Tag Archives: Digital Public Library of America

Voice Dream e-reading app: Stellar for text to speech—and promising as a general reader

The latest: An update of this post focuses on education-related issues of read-aloud apps. Also, I’ve just tried a Voice Dream beta with paging. More on the beta’s features later in the week. – D.R. A Catch-22 dogs those of us who most often read e-books visually but also want to hear them when we’re [...]

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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?

Update: We won! Library advocates successfully fought cuts in hours and the materials budget. Leaving us in the dark about the source of this tidbit, a Washington Post headline in the Style section blog says: “Alexandria, Virginia: the most well-read city in America.” Similar words show up elsewhere in the media about my hometown, the [...]

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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 [...]

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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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Sad fate of ‘Five Laws’ book shows need for DPLA-related efforts to keep old masterpieces alive

Oh, the irony! In The Five Laws of Library Science, S. R. Ranganathan argued in the 1930s for libraries as improvers of life for rich and poor alike. Now Google Books has digitized 30 million titles, but you won’t find Laws on the Web in its entirety from Google at any price. You’ll see a [...]

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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 [...]

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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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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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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 [...]

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Hurricane Sandy and the national digital library issue: With smartened-up journalists and voters, could we have stopped or slowed down global warming?

Canned and dried foods, flashlights, radios, cellphones and good UPSes aren’t the only essentials that the wired might buy in an anticipation of the growing number of weather-related exigencies like Hurricane Sandy. I’ve also purchased a $99 battery-powered portable hotspot through which my iPad and other WiFi-equipped devices  can stay in touch with the rest [...]

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$1M DPLA grant from Knight Foundation: Start of more synergy between libraries, schools and newspapers? And smarter civic life?

John S. Knight Jr. and his brother supplied the first name in Knight Ridder, one of America’s best newspaper chains. Pre- and post-merger, the company’s papers won a total of at least 84 Pulitzer prizes. Years before most competitors, Knight Ridder’s people were envisioning digital newspapers displayed on iPad-style tablets. Knight himself, in character for the chain [...]

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