Category Archives: Librarianship

LibraryReads Book Discovery Program Launches Fall 2013

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Every day library staff share books they love with their users. Now, you can reach beyond the library walls to tell the rest of the country about the books you can’t wait to share.

LibraryReads – a new program, launching this fall [in the U.S.], harnesses the value of “library staff picks” into a single nation-wide discovery tool, a monthly list of ten newly released must-reads. via LibraryReads.

LibraryReads has launched a website, with areas for library staff, publishers, sample recommendation list and a comprehensive FAQ. Also sign up to join the program and receive the newsletter.

See the press release.

See also: LibraryReads Book Discovery Program To Launch | ALA Annual 2013 | Library Journal

LibraryReads

For the First Time, You Can Actually Own the Digital Comics You Buy | Underwire | Wired.com

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SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — If you’ve ever bought a digital comic book, your experience probably went something like this: You opened up an app like ComiXology, paid around $1.99 to $3.99 — likely, the same price as a print issue — but never downloaded the file for the comic to your hard drive. That’s because you don’t really own it — you’ve simply licensed the right to look at it in someone else’s library.

It’s a digital sales model that has been adopted by every major U.S. comics publisher and was inspired by fears that piracy of digital copies could hurt not just digital but also print sales. It has also essentially prevented the comic book readership (or at least, the legal comic book readership) from truly owning any of the books they buy. At least until this morning, when comic book publisher Image Comics announced that it will now sell all of its digital comics as downloadable via its website for both desktop and mobile users, making it the first major U.S. publisher to offer DRM-free digital versions of comics.

See the full article: For the First Time, You Can Actually Own the Digital Comics You Buy | Underwire | Wired.com.

Why Genre Rules e-Books, and What the Big Publishers Are Doing About It | Wired

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One of the biggest success stories in U.S. publishing in recent years has been the continued growth of digital book publishing. Last year, total revenue for e-book sales in the United States reached $3.04 billion, a 44.2% increase on 2011′s numbers and a figure all the more impressive when you realize that growth is additive to the print publishing industry. Even more surprising, publishers have focused much of their attention on genres like sci-fi, fantasy, mystery and romance fiction – markets that have traditionally lagged behind “literary fiction” in terms of sales.

See the full article: Why Genre Rules e-Books, and What the Big Publishers Are Doing About It | Wired

40 Great Apps for Mobile Reference and Outreach | American Libraries Magazine

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The desire to learn about useful mobile apps is widespread among librarians, judging by the overflow crowd at Sunday’s Conversation Starter [ALA Conference 2013], billed to deliver “40 Great Apps for Mobile Reference and Outreach.”

via 40 Great Apps for Mobile Reference and Outreach | American Libraries Magazine.

The Millions | Save the Languages

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Researchers at Comanche Nation College and Texas Tech University are creating a digital archive to reconstruct the Comanche language before its 25 remaining speakers die out. Meanwhile, researchers from Moscow State University and the Russian Academy of Sciences have recorded audio and video footage of twenty isolated Alaskans who speak a unique form of the Russian language. (Bonus: An Australian researcher recently uncovered a whole new Aboriginal dialect.) via The Millions | Save the Languages.

Podcasts for Libraries (Video) – Stephen’s Lighthouse

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Podcasts for Libraries (Video) – Stephen’s Lighthouse.

Joyce Valenza’s Picks from the Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning | The Digital Shift

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Teacher librarian Joyce Valenza reflects on the 2013 Best Websites for Teaching & Learning, the highly anticipated list chosen annually by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL).

See the complete post: Joyce Valenza’s Picks from the Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning | The Digital Shift.

Oldest known complete Torah scroll discovered miscatalogued in Italy | Holy Post | National Post

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An Italian expert in Hebrew manuscripts said he discovered the oldest known complete Torah scroll, a sheepskin document dating from 1155-1225. It was right under his nose, in the University of Bologna library, where it had been mistakenly catalogued a century ago as dating from the 17th century.

The find isn’t the oldest Torah text in the world: the Leningrad and the Aleppo bibles — both of them Hebrew codexes, or books — pre-date the Bologna scroll by more than 200 years. But this is the oldest Torah scroll of the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, according to Mauro Perani, a professor of Hebrew in the University of Bologna’s cultural heritage department.

via Oldest known complete Torah scroll discovered miscatalogued in Italy | Holy Post | National Post – May 30, 2013.

Torah Scroll

If you are interested in religious texts and/or illuminated manuscripts I recommend the Sacred Traditions permanent exhibition at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland. This exhibition is much more rewarding than trying to view the Book of Kells among the masses at Trinity College. The Old Library is worthwhile but tourists are restricted to a very small area. 

ALA Launches Online Hub to Support Tech Literacy | The Digital Shift

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The American Library Association (ALA) this week launched a preview version of Digital Learn, a free online resource for librarians working with digital literacy learners. The new hub, which will be fully available June 30, follows recommendations released this month from ALA’s Digital Literacy Task Force.

via ALA Launches Online Hub to Support Tech Literacy | The Digital Shift.

See also: ALA Task Force releases digital literacy recommendations | ALA

 

This Just In: Young Adults Love Libraries | The Digital Shift

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A brand-spanking-new Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life study (just released this morning) has found some surprising information about young people and their opinions of libraries and print books.

Here’s the lead:

Belying the stereotype that younger Americans completely eschew print for digital, those ages 16-29 have wide-ranging media and technology behaviors that straddle the traditional paper-based world of books and digital access to information.

One major surprise in a new report from the Pew Research Center is that even in an age of increasing digital resources, those in this under-30 cohort are more likely than older Americans to use and appreciate libraries as physical spaces – places to study for class, go online, or just hang out. [emphasis added]

See the full article: This Just In: Young Adults Love Libraries | The Digital Shift.