Library News in Short: Week of Nov 25 - Dec 1

Union Gap Library Closed - Seems if your city can't pay, the libraries won't play.

Skowhegan Library Finds Old Books -  Check your libraries attic and see what you find.

San Francisco Public to Design Library Cards - Most popular design?  The "Cock and Balls," a delightful rendition of a rooster playing tennis.

Maine ebook Firm Says No to Nonfiction - That's the one that's not true, right?  I always confuse those two.

Archway Books Announced - The lovely folks at Simon & Schuster tell public "Fine, publish your own crap."

Manheim Township Library Plays with Legos - "Read, Build, Play?"  More like... um... I wanted to win that.

Schoolcraft Community Librarian Surprised to be Nominated - She thought she had entered to win Ben Stein's money.

Bob Saget Has a Book Deal - 10 Ways to Bang the Olsen Twins

Poland Library Stinks - Had they only gone with Brand X, this wouldn't be a problem.

Gingerbread Invades Medway Public Library - If the tiny gingerbread people could only know the holocaust that awaits them.

Librarian's Can't Do Michael Jackson Says Youtube - Then what the hell are we supposed to do with our weekend?  Here's that video:

NC Libraries to Provide eBook Access

"North Carolina libraries, including Moore County Library, and NC LIVE have teamed up with San Francisco-based nonprofit Internet Archive on a project that gives library patrons free access to a large downloadable e-book collection.

The collaboration allows North Carolinians to check out and download more than 200,000 e-books published between 1923 and 1999 through Open Library, an e-book lending platform developed by Internet Archive."

Collaborative Project Provides Moore County Library Patrons With Access To ... - Southern Pines Pilot

Did anybody else know that ebooks have been around since 1923?  Go back up and read, I'll wait. 

You read that right, "200,000 ebooks published between 1923 and 1999."  Who knows what kinds of treasures are in that collection?  I can only imagine Hemingway and Fitzgerald sitting around Paris, Kindle in one hand, brain lubricant in the other, wondering how such marvels presented themselves.  Technology, am I right?

We Get It, Random House, You Hate Libraries

Random House publishing has raised ebook prices for libraries, up nearly 300 percent for lending books.  This is after last year's library lending cap of checkouts that RH implemented.  Many libraries across the country are complaining and thinking of boycotting the publishing giant.

So there it is.  We thought maybe it was just the situation, but it's us, right?  Come'on, baby, we were so good together.  Why you gotta be like this?  Remember back in the day when we were good together, you all sexy with your booth at ALA with those tote bags and we used to have a good time?  What happened?  We always bought your books, got some good programs back in return.  Is there another giant network of government sponsored programs?  We can do better, we swear.  Just be cool, baby. 

Fine, trial separation then.  You'll be back.  Nobody treated you good as libraries did.  So go, have your fun out there.  We will be here when you come crawling back.

Random House Raises E-Book Prices for Libraries as Much as 300 Percent - DailyTech

Hipster Was Into Print Books, Libraries Before They Were Retro Cool

Bay area hipster Jeremy Potter, 23, claims he has been going to the library for years and reading print materials way before anyone else.

"Man, I was all about going to the Hot Topic, then rolling to the 'brary for some Encyclopedia Brown when I was a kid," Potter said, "When I grew up I did all the Dickens, Shakespeare and Kaufka then everyone was reading them.  I went back to my roots, a little underground industry called graphic novels.  Then it was like everyone was getting them.  So now I've gone really underground, back to the roots, a little guy named Gutenberg, maybe you heard of him.  He made his own Bible."

"Yeah, everybody reads them, but I think they're cool.  I guess," said Potter.

Potter showed off his vintage collection of books he's been collecting for the last 10 years:

The shelf is of a bygone era.

"Yeah, the top shelf is all about the old school comics.  There's some Ultimate Spider-Man, Batman, Powers, Scott Pilgrim.  Yeah, I got the rabbit guarding those. (laughs)
Then the next shelf is all Dresden Files and Christopher Moore.  I don't really read them now that there are so many of them, but they look good with the decor.
Finally, there's just a hodge podge of stuff at the bottom.  Some Stephen King next to Dave Barry next to Wicked.  That's before they made that musical on Broadway, bee tee dub.  It was a book, man."

Potter claims he got a lot of the items from the used book sale at the public library.  The public library, a place many use to download ebooks, access wifi, and use public access computers, also collects print materials.  The print materials, once a popular medium, are being sold off wholesale as they become redundant to the digital formats now owned by the library.

"You can get some good sh** there," Potter says, "Sometimes I take some books back and trade them for older ones.  It was a groovy place till all the norms found out about it."

George Whitman Is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself

Yesterday marked the passing of George Whitman, owner of the Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company.  The world has lost a treasure. I fear this passing is indicative of the passing of a generation, a lifestyle of print media. May we continue with our electronic books with wild abandon but remember those free markets that came before us.  NYTimes

Well, that was wildly dramatic.  Next I would like to preform a reading from my new play, "The World is Fucked and I Want a Condom." Who says I can't get deep?

Seattle Can Stop Feeling Special, We All Gotz Amazon

I feel like it was just yesterday I reported that Seattle and the King County library system were taking Amazon for a test drive.  Now everybody has it.  Well, when I say we all have Amazon, I do not mean every library has access to Amazon ebooks, just the 11,000 or so that deal with Overdrive for their books.  Read more in Amazon's press release.

Can you smell that?  Like a summer breeze, I tell ya.  Fresh off the ocean of dreams and kissed with a rainbow.  Welcome to the future, people of Earth, because Amazon became a time machine.

Seattle Gets Kindle Library eBooks

The Amazon Kindle, which we have never mentioned before, is beginning beta testing in Seattle for their Kindle Library ebook lending program.  The lending program, which works like this, partners with Overdrive to provide Kindle editions, or the AMZ ebook format, of various items.  Thisismynext contains various links to successful use of the system.

Yep, that's the next story I got.  First watermelons, now a test for an ebook checkout that technically already existed but is now expanded.  What's everybody think about that?  Excited about the Kindle editions?  Thinking about planting your own improbable library victory garden?  Let me know, I guess.  I'll be here.

People Editors Publish an eBook First, Tomorrow TV Moive!

People Magazine has published their first ever ebook entitled "Outrage: The Casey Anthony Story."  Steve Helling, People staff writer, authored the tome after spending countless hours with the case, from the initial abduction reporting to the final court hearing.  The item is now on sale in ebook and paperback at your local computer wherever you buy that kind of thing as long as its Amazon. BusinessWire

I congratulate People for making their first ebook outing a true crime book and not another 9/11 retrospective.  Now that I have said that, let me check online to see if one is on sale... Nope, not that I can see.  You may now go play with your friends out back and discuss if those are ScarJo's real naked-time pics now, People Magazine.

Magazines, right?  Look at 'em.  They grow up so fast.

Amazon Working on a Subscription Library?

Amazon is reportedly in talks with major publishers to offer a subscription-based ebook service to their Kindle and app ereaders sort of like their audio book service Audible or their Amazon Prime movie service.  Customers would pay an annual fee to access a library of materials, but publishers have not been responsive.  Huffpost 

It seems we are going back in time folks.  When libraries first started, you would bring a chicken to the building, offer it up to the monks, priests or guys in powdered wigs and get to read some stuff.  Make no mistake, kids, these libraries still exist (such as the Library Company of Philadelphia and the New York Society Library) and have for a while.  Here's what I want to know:  If this library service takes off, do you see a privatization of libraries on the way?  This has already happened in some libraries, so don't tut-tut me that it can not happen.  If online companies such as Amazon offer to staff and fill your library, tell me your city council would not bend their ears for just a moment.  Seems a subscription based library on the cheap cheap, even in ebook form, could have libraries going down an interesting road.

IKEA Sees Death of Print, Changes Bookshelves

Not IKEA, just a bookshelf

IKEA is changing the design of their BILLY bookshelf to incorporate deeper shelves and possibly glass doors for decorative item show space.  The LA Times sees this as IKEA noticing the changing of the times as ebooks become more popular than print materials.  Referencing the closing of Borders as well as reports by Amazon citing an increase in ebook purchases, they may have a point.

I can see this as true.  Look at your grandma's couch versus your own.  The weird vinyl thing with a dust cover was a decorative centerpiece and is far apart from the cushion-covered almost-bed that lives in most apartments I have been in that functions as a place to focus on the television and Xbox.  Even the desk had to open up to allow for computers and other devices to populate their surfaces.  Hell, my desk does not even have one of those pencil drawers.  Things gonna change, I guess, and it fits that the folks that fabricate most everything are the one's noticing first.

Tech News of the Week, Cause It Happened

techa-nology, y'all

Welcome to this weeks Tech News of the Week, where all your library tech news gets shuffled when I can't think of more than a sentence to say about it.

Leapfrog, the educational "computer" company, has created its own version of the iPad called the LeapPad.  Personally I would have called it the "Lilly" (unless they already called their first computer that after Apple's own ancient invention, the "Lisa,") as a play on the whole "lilly pad" phenomenon that is sweeping the swamps.  Or just call it a speak-and-spell and go on with my life.  tennessean

Amazon is opening in Spain this week.  I just wanted y'all to know.  paidcontent.org

Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, died this week.  The mark this man left on the world is vast, touching on the creation of the ebook to the digital preservation of materials.  Think about that the next time you bitch about... whatever you bitch about digitally.  NYTimes

IDW has brought graphic novels to the Apple iBook store.  Read such classics as... those movie-licensed comics the kids like these days.  Keep on kicking, digital ebooks picture thingies. comicbookresources

The Huffington Post has begin publishing ebooks.  The first ebook out on its bandwagon will be Arthur Delaney’s A People’s History of the Great Recession.  Prepare for the ride of your life.  paidcontent.org

New: eBook Soundtracks AKA "Foreign Films"

I read the whole thing!

Start up company Booktrack has created a way for ebooks to have soundtracks added to them as you read.  Here's a quote from the company's co-founder and CEO Paul Cameron:

"It's difficult to imagine a movie with no soundtrack. Yet, until today, the technology did not exist to synchronize music and sound within an e-book.  Tens of millions of commuters around the world listen to a playlist that's disconnected from what they're reading -- perhaps a sad song with an upbeat story. Now they can replicate a movie-like sound experience and fundamentally transform their reading experience."

So there you have it.  Books should be more like movies.  WTF?!  This technology and the ideas Mr. Cameron presents are the dumbest things I have ever heard.  Does he even know the difference?  Does he understand that music is an effective use of mood and tempo in movies but because people read at different speeds it can be f#%king annoying if the wrong background crap is going on while you try to read?  If I want to have the experience of "reading" with a soundtrack, I'll rent an un-dubbed foreign film.  If I want building chase music as I read my comics, I'll put that crap on my own damn self.

And I know what you are thinking: If you don't want it, turn it off.  Turn down the volume.  That's not the point.  The point is I should not have to be told when reading a book if the tone is happy, sad, scary, whatever.  That's the writer's job.  If a book sucks at conveying emotion so much that it needs a soundtrack, that book should be taken out and shot.

Although I guess it would help out Twilight a bunch.  I imagine a bunch of Benny Hill chase music and EVIL music when Bella speaks.  She is easily the greatest villain ever created.

Booktrack          SFGate

This Week in Book News: I Don't Have Time to Write

Amar'e Stoudemire, captain of the New York Knicks, has plans to write children's books.  Yep, just like Michael Jordan turning to baseball, Stoudemire is moving from the high pressure world of basketball and into America's favorite past-time: thinking they have a good book idea.  Hell, I'm still trying to get "Banned Library and the Temple of the Monkey Ninja Farmers" off the ground. BET

Daniel McCracken, the guy who literally wrote the first bestselling "How to" computer book, died two weeks ago.  We give an homage to him with this post, as the news has come out much too late for anyone to do anything about whatever problem may or may not have been associated with his death.  Have you tried turning your McCracken off and turning him on again? TheBulletin

Richard North Patterson has released a revised ebook version of his book "The Devil's Light" in the wake of Osama Bin Ladin being killed with the alleged terrorist/bastard now dead.  This marks the first time a published novel has been re-written in ebook form to reflect global news.  This is why you never name anything after a living person, folks.  There is always the possibility they could disgrace themselves and/or die and then where are you?  NYTimes

Amazon is cracking down on people publishing crappy books.  I did not care enough to finish the article.  arstechnica

Harry Potter's Pottermore Attracting Conmen



Be a Gryffindor for $15.50

The Harry Potter eBook site Pottermore has been attracting a lot of attention (as I previously wrote) even though it will not open for business until October.  This has not stopped many, many different hoodwinklers and nar-do-wells from scamming everyone under the sun.  Notices of "subscription fees" and "early openings" have been popping up promising early entry into the website for hundreds of dollars. 

Do not be fooled by this people!  This ain't no "it fell off the website so now we are giving you a discount" kinda operation.  This is the kind of operation that can kill your computer, your credit score, and possibly your pet owl.  Stay away from anyone wishing to sell you early access to Harry Potter ebooks!  I mean, it is not like you can find Harry Potter ebooks on the Internet.  Especially not a torrent file that is a direct scan of the book because finding those would be ridiculously hard.  On the Internet.  With just a search or two and a rudimentary knowledge of how torrenting works.  Can't be done.

[PCWorld]

Apple Overlords Change App Policy, Kill In-App Bookstores

What do Google Books, Amazon Kindle and other eBook services have in common?  They have all been affected by Apple's policy about in-app stores.  Apple states that all apps have to be directed through their marketplace, taking a hefty 30% of anything sold.  The above apps (and many more) have been updated, removing consumer options and strengthening my happiness that I finally moved on to the Android system.

[Zdnet]

College Students Can Now Rent Text-eBooks from Amazon

Amazon announced a new opportunity for college students to rent their textbooks as ebooks through its Kindle platform instead of buying the books outright.  The ebook rental prices will at times be as much as 80% less than the retail value of the books.  I can see this affecting students in three ways:

1. Students will no longer give Christmas presents to their families or be able to go home for the summer.  The valuable income that comes at the end of the semester when students sell back the books their parents or student loans paid for will be lost as the text-ebooks vanish into the ether.

2.  Students will no longer have a proper reminder for classes.  Waking up at the crack of noon, stumbling over to the mini-fridge to get that first brew, then BAM!  Your big toe cracks into the edge of your Algebra II book.  As you collapse to the floor in pain, you remember that your final for Civics is tomorrow.  How?  The girl that saw you vomit off the balcony onto the goat that time is in both your Algebra and Civics class.  Without the book, you would never remember.

3.  Rolling joints and doing blow on a Kindle sucks the big one.  Seriously, have you ever tried to cut anything on the screen of that eInk stuff?  Cuts it right up.  And remember how happy you were to shake out the book and find a toothpick's worth of weed in the cracks of the pages?  So happy.

[ComputerWorld]

Lordy, Lordy, eBooks are Forty

The 2011 World eBook Fair, which apparently exists, is celebrating 40 years of ebooks, claiming the 1971 copy of the Declaration of Independence by Project Gutenberg as the first ever ebook.  Amazon was also on hand to jump up and down like a puppy about to piddle and announce ebooks are outselling print books on their site..

First of all, I think it is a stretch to call the electronic version of the Declaration of Independence an eBook.  The narrative is weak, it is pandering to national sensibilities and quite honestly, the protagonist is kinda a douche.  It's a "classic" though, so whatever.

Second, they picked the DoI on Independence Day to make the first ebook?  Coincidence, I think not.  Like that movie where the aliens landed on ID4.  [PCWorldNewZealand]

True Blood Author Sells Over 1 Million eBooks

Did you know that sex sells?

Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) novels, has become the fourth author to pass the 1 million mark in ebooks sold on Amazon's Kindle Store.  Harris said in Amazon's news release: 

"When Amazon first unveiled the Kindle three and a half years ago, I would never have expected to be one of the first handful of authors in the Kindle Million Club. It's been an amazing few years for myself and the Kindle both, but even more so to have my books available to my readers in ways that just a few years ago would have seemed as fantastic as vampires coming out of the coffin."  

I am not sure what is scarier here:  that these books are selling so much or that Ms. Harris believes computers are just as unbelievable as the dead coming back to life.  Or am I reading that wrong?  Is she saying that because you would expect a vampire to come from a coffin that she always expected readers would find her books on computers?

J K Rowling!  Mean author blood lady make my head hurt!  Kill her ebook sales with your Pottery Potter-ness.  Pretty please?  Make me think, will ya.  Rowling gonna make a Kindle Million-billion-bazillion Club.  You'll see, Ms. Fang, you'll see.

Hey, how come there were never any vampires in Harry Potter?

New Nook on the Horizon?

CNET announced today that a new version of Barnes and Noble's Nook eReader is likely on the way, this time with e-ink.  Quoting from the Wall Street Journal, the article said a filing to the SEC was released that in part read that a Barnes and Noble would be announcing the release of a new eReader device on May 24th.

Oh, goody.  The summer war for how to confuse even the most tech savvy person is beginning.  Every year the same.  Imagine the questions you will get as a librarian, both in your professional and private life:

"Which eReader is the best?"
"What eReader should I get if I don't wanna spend any money?"
"What eReader should I get if I wanna read library eBooks?"
"My mind says Kindle, but my cat says Nook.  Who's right?"

And on and on and on all summer long until every cool little gadget has been released.  Then we get to show them how to use them.

CNET
WSJ

Amazon Announces Library Lending

Amazon, purveyors of the Kindle and its little ebook babies, have announced a new service they are working on called "Library Lending."  Through a partnership with Overdrive, ebooks from Amazon would be able to be checked out from a local public library on any Kindle or Kindle app.  Also, using their Whispersync service, Amazon would be be able to save your notes and bookmarks on any book you checked out after it is "returned" should you decide to re-check out or purchase the item:

"Customers will be able to check out a Kindle book from their local library and start reading on any Kindle device or free Kindle app for Android, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac, BlackBerry, or Windows Phone. If a Kindle book is checked out again or that book is purchased from Amazon, all of a customer's annotations and bookmarks will be preserved." - Amazon 

Well, well.  Look who's jumping on the library bandwagon, eh?  I think this is good news.  The technology is growing towards universal ebook formats and a universal ebook carriers, just as I predicted.  Well, me and every other person with a blog and a half invested interest.  The future is now, people!  Rock on!