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
- On Jillian the Tiger Cub, a national digital library endowment, and the power of the American ego
- 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
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- Digital efforts of Library of Congress
- eBookNewser
- Gary Price's INFOdocket blog
- Harvard's Robert Darnton
- Library Journal
- LISNews
- Mike Shatzkin
- NDPL discussion forum
- Save Our Rockford Library
- School Library Journal
- TeleRead
- The Berkman Center's wiki on national digital library policy
- The Digital Reader
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Tag Archives: librarians
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
eBooks, LibraryCity, National Digital Public Library
Also tagged Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, COSLA, Digital Public Library of America, Don Smith, Donald R. Smith, DPLA, John Palfrey, k-12, librarianship, libraries, national digital libraies, national digital library, Ranganathan, Robert Darnton, school libraries, school libraries and the DPLA
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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 [...]
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 [...]
$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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
How Library Renewal and the DPLA could cooperate toward two good national digital library systems—public and academic
Been there. Done that. Some years ago I cofounded a noncommercial startup called LibraryCity—the same name as this Web site—to try to get millions of books online. We ran into a little complication: Google’s book side blew us away. LibraryCity did prod the International Digital Publishing Forum into getting serious about e-book standards, by way [...]
Attn. DPLA! Pay attention to Colorado and California e-library bypasses of OverDrive and consider your own distribution as much as possible
No secret. LibraryCity wants libraries to take over OverDrive and slash middleman costs. And here’s a great twist—partial inspiration for this already exists. Douglas County Libraries in Colorado is dealing directly with some publishers. The system applies its own Adobe DRM even though OverDrive books are also still available for now (this isn’t a complete [...]