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Stewart Varner and Patricia Hswe write: “Contemporary research in the humanities has expanded beyond anything that could be considered traditional. Historians are building interactive digital maps, literary scholars are using computers to look for patterns across millions of books, and scholars in all disciplines are taking advantage of the internet to make their work more dynamic and visually engaging.” A new American Libraries / Gale Cengage survey shows uncertainty and adaptation in the digital humanities....
American Libraries feature, Jan./Feb. |
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Alan S. Inouye writes: “In 2008, a little more than $1 out of every $100 in total publishing trade revenue went to ebook sales. Just four short years later, it had jumped to $23 of every $100. The 2014 data—from the Association of American Publishers—also shows that the ebook market share continues to hover around a quarter of total trade sales. (OverDrive reported that 2015 showed a 19% increase in library lending of ebooks over 2014.) What accounts for the sudden and rapid growth? One answer: the introduction of Amazon’s Kindle in 2007.”...
American Libraries feature, Jan./Feb.; Digital Book World, Apr. 11, 2013; Jan. 6 |
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 ALA President Sari Feldman writes: “The Libraries Transform campaign is the right message at the right time. Libraries of all types are transforming to find greater alignment with the needs of campus, public, and school communities. From California to Maine, powerful community disruption is leading to new roles for libraries and library professionals. While many librarians agree this is an exciting time for our profession, many are also anxious about an uncertain future.”...
American Libraries column, Jan./Feb. |
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ALA Treasurer Mario González writes: “The final audit for the 2015 fiscal year will be presented at the 2016 Midwinter Meeting in Boston. However, I would like to share with you now that preliminary results show a positive outcome for the Association. Overall, revenues generated by ALA and its divisions were 5% higher than expected, while expenses were slightly lower. This resulted in a net income balance of $533,000 for the total ALA budget.”...
American Libraries column, Jan./Feb. |
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Many American Libraries readers may know James LaRue (right) from his frequent contributions to the E-Content blog. Now, as the new director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, LaRue will be visible to members in an entirely new way. Even though his position began January 4 and he left for the ALA Midwinter Meeting soon after, LaRue was kind enough to answer a series of questions to help introduce himself to ALA members....
AL: The Scoop, Jan. 7 |
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Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (right) on January 6 signed Senate Bill 571 that focuses on eliminating abuse and creating transparency in how public resources are used for election purposes. “I understand there is confusion about how the bill impacts the use of public resources to disseminate factual information prior to an election,” Snyder said. “This provision needs to be clarified and I am working with my partners in the Legislature on a follow-up bill to address these concerns.” The Michigan Library Association remains highly engaged as the clarification language is crafted for the new bill....
WBUP-TV, Ishpeming, Mich., Jan. 6; Michigan Library Association |
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John Bertot, Lindsay Sarin, and Paul Jaeger write: “Public libraries are in transition, bridging the print, physical, digital, and virtual worlds. All of these currently evolving contributions of public libraries to their communities represent a critical opportunity to re-envision and recreate not only the public library, but also the master of library science degree program to both prepare students for new roles and ready them to be change agents and drivers of social innovation.”...
Public Libraries Online, Jan. 6 |
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On January 6, the New York Public Library released more than 180,000 of its public-domain items—including maps, posters, manuscripts, sheet music, drawings, photographs, letters, ancient texts—as high-resolution downloads, available to the public without restriction. It’s the latest push by NYPL Labs, the library’s internet-oriented tech and outreach team, to make the library’s holdings more accessible to the public. NYPL Labs also released a visualization of all the materials, sortable by date, genre, collection, and even color....
NPR: The Two-Way, Jan. 6; New York Public Library, Jan. 5 |
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After receiving a nearly $225,000 grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources, the University of Minnesota Libraries will soon embark on an ambitious two-year endeavor to digitize its materials on African-American history and culture. The materials, dating from the 16th century to present, will include nearly half a million pages of print documents, images, and audio and video recordings from more than 70 collections within the Archives and Special Collections Department....
University of Minnesota Libraries Continuum, Jan. 7
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The most popular book withdrawn from the official library at the United Nations gives advice on how diplomats and other officials can avoid criminal charges abroad, the organization has revealed. The Dag Hammarskjöld Library provides books and information to secretariat staff, diplomats, and delegates at the UN headquarters in New York City. The most popular book taken out in 2015 was Immunity of Heads of State and State Officials for International Crimes by Ramona Pedretti....
The Independent (UK), Jan. 7 |
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James Mason, technical services librarian at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, has stumbled on a famous composer’s concerto, lost for more than a century, buried deep in the archives. Kathleen Parlow is the only musician known to have performed the piece by Norwegian concertmaster Johan Halvorsen (1864–1935, right). It sat among her manuscript scores and ultimately came to Toronto, housed on an archival shelf “in a box that found its way to the back,” according to Mason....
Toronto Star, Jan. 6 |
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Marlon Hernandez writes: “3D printers can improve the library experience for all involved. However, what happens when that printer comes to a screeching and beeping halt? After two years of maintaining our printers, Makerbot Replicator 2 and Tinkerine Ditto Pro, and thanks to the kind donations of library patrons, I have assembled a toolbox that has eased daily maintenance and disassembly. This post is broken up into five sections covering different tools.”...
LITA Blog, Jan. 6 |
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M. David Stone and Laarni Almendrala Ragaza write: “There’s no time like a new year to replace that dinosaur of a printer on your desk. Picking the right printer can be tough, with so many features to choose from, and individual printers with almost any possible combination of those variations available. Here are some pointers to help you find both the right category of printer and the right model within that type, along with our top-rated reviews.”...
PC Magazine, Jan. 6 |
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Ebook provider Total Boox announced January 5 that the size of its ebook collection has more than quadrupled in the last few months, bringing the new total of titles available for instant reading to nearly 100,000. The increase is due to recently signed agreements with several publishers and distribution groups—among them Independent Publishers Group, Vearsa, Lonely Planet, Berlitz, De Gruyter, Oxford University Press (ELT Division), Lerner, Rourke Educational Media, and The Child’s World....
No Shelf Required, Jan. 6 |
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Tara Isabella Burton writes: “Reading novels is good for you. This is the current wisdom, at least. But throughout the 19th century, novels were regarded with the same suspicion with which we treat, say, Eli Roth’s Saw movies today. They were dangerous not simply because of the stories they might contain—the romantic expressions of wish-fulfillment that led Emma Bovary down the garden path of adultery—but also because reading itself was seen as a kind of possession: an encroachment of the ‘other’ upon the self.”...
Aeon, Jan. 7 |
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Roz Warren writes: “Laughter is a great way to relieve stress, which is why I follow @LousyLibrarian on Twitter. Every day, @LousyLibrarian posts a snarky, insightful, and often hilarious tweet about library life—such as ‘The word webinar comes from the Greek for you’re not going to learn anything.’ Whoever the anonymous @LousyLibrarian is, he/she is a sanity-saver if you’re reeling from an encounter with a toxic patron or just feeling overwhelmed by your workload.”...
Huffington Post: Books blog, Jan. 5 |
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