Archive for the Category: Uncategorized

Cut in Alexandria, VA, library hours not needed, says city staff memo. Also: Councilman Justin Wilson endorses LibraryCity’s national digital library endowment plan

Justin Wilson, a councilman in Alexandria, VA, Amazon’s “most well-read” city, now threatened with a reduction in library hours, has shared a city staff memo saying that the hours cuts aren’t necessary. He says the library board will have the final say. Would board members challenge the memo? I’ll try to reach Board Chair Kathleen [...]

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Is your local library budget about to be slashed? Here’s an example of how you can fight back

This letter has gone to Mayor William Euille (photo below, contact information here for him and other top officials) in Alexandria, VA, the town that Amazon inaccurately depicted as America’s book city #1. Also see a local Friends group’s talking points for library advocates—and the other side: a city staff memo saying the library board [...]

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Later today at LibraryCity.org: The DPLA and the Five Laws of Library Science

If Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan were alive, what would he think of the Digital Public Library of America? Is the DPLA’s present vision in line with his Five Laws of Library Science? Later today, Washington, D.C., time. (Update: Online late Saturday.) For now, enjoy the holidays. And while you’re at it, check out a child-oriented library [...]

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FAQ on National Digital Library endowment plan going online this weekend: Be a part of it

Update, April 18, 2013: The FAQ is here. Feedback still welcome! Librarians and others can help build a National Digital Library Endowment FAQ—with questions, suggested answers and other ideas. Just email. Yes, I know: If you’re a typical librarian, for example, you’re busy enough with your regular work But this is an invitation to those [...]

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Was librarian David Faucheux the world’s first blind blogger?

Was my friend David Faucheux—a library and information science graduate—the world’s first blind blogger? Any librarians or others know the answer? I set David up in May 2004 on a commercial audio service, which he dialed up to submit recordings, often augmented with text. For the next four years David gave us an inimitable slice [...]

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Amazon buys Ivona text to speech: Good or bad for disabled e-library users and other TTS fans?

Well, guess which Seattle-based  megaconglomerate has just bought Ivona Software (Web site here, Wikipedia entry here)—perhaps the world’s best provider of text to speech to use with e-books and other texts? That’s right, Amazon. It’s reportedly already using Ivona’s Salli voice in the Kindle Fire, and Ivona tech is also powering “Voice Guide” and “Explore [...]

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Dwarf-sized public e-libraries vs. abundance: Listen to veteran publishing guru Brian O’Leary and librarian Sarah Houghton

People in Bexar County, Texas, should be excited about the 10,000-e-book “BiblioTech” library system that the country is starting from scratch—without paper books. This is reportedly the first U.S. public library system to shun paper, cardboard and ink, except for computer printouts. Any books are better than none, and besides, the 10K figure encompasses only [...]

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Barack Obama and the suicide of computer genius Aaron Swartz: Time for Presidential peacemaking in the online copyright wars

After Henry Louis Gates, Jr., an African-American Harvard professor, was erroneously arrested for breaking and entering, Barack Obama spoke up. The President at first overdid his criticism of the police, but in the end played the meritable role of peacemaker, inviting both Prof. Gates and the arresting policeman to the White House for a “Beer [...]

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Saving Barnes & Noble from itself: The DRM angle

This is a library blog, but I covered the e-bookstore scene for many years when I owned TeleRead, and old habits die hard. Now here’s a heartfelt suggestion for the besieged people at Barnes & Noble, in the spirit of the recommendations that Joanna Cabot and my other friends at TeleRead have offered: Rid your [...]

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Toward a Library-Publisher Complex for the digital era: Where the money is for both sides

The Military-Industrial Complex in Alexandria… I live in the Washington suburbs, where “Military-Industrial Complex” is more than just rhetoric in an Eisenhower speech from 1961. Just across 1-395 from me, here in Alexandria, Virginia, loom the twin towers of the $1+ billion Quarter Pentagon, featured in this Army Corps of Engineers video bragging of its [...]

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Not enough library e-books to feed your new gadget properly? Well-stocked national digital library systems could help

If you can’t find the right library e-books for your new Kindle, Nook, iPad or other gizmo, you’re not alone. More than 100 patrons of the District of Columbia Public Library were lined up electronically today for 10 e-book copies of The Racketeer, John Grisham’s new novel about the murder of a federal judge. Some [...]

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The risks if the DPLA won’t create a full-strength national digital library system: Setbacks for K-12, family literacy, local libraries, preservation, digital divide efforts?

Attn. LibraryCity visitors: You can participate remotely in a DPLA board meeting starting 11 a.m. EST, Monday, December 17. The teachers didn’t show up… Not one current K-12 teacher was among the two dozen or so attendees at the Audience and Participation Workstream of the Digital Public Library of America this month—even though the DPLA [...]

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