I said the quickest way to find out where she could buy it was to fill out that form and ask them. She said okay, and I went back to the desk.
A little while later, she came back up to the desk and asked if I could help her print something. When I got to her workstation this time, she was on the same website, except the right-click menu was popped up. The patron pointed to it and said,
See, right there, it says “Copy Link Location.” You print out a copy of their location list, because that link goes to their locations.
For being under the influence, even partially, I thought this was actually a very astute connection. It took me a good five minutes to explain to her that “link location” was a computer term meaning the address of that web page, and not the physical locations of stores. Reluctantly she accepted this, sat back down, and I went back to the desk.
A little while after that, she came and got me again, saying she found a list of the stores and needed help printing. This time when I got to her computer, the Print dialog box was up, and she said,
When I clicked that this box came up, and it has a button you click to see all their properties. When I click it I don’t see the stores they own, so you print out that list for me.
Again, I have never thought about the use of this term in that context, but I can see why it made complete sense to her. But, again, I had to explain to her that the Properties button didn’t refer to real estate properties, but the settings of the printer.
By this time she was exasperated at my total inability to print a list of stores for her. We clicked around the website again, but still there was no list of retail outlets to be found. I asked if she had submitted the Contact Us form, and she replied with something indecipherable.
It was almost closing time then, so she gave up and left**. I feel bad I couldn’t find what she wanted, but that product was definitely geared for online sales. Hopefully the company will write her with the information she needs.
*Which has happened, and in those cases we have called the police.
**On her bicycle.
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Posted under Library, Reference Question | 2 Comments »
March 11th, 2010 Brian Herzog
Here’s another one of those coincidences with the same topic popping up in different contexts throughout the day.
On my way in to work one day last week, I heard a story on the radio (via the BBC) talking about how children are becoming more sexualized. I wouldn’t have thought this was possible, but the report described how, for decades, society has told little girls that they need to be thin and pretty. But recently, society has ramped up this message, telling them they need to be thin and pretty and sexually-attractive to boys. It seemed to say that now it’s not just about looks, but that sex appeal is also required.
Later at work, our Teen Librarian asked me if I’d heard of a “princess bible.” I hadn’t, so I looked it up, and sure enough they are for sale. Our reactions were the same, and echoed the point of the radio show earlier: isn’t this an odd mixture of religion and sassy sexy self-image?
Not necessarily, of course, because I know my niece likes Disney princesses, and that is totally innocent. Perhaps I’m just being over-sensitive on the little girl sex angle. Maybe it’s just the marketing gimmicky feel of it I don’t like - it seems akin to using a cartoon camel to peddle cigarette to children. I guess I just question what this princess message is trying to appeal to in young girls - and whether that should be necessary to sell Bibles. It seems a bit at odds with the pious modesty of Christianity.
Interestingly, this book appears in WorldCat.
And just for a counter-point, BoingBoing reports that Campus atheists offer free porn in exchange for Bibles. I guess there’s more than one way to connect religion and sex.
Tags: bible, bibles, child, children, faith, libraries, Library, princess, princess bible, public, religion, sex, sexuality See Also
Posted under Books, Library | 3 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.
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Posted under Library, Technology | No Comments »
