Archive for the Category: LibraryCity

E-book usability news: Adjustable line spacing now on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9” and perhaps other Fire HDs—although I still can’t narrow the spaces sufficiently

LibraryCity knocked Amazon for not letting users of the Kindle Fire HDs adjust their line spacing. But guess what I noticed just now within the font-related submenu of my Kindle HD 8.9” model running version 8.3.1 firmware? Alas, on my several files tested, I still couldn’t narrow the spaces sufficiently on the HD even though [...]

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LibraryCity’s take on K-12 libraries and the Digital Public Library of America

Yes, LibraryCity has been on an S. R. Ranganathan kick lately (here and here). Still ahead is a DPLA-related essay on his Five Laws of Library Science as applied to K-12, including school libraries—a follow-up to the LibraryCity post by Apple Distinguished Educator Donald R. Smith, a teacher-librarian with 40 years of experience. If you [...]

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A national digital library endowment: More details, an FAQ, and an invitation to librarians and others to help shape the proposal

LibraryCity inspired mentions on the Atlantic Magazine’s Web site and elsewhere with a call for a national digital library endowment for the United States. Endowment funds would come entirely or almost entirely from philanthropists, in the beginning at least, given the hostility of so many politicians toward new programs. The endowment would be just one [...]

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Google’s powerful Nexus 10 Android tablet as a library patron’s delight: The hardware and the apps that shine on it

YouTube from MobileTechReview’s Lisa Gade I drive a 1988 Honda and on the whole lead a frugal life. But I have a weakness for e-books and gizmos for reading them. You can’t fathom technology, at the practical level for library patrons and other book-lovers, without using it. Curious where the tech is headed? Well, what [...]

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How I turned my Kindle Fire HD from a cash register and billboard into a good machine for an e-book lover

H.L. Mencken, the American iconoclast, depicted Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” Could the same idea apply to the killjoys at Amazon who so cruelly made the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire HD less of an e-book machine and more of a billboard and cash register? Granted, many readers might not [...]

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Friends of Quinn and LD OnLine: Two good Web sites illustrate need for separate national digital library systems—public and academic

Two good Web sites on learning disabilities show the need for separate but tightly intertwined national digital library systems. One system public, one academic. Neither site is a library’s. Friends of Quinn is a grassroots nonprofit featuring Quinn Bradlee, son of Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee—the legendary society columnist and the Watergate editor. LD OnLine [...]

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The risks of cloud-based e-books—and the related need for a robust, well-secured infrastructure

As keen as I am on library e-books, I’m as much a booster of the buyable variety. I want people to be able to own e-books for real, ideally without DRM. More and more of our books, music, and even personal files, however, are in The Cloud beyond our direct control. Not on our desktops, smartphones [...]

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OverDrive, safeguarding classics, the Jane Austen-‘Hunger Games’ connection, and a few other priorities for the DPLA to ponder

The Harvard-hosted Digital Public Library of America is doing plenty of things right on the path toward a national digital library system. For example, the DPLA’s successor will be less Harvard-centric. And via a sister organization, the current group has just snared a $1-million federal grant to help library patrons find and view library and [...]

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LibraryCity co-founder Tom Peters to be Missouri State University’s dean of university libraries

Congratulations to Tom Peters, a veteran academic librarian, consultant, and co-founder of LibraryCity—just appointed dean of university libraries at Missouri State University. He’ll start August 1. Tom (yes, same first and last names as the management guru) is now assistant dean for technology initiatives at Milner Library at Illinois State University. For understandable career reasons, [...]

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OverDrive buyout proposal makes LibraryJournal.com: ‘Not such a crazy idea,’ says DPLA’s John Palfrey

Although I’m still gung ho about the Digital Public Library of America, I retain some of the concerns arising in a recent MIT Technology Review article. For example, how can we  reconcile the DPLA’s various goals and serve academic and public library patrons, whose needs and interests may differ sharply? One strategy would be for public libraries, [...]

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Why a bestselling writer would be an excellent addition to the steering committee of the Harvard-hosted Digital Public Library of America

Like it or not, a lot more public library patrons care about bestsellers and other commercial books than about academic works. Frustratingly, the Harvard-hosted Digital Public Library of America has no commercial writer or other nonacademic content provider on its 17-member steering committee. Nick Taylor, a prominent member of the Authors Guild, is wondering about [...]

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With so many U.S. kids in poverty, a national digital library and hardware program could be a godsend for children’s e-book publishers

LibraryCity has posted a number of items mentioning e-books and family literacy—for example, The nuts and bolts of using tablet computers, e-libraries, and family literacy initiatives to encourage young children to read. Now comes a gem of a post from Jeremy Greenfield: When Growth in Children’s E-Books Hits the Poverty Line. Greenfield didn’t mention a [...]

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