In an article about the growing interest and availability of digital audio books, the writer's subtitle says it all: But so far the files can be used only on Windows, not on Apple’s iPod. NetLibrary and OverDrive, Inc., still won't (they say can'tprovide audio books in an iPod compatible format.
Don't these people read the news? iPod has dominated the digital audio market! Not good enough for MicroSoft devotees, I guess.... I think that this is just fascinating. I wonder if librarians refused to buy audio books that aren't compatible with iPod, if these companies would change?
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
The Financial Times Article Examines the Pros and Cons of Google Digitization Project
From the article: Tony Sanfilippo is of two minds when it comes to Google Inc’s ambitious programme to scan millions of books and make their text fully searchable on the internet. Mr Sanfilippo credits the programme for boosting sales of obscure titles at Penn Sdate University Press, where he works. But, he’s worried that Google’s plans to create digital copies of books obtained directly from libraries could hurt his industry’s long-term revenues.
Hmmm.... I wonder whether anyone has examined the impact Google's project will have on paper manufacturer's? I have a hunch they may sell a lot of paper!
Hmmm.... I wonder whether anyone has examined the impact Google's project will have on paper manufacturer's? I have a hunch they may sell a lot of paper!
Authors Guild Sues Google, Citing “Massive Copyright Infringement”
From the Author's Guild website press release dated 20 September 2005:
"The Authors Guild and a Lincoln biographer, a children's book author, and a former Poet Laureate of the United States filed a class action suit today in federal court in Manhattan against Google over its unauthorized scanning and copying of books through its Google Library program. The suit alleges that the $90 billion search engine and advertising juggernaut is engaging in massive copyright infringement at the expense of the rights of individual writers."
"The Authors Guild and a Lincoln biographer, a children's book author, and a former Poet Laureate of the United States filed a class action suit today in federal court in Manhattan against Google over its unauthorized scanning and copying of books through its Google Library program. The suit alleges that the $90 billion search engine and advertising juggernaut is engaging in massive copyright infringement at the expense of the rights of individual writers."
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Bucking the Revolution! At Least Two Libraries Dragging Patrons into the Future Their Way - Whether Patrons Like it or Not!
Two library systems have announced that they are providing digital e-books to their patrons. Maricopa Library District and Hawaii State Library Systems have each announced that they are teaming with Overdrive.com to provide exciting new services to patrons.
An interesting aspect of each program is that in an age in which over fifteen million iPods have been sold, Overdrive.com doesn't support that technology! Preferring clumsy Microsoft Windows Media Player, the company - and libraries who partner with them - apparently believe that iPod owners aren't worth the effort. In trying to come accross as cutting edge by providing new services using new technology, they demand allegiance to the stuffy monopoly of Microsoft instead of appealing to the true innvators in the MP3 world.
An interesting demonstration of counter-revolution: Why adopt cutting edge technology when blunt-edge will do? After all, blunt edge is Windows compatible!
Go figure!?
An interesting aspect of each program is that in an age in which over fifteen million iPods have been sold, Overdrive.com doesn't support that technology! Preferring clumsy Microsoft Windows Media Player, the company - and libraries who partner with them - apparently believe that iPod owners aren't worth the effort. In trying to come accross as cutting edge by providing new services using new technology, they demand allegiance to the stuffy monopoly of Microsoft instead of appealing to the true innvators in the MP3 world.
An interesting demonstration of counter-revolution: Why adopt cutting edge technology when blunt-edge will do? After all, blunt edge is Windows compatible!
Go figure!?
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
A New Definition of Reality!
Dr. Sam Vakin, writing in The Global Politician strains to give us a definition of the book, vis a vis e-books, that demonstrates print's inherent foibles. In his desperate attempt to describe print in terms that show it is inferior to books in digital format, he declares:
"Ostensibly, consumers should gravitate to the feature-rich and much cheaper e-book. But they won't - because the medium is as important as the text message. It is not enough to own the same content, or to gain access to the same message. Ownership of the right medium does count. Print books offer connectivity within an historical context (tradition). E-books are cold and impersonal, alienated and detached. The printed word offers permanence. Digital text is ephemeral (as anyone whose writings perished in the recent dot.com bloodbath or Deja takeover by Google can attest). Printed volumes are a whole sensorium, a sensual experience - olfactory and tactile and visual. E-books are one dimensional in comparison. These are differences that cannot be overcome, not even with the advent of digital "ink" on digital "paper". They will keep the print book alive and publishers' revenues flowing."
Perhaps he has forgotten that computers, too, exist in three dimensions, and possess smell and other sensory attributes? It appears to me that his "criticisms" of print are also print's greatest virtues: they exist in the gestalt, the here and now. And, we humans are to be criticized as preferring books because we can hold them, use them without restriction and enjoy them right here, right now?
I'm confused....
"Ostensibly, consumers should gravitate to the feature-rich and much cheaper e-book. But they won't - because the medium is as important as the text message. It is not enough to own the same content, or to gain access to the same message. Ownership of the right medium does count. Print books offer connectivity within an historical context (tradition). E-books are cold and impersonal, alienated and detached. The printed word offers permanence. Digital text is ephemeral (as anyone whose writings perished in the recent dot.com bloodbath or Deja takeover by Google can attest). Printed volumes are a whole sensorium, a sensual experience - olfactory and tactile and visual. E-books are one dimensional in comparison. These are differences that cannot be overcome, not even with the advent of digital "ink" on digital "paper". They will keep the print book alive and publishers' revenues flowing."
Perhaps he has forgotten that computers, too, exist in three dimensions, and possess smell and other sensory attributes? It appears to me that his "criticisms" of print are also print's greatest virtues: they exist in the gestalt, the here and now. And, we humans are to be criticized as preferring books because we can hold them, use them without restriction and enjoy them right here, right now?
I'm confused....
Yahoo! and Google's Library Initiatives: The New OPAC's?
BusinessWeekOnline's Stephen Wildtrom recently wrote an interesting article about Yahoo!'s and Google's digital library initiatives. In the article, he makes observations that support a point I've been making continuously on this blog: that Google's "project ocean" will essentially create an online index to the great books of the world. Who knows? Perhaps we're on the verge of a rennaisance in libraries! Mr. Wildstrom concludes with the following observations:
"Even if I end up having to go to a university library to see the whole book, this still strikes me as a powerful tool that I would have died for back in my student days. As useful as the Web is, Google Print shows how much is missing. It's good to see it gradually coming within clicking distance."
"Even if I end up having to go to a university library to see the whole book, this still strikes me as a powerful tool that I would have died for back in my student days. As useful as the Web is, Google Print shows how much is missing. It's good to see it gradually coming within clicking distance."
Monday, August 01, 2005
Forbes' interesting comment on the "Invisible Web"
Steve Manes has written an interesting essay in the Digital Tools section of Forbes, titled "Google Isn't Everything." With cute, lay-persons' wonder he describes his discovery of the invisible web and the revelation that there beauty is only skin deep!
Most interesting, however, are his comments about arrangement of the resources in the library websites. Sounds vaguely similar to complaints librarians have heard for centuries regarding arrangement of collections. Remember Ranganathan's Fourth Law: Save the time of the reader.
Perhaps Yogi Berra was right again: The more things change, the more they remain the same....
Most interesting, however, are his comments about arrangement of the resources in the library websites. Sounds vaguely similar to complaints librarians have heard for centuries regarding arrangement of collections. Remember Ranganathan's Fourth Law: Save the time of the reader.
Perhaps Yogi Berra was right again: The more things change, the more they remain the same....
Library Journal article about "LibraryCity" raises more questions than answers
In the article about an apparently interesting and innovative project called LibraryCity [Note: no spaces, a la modern tech patois], the adivosory librarian, Tom Peters is described as:
"an e-book usability expert as well as former director of the Center for Library Initiatives at the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), the academic consortium of the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago."
Keep in mind an earlier posting below in which the University of Chicago is in the process of building what is being touted as being the largest print library in North America!
The highlight of the article comes when Peters is quoted:
“Our goal is to construct a worldwide digital library of both public-domain and copyright-protected e-books... LibraryCity wants to stretch the traditional notion of a library… For example, we will make it possible for readers to post study guides, comments, and other documents that support the continued use of public-domain information as well as copyright-protected e-books.” It’s not yet clear how that would work.
But it will be fun to see them try....
"an e-book usability expert as well as former director of the Center for Library Initiatives at the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), the academic consortium of the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago."
Keep in mind an earlier posting below in which the University of Chicago is in the process of building what is being touted as being the largest print library in North America!
The highlight of the article comes when Peters is quoted:
“Our goal is to construct a worldwide digital library of both public-domain and copyright-protected e-books... LibraryCity wants to stretch the traditional notion of a library… For example, we will make it possible for readers to post study guides, comments, and other documents that support the continued use of public-domain information as well as copyright-protected e-books.” It’s not yet clear how that would work.
But it will be fun to see them try....
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Wow! The Future IS Already Here!!
Thanks to Prof. Brian Baker (UDC) for this tibbit from Drexel University's "information" page on their proposed new law school. Apparently they won't even have computers at this law library: Blackberries only!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE:
The author of the linked article got LOTS of flack for his language about the future of law libraries. In the meantime he has "seen the light" and has apparently re-written the lbrary section of the proposed law school information web-pages. Good for him! In the meantime, the language on the page is a classic example of what can happen when one lets infatuation with all things "future" run away with you. I've decided to preserve the original language with the following excerpt:
"Thirty years ago, when the last first-tier university in the United States opened a law school, the Selectric typewriter (http://www.selectric.org/selectric) was state of the art, the telefacsimile (only later known as the fax) and the word processors were still on the drawing boards, and the Internet was still just an idea in some professors’ heads. Lexis® and Westlaw® arrived on the scene in the early 1970s, offering the first commercial, full-text legal information services, but the legal profession had depended on libraries as the source of the law, and was slow to accept these innovations.
"Today, only retired partners, law firm messengers, and people needing a quiet place to think or write can be found in law libraries, as virtually all legal resources have been digitized and made accessible through electronic data library services. Today, lawyers can access the law wirelessly from their offices, or over their BlackBerries®.
"Drexel was one of the first universities in the country to go “wireless” and to require its students to have computers. It has a very successful distance learning company Drexel e-Learning, Inc., that is providing quality educational programs to Drexel’s graduate and undergraduate students, ensuring that they can take classes when they want to, from wherever they might be. And its libraries (http://www.library.drexel.edu) are both wireless and rich with resources.
"Drexel’s law library will be similarly state-of-the-art. In fact, it will be three-dimensional. First, it will have a “physical core library”. This will include the resources that the American Bar Association requires all law schools to have. It will also include special depth in those areas that will be the focal points of the law school programs - health law, intellectual property, entrepreneurial business, environmental law, elder law, and the like."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE:
The author of the linked article got LOTS of flack for his language about the future of law libraries. In the meantime he has "seen the light" and has apparently re-written the lbrary section of the proposed law school information web-pages. Good for him! In the meantime, the language on the page is a classic example of what can happen when one lets infatuation with all things "future" run away with you. I've decided to preserve the original language with the following excerpt:
"Thirty years ago, when the last first-tier university in the United States opened a law school, the Selectric typewriter (http://www.selectric.org/selectric) was state of the art, the telefacsimile (only later known as the fax) and the word processors were still on the drawing boards, and the Internet was still just an idea in some professors’ heads. Lexis® and Westlaw® arrived on the scene in the early 1970s, offering the first commercial, full-text legal information services, but the legal profession had depended on libraries as the source of the law, and was slow to accept these innovations.
"Today, only retired partners, law firm messengers, and people needing a quiet place to think or write can be found in law libraries, as virtually all legal resources have been digitized and made accessible through electronic data library services. Today, lawyers can access the law wirelessly from their offices, or over their BlackBerries®.
"Drexel was one of the first universities in the country to go “wireless” and to require its students to have computers. It has a very successful distance learning company Drexel e-Learning, Inc., that is providing quality educational programs to Drexel’s graduate and undergraduate students, ensuring that they can take classes when they want to, from wherever they might be. And its libraries (http://www.library.drexel.edu) are both wireless and rich with resources.
"Drexel’s law library will be similarly state-of-the-art. In fact, it will be three-dimensional. First, it will have a “physical core library”. This will include the resources that the American Bar Association requires all law schools to have. It will also include special depth in those areas that will be the focal points of the law school programs - health law, intellectual property, entrepreneurial business, environmental law, elder law, and the like."
MSNBC's "Practical Futurist" Comes to Some Impractical (Albeit Interesting) Conclusions
This article, "Turning Books into Bits" is worth reading. The Practical Futurist reports some interesting facts, and makes some interesting observations; unfortunately, he reveals the subtle oxymoron of putting the words "practical" and "future" in the same sentence....
Monday, June 20, 2005
British Library Web Page Features Cool "Online Book" Display
These are more than "online books" these are full featured, fully navigable online versions of important books. They include scrolls that you can scroll through, illiminated manuscripts with maginfiers and optional commentary.... Pretty cool, eh?
Friday, June 03, 2005
Creating an "Intelligent" Web
In this interesting, if impossibly (for the web anyway) LONG article, Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., describes an interesting initiative to create creator-defined meta-data as an integral part of HTML, thus making searching "more relevant." Good idea, too. Its just that teaching cataloging and indexing principles to millions of content creators sounds like a daunting task.
But, I guess after reading Mr Vaknin's article, they'll all be convinced that boning up on and following indexing standards is the "right thing to do!" And, of course, they'll just do it.....
But, I guess after reading Mr Vaknin's article, they'll all be convinced that boning up on and following indexing standards is the "right thing to do!" And, of course, they'll just do it.....
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Google Goes Live With Print.Google.com
Google's "library digitization" project went live in Beta on May 26, 2005. Don't fret, yet. It's not all its cracked up to be. A search of "natural law," for example, turned up thousands of hits; but no full text! A search reveals the pages where you search terms appear, but then offers information of how to buy the book, or where to find copies. It appears to not provide full text of books - yet.
This only reinforces what many pundits have been saying: Google's project provides us with a virtual search engine, not a virtual library!
This only reinforces what many pundits have been saying: Google's project provides us with a virtual search engine, not a virtual library!
Thursday, May 26, 2005
University of Iowa Exhibit on Bookbinding Is A Reminder Of The Durability Of Books
Quotes from the i-newswire (U of Iowa news service):
"Today digital storage and retrieval methods are very popular, yet most digital storage is outdated and unreadable within 25 years," says Gary Frost, University Conservator. "On the other hand, a storage technology using carbon ink and papyrus of late antiquity has proven readable for 16 centuries."
The exhibition is presented by the Friends of the UI Libraries in conjunction with the conference "The Changing Book: Transitions in Design, Production and Preservation" that will be held at the UI Libraries July 22-25, and the University of Iowa Museum of Art exhibition "Bill Anthony: Fine Book Binder," on exhibit through July 31.
"Today digital storage and retrieval methods are very popular, yet most digital storage is outdated and unreadable within 25 years," says Gary Frost, University Conservator. "On the other hand, a storage technology using carbon ink and papyrus of late antiquity has proven readable for 16 centuries."
The exhibition is presented by the Friends of the UI Libraries in conjunction with the conference "The Changing Book: Transitions in Design, Production and Preservation" that will be held at the UI Libraries July 22-25, and the University of Iowa Museum of Art exhibition "Bill Anthony: Fine Book Binder," on exhibit through July 31.
Georgetown Professor Laments U of Texas Library Book Removal Plans
Professor Michael Czinkota, in a special column to the Japan Times gives pretty good, if not original, defense of books in libraries.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Dutch Universities Create Free Internet Scientific Research Site
According to an article in The Register: "Scientists from all major Dutch universities officially launched a website on Tuesday where all their research material can be accessed for free. Interested parties can get hold of a total of 47,000 digital documents from 16 institutions the Digital Academic Repositories. No other nation in the world offers such easy access to its complete academic research output in digital form, the researchers claim. Obviously, commercial publishers are not amused." [Reed-Elsevier is Holland's own enormously big and profitable international science journal publisher....]
Sunday, May 15, 2005
In the World of Libraries You Don't Need to be a Nation to Create International Controversies!
According to a recent article in Cherwell Online, "France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain have asked the EU to launch its own library initiative, proposed by French President, Jacques Chirac.
"The plans come as several European countries have spoken out against Google’s digitisation plans, for fear of cultural dominance. Jean-Noel Jeanneney, President of the French National Library, published a book this weekend entitled, When Google Challenges Europe, presenting a vision of Google carrying out a hostile takeover of “the thought of the world”."
"The plans come as several European countries have spoken out against Google’s digitisation plans, for fear of cultural dominance. Jean-Noel Jeanneney, President of the French National Library, published a book this weekend entitled, When Google Challenges Europe, presenting a vision of Google carrying out a hostile takeover of “the thought of the world”."
U Texas to Move 90K Books from Undergrad Lib for Info Commons
According to an article in The Ledger Online:
By mid-July, the university says, almost all of the library's 90,000 volumes will be dispersed to other university collections to clear space for a 24-hour electronic information commons, a fast-spreading phenomenon that is transforming research and study on campuses around the country.
"In this information-seeking America, I can't think of anyone who would elect to build a books-only library," said Fred Heath, vice provost of the University of Texas Libraries in Austin.
....
The trend is being driven, academicians and librarians say, by the dwindling need for undergraduate libraries, many of which were built when leading research libraries were reserved for graduate students and faculty. But those distinctions have largely crumbled, with research libraries throwing open their stacks, leaving undergraduate libraries as increasingly puny adjuncts with duplicate collections and shelves of light reading.
Mr. Heath said removal of the books had raised some eyebrows among the faculty and anxiety among the library staff. But he said the concerns were needless. "Books are the fundamental icon of intellectual efforts," he said, "the scholarly communication of our time."
So, Mr. Heath said, speaking of the library, "if you move it, there's a pang, a sense of loss." He added that the books were merely being moved within the university's library system, one of the nation's largest, home to some 8 million volumes and growing by 100,000 a year. Basic reference books like dictionaries and encyclopedias will remain.
The move, Mr. Heath said, would free about 6,000 square feet in the four-story Flawn Academic Center, which opened in 1963.
Students at Texas, interviewed as they studied or lounged at the library tables, said that they would welcome extra computer space and that they got most of their books anyway at the far larger Perry-Castañeda Library. But some said they liked the popular selection at the undergraduate library and feared the loss of a familiar and congenial space.
"Well, this is a library - it's supposed to have books in it," said Jessica Zaharias, a senior in business management. "You can't really replace books. There's plenty of libraries where they have study rooms. This is a nice place for students to come to. It's central in campus."
By mid-July, the university says, almost all of the library's 90,000 volumes will be dispersed to other university collections to clear space for a 24-hour electronic information commons, a fast-spreading phenomenon that is transforming research and study on campuses around the country.
"In this information-seeking America, I can't think of anyone who would elect to build a books-only library," said Fred Heath, vice provost of the University of Texas Libraries in Austin.
....
The trend is being driven, academicians and librarians say, by the dwindling need for undergraduate libraries, many of which were built when leading research libraries were reserved for graduate students and faculty. But those distinctions have largely crumbled, with research libraries throwing open their stacks, leaving undergraduate libraries as increasingly puny adjuncts with duplicate collections and shelves of light reading.
Mr. Heath said removal of the books had raised some eyebrows among the faculty and anxiety among the library staff. But he said the concerns were needless. "Books are the fundamental icon of intellectual efforts," he said, "the scholarly communication of our time."
So, Mr. Heath said, speaking of the library, "if you move it, there's a pang, a sense of loss." He added that the books were merely being moved within the university's library system, one of the nation's largest, home to some 8 million volumes and growing by 100,000 a year. Basic reference books like dictionaries and encyclopedias will remain.
The move, Mr. Heath said, would free about 6,000 square feet in the four-story Flawn Academic Center, which opened in 1963.
Students at Texas, interviewed as they studied or lounged at the library tables, said that they would welcome extra computer space and that they got most of their books anyway at the far larger Perry-Castañeda Library. But some said they liked the popular selection at the undergraduate library and feared the loss of a familiar and congenial space.
"Well, this is a library - it's supposed to have books in it," said Jessica Zaharias, a senior in business management. "You can't really replace books. There's plenty of libraries where they have study rooms. This is a nice place for students to come to. It's central in campus."
Friday, May 06, 2005
"What me worry? My data's all been backed up!"
This headline, "Time Warner: Backup tapes with data on 600,000 employees lost" in national papers on May 2, 2005, says it all. First of all, computer data isn't all that permanent, is it? Second, it doesn't take much to affect a lot of data. One little misplaced trunk and "poof!" an entire library, gone....
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
EU to launch Digital Library
EU President, Jean-Claude Juncker, announced that the EU will form a digital library program to "counter" Google's digital library plans. "We have to act," he said, "That's why I say yes to the initiative of the French presidet to launch a European digital library." What's every body so afraid of?
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