Recent Comments
- Amazon’s book city #1, Alexandria, VA, may cut library hours: Time for a digital-era national endowment to help ease U.S. libraries’ financial woes? | The Travelin' Librarian { [...] Read the full article @ LibraryCity.org. [...] }
- Promising DPLA debut—but please don’t confuse special-collection items, exhibits and APIs with a full-fledged ‘public library’ demo | The Travelin' Librarian { [...] Read the full article @ librarycity.org. [...] }
- Tom Peters { Excellent review of the nascent D(P)LA e-resource. I agree with all your major points. Tis a pity that the usual suspects (Twain, Fitzgerald, Cather, et... } – Apr 19, 11:28 AM
- Online la Digital Public Library of America, che vuole superare Google e Wikipedia | Tropico del Libro { [...] di questo ambizioso progetto. Non sono mancate, in questo senso, le polemiche di chi ha vivamente esortato i creatori della DPLA a preoccuparsi anche... }
- David Rothman { Thanks for such a prompt and classy reply, Dan---you're indeed giving #dpla its due! I truly truly hope that the DPLA succeeds, and meanwhile the... } – Mar 31, 11:58 AM
- Dan Cohen { Thanks for the great and helpful post, David. To be clear on #2, I'm very interested (as I know others are within DPLA) and plan... } – Mar 31, 10:40 AM
- David Rothman { Hi, Don. Nice to see such enthusiasm from a veteran school librarian. I appreciate your thoughtfulness, agree with your priorities, and will have more to... } – Mar 26, 4:57 AM
- Don Smith { If I might, I would like to propose a statement of purpose for the National Digital Library. Often times during my forty year career as... } – Mar 25, 8:54 PM
- David Rothman { Hey, Ralph, here's a belated but heartfelt reply to one of your points. Around here we love both libraries and librarians and are interested in... } – Mar 13, 9:58 AM
- Some news from LibraryLand | not so quiet { [...] this opinion piece, David Rothman makes a case for folks in the Warren Buffet and Bill Gates income bracket to support [...] }
- Bibliotecas públicas sin libros en EE.UU. ¿A la de tres? | Bibliotecas 2029 { [...] comunicada, tuvo una contestación pública demoledora. No sólo los profesionales de todo el país se escandalizaron por este proyecto sino que los propios usuarios... }
- A National Digital Library Endowment { [...] An interesting concept from blogger David Rothman, founder of TeleRead. He suggests that those who have signed The Giving Pledge (though he doesn’t mention... }
- David Rothman { Hi, Robert. Some quick replies… 1. I envision a variety of business models in use, but if nothing else, libraries could buy multiple e-copies (or... } – Feb 20, 2:05 PM
- Robert Nagle { Generally, a great proposal, but here are some practical issues which pop up in my mind. First, if everything is centralized, when I put a... } – Feb 20, 12:56 PM
- ATG Article of the Week: Need Library E-Books to Feed Your New Gadget? Here’s the Answer | Against-the-Grain.com { [...] Need Library E-Books to Feed Your New Gadget? Here’s the Answer, is an thought provoking article by David Rothman posted in TeleRead a few... }
- Reading about eReading this week 2/18/2013 « Allegany County Library System Director's Notes { [...] A national digital library endowment: How America’s billionaires could be modern Carnegies for rea... [...] }
- Reading about eReading this week 1/28/2013 « Allegany County Library System Director's Notes { [...] Dwarf-sized public e-libraries vs. abundance: Listen to veteran publishing guru Brian O’Leary and ... [...] }
- David Rothman { You're welcome, Anthony. Keep us posted if you can Amy-ize your new Fire without installing a full-strength version of Android. David } – Jan 19, 5:46 PM
- Anthony { Thanks Dave! } – Jan 19, 4:47 PM
- David Rothman { Hi, Anthony. Some possibilities: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/where-to-get-more-help-with-your-kindle.html Happy Kindling, David } – Jan 19, 4:00 AM
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Recent Posts
- 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
- Voice Dream e-reading app: Stellar for text to speech—and promising as a general reader
- Amazon’s book city #1 avoids cuts in library hours but still might reduce its library book budget—already below the U.S. per-capita average
- Cut in Alexandria, VA, library hours not needed, says city staff memo. Also: Councilman Justin Wilson endorses LibraryCity’s national digital library endowment plan
- Is your local library budget about to be slashed? Here’s an example of how you can fight back
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Tag Archives: digital libraries
Promising DPLA debut—but please don’t confuse special-collection items, exhibits and APIs with a full-fledged ‘public library’ demo
A caveat first. The Digital Public Library of America is evolving. What’s more, I’m a booster of the organization and of the people behind it, including the new executive director, Dan Cohen, who so decently reacted after the Boston Marathon bombings. But for now, the academic-and-hacker mindset is prevailing at the DPLA over the traditional [...]
Beyond a ‘Digital Attic’: How the DPLA can honor the Five Laws of Library Science—and help libraries in Orange County, Florida
This is the era of bits and bytes and multimedia and 3D printing, not just books and other texts. But Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science would still apply today in spirit even after more than eighty years. Educated originally as a mathematician, S. R. Ranganathan was a library-science genius who studied librarianship [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
A national digital library endowment: How America’s billionaires could be modern Carnegies for real
Update: James Fallows’s blog on The Atlantic’s site reproduced part of this proposal, and the long version appeared in Sabrina Pacifici’s award-winning LLRX library journal. More details and an FAQ on the proposal are here. Warren Buffett was on CBS Sunday Morning. The interviewer, Rebecca Jarvis, asked if he owned an iPad. No. iPhone. No. [...]
eBooks, National Digital Public Library
Also tagged Amazon, Andrew Carnegie, Berkshire Hathaway, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Global Libraries Initiative, Bill Gates, Born Digital, Brian O'Leary, Cengage, Congress, contractors, digital divide, digital library, DPLA, dysfunction, e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, endowments, family literacy, FCC, Federal Communications Commission, Giving Pledge, Inerstate Highway System, Internet, Internet Archive, iPad, James Fallows, Jeff Bezos, John Palfrey, Jr., Kindle, librarianship, library endowments, library of congress, Lorain, Microsoft, National Archives, national digiital library system, national digital libraies, national digital library, National Digital Library Endowment, national digital library system, National Digital Public Library, New Jersey, Newark, Ohio, Paprika, Pentagon, philanthropies, philanthropy, public libraries, Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Surface tablet, TeleRead, The Atlantic, TheAtlantic.com, Warren Buffett, Wayback Machine, Web, WFB, William F. Buckley
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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 [...]
Uncategorized
Also tagged Amazon. Audible, Ivona, Jeff Bezos, Kindle, Paperwhite, text to speech, TTS
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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 [...]
National Digital Public Library, Uncategorized
Also tagged AAP, ALA, Alexandria, American Library Association, Association of Americans Publishers, Dangerous Convictions: What’s Really Wrong with the U.S. Congress, digital divide, k-12, librarianship, Library-Publisher Complex, Library-School-Publisher Complex, LSPC, Maureen Sullivan, military-industrial complex, Oxford University Press, publishers, publishing, Tom Allen, VA
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Library bedbugs: Growing threat to borrowers of paper books—and another justification for library e-books?
“…tiny bedbugs and their eggs can hide in the spines of hardcover books. The bugs crawl out at night to feed, find a new home in a headboard, and soon readers are enjoying not only plot twists but post-bite welts.” – New York Times. The LibraryCity take: No, this isn’t a suggestion to toss out [...]
Southern librarian’s thoughtful criticism of Gates Foundation survey unwittingly shows need for TWO national digital library systems—one public, one academic
Mindful of the record number of poor Americans, a thoughtful “Front Line Librarian” in a Southern state is asking an essential question in effect: Why care so much about library e-books and the rest when millions of low-income people lack computers or at least the skills to use them? Front Line says more reliance on [...]
Help the Gates Foundation decide how to spend money on libraries: Time to free ‘The Great Gatsby’ and other classics and support national digital library systems?
Update, December 3: My defense of the Gates survey against a Southern librarian’s thoughtful criticism of it. In an even more wired future, what will be the needs of public libraries in the U.S. and elsewhere? Just what’s the role of libraries if “a person can access much of the information in the world from [...]
eBooks, National Digital Public Library
Also tagged Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Global Libraries Initiative, Bill Gates, David H. Rothman, e-books, ebooks, F. Scott Fitzgerald, library books, Melinda Gates, philanthropies, philanthropy, TeleRead, The Great Gatsby
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