Librarian beware a more confused patron

As Google and Bing move to index and include search results from Twitter, expect that your skills to teach information literacy (good vs bad) will be more important than ever. What new criteria will we use to assist patrons judge which tweets to use and which to verify before using? Just because Twitter results may be "real-time" doesn't necessarily make them any more valid.

Barnes and Noble's Nook Steps into the Ring with Kindle

 

 

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Barnes and Noble's Nook Steps into the Ring with Kindle

via (title unknown) by Jason Griffey on 10/21/09

The Amazon Kindle's first real competitor saw the light of day for the first time this week, and it looks very, very impressive. The Barnes & Noble Nook launched Oct 20th, and it stands toe-to-toe with the standard that has been set by the Kindle, even exceeding it in many ways.

The important bits: The Nook has the same 6-inch eInk screen as the Kindle, and is $20 cheaper (the Nook preorders for $259, while the Kindle 2 is still $279). The Nook also has a remarkable navigation system: a secondary color touchscreen display, directly under the eInk. It's a great-looking innovation, and one that gives the reader's interface flexibility that the Kindle just doesn't have. In my opinion, as you go through the specs, the comparison seems to favor the Nook over the Kindle. Here's the quick rundown of the things I get asked about the most when I talk about eReaders:

• The Nook will handle PDF's natively, while the Kindle 2 won't (the Kindle DX does, but it's really a specialty device compared to these two).

• The Kindle ostensibly supports Word files, but only through an email conversion process. The nook does not support word files at all. On the other hand, the Nook supports the open epub standard for electronic texts, which means that converting your Word files locally should be trivial.

• Nook has a replaceable battery, which is still a big deal for some people given the amount of comments on the topic that still show up around the web. Given that both will run for over a week on a single charge if you switch the wireless connection off, and the lifetime of recharge cycles for a modern battery is longer than you're likely be using the device, I don't see this as a huge issue. Still, some people do, so to reiterate: the Nook has a replaceable battery and the Kindle 2 doesn't.

• Both devices have 2 gigs of internal storage, but the Nook brings back the possibility of expanding that up to 16 gigs via SD card. Considering that 2 gigs is about 1500 books, that's a ton of storage for text. You could probably hold every book you've ever read on a single card.

• Both have cellular data connectivity with the Kindle relying on the Sprint network, and the Nook on AT&T. The massive advantage here goes to the Nook, as it also includes WiFi connectivity, with a business model built around allowing you to use WiFi in B & N stores to shop virtually on the nook. WiFi is a huge leg up, but unlike the Kindle, it doesn't look like the Nook actually has a web browser built in, which limits the connectivity to shopping for books. The lack of a browser is a huge disappointment on the Nook, especially since it's running the Android operating system from Google, and could leverage that browser pretty easily.

The B&N device has another leg up on the kindle with it's new LendMe offering, which allows you to "lend" an eBook you purchased to someone else for their reading. They get it for 14 days and it gets "disabled" on your device so that you can't read it during the lend, then shows up once again on your device after the 14-day period. The other advantage here over the Kindle is that the B&N books will be "lendable" to anyone using a wide range of devices: Blackberries, iPhones, PC's and Macs. The Kindle only "shares" between the iPhone and the Kindle, and even then only on the same account; there is no lending to friends.

The language that B&N is using is cagey enough to make me wonder about this service, though. The webpage describing this clearly says that "most" eBooks are lendable, which means that some aren't going to be. I'm assuming that this is a publisher-by-publisher decision, but unless they disclose up-front which books are lendable and which aren't, in my opinion, this is a very limited feature.

It's an interesting model, and I'm curious to see if it is sufficient in meeting people's desire to share their favorite books.

There's a ton more to say about the Nook. While it's not available immediately (Barnes & Noble is taking pre-orders for a November ship date now) it should be in every Barnes & Noble retail location well before the holiday shopping season. It is by far the most interesting eReader to launch since the original Kindle almost 2 years ago. If you have questions about the device, leave them in the comments and I'll answer them there.

It's an exciting time for eBooks, and I know we're all curious to see how the Nook holds up.

 

 

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Brodart's Lending Library Vending Machine

Brodart helps you bring true convenience to your patrons through the idea of a “vending machine,” requiring only a library card—the Lending Library.

Their web site continues "Imagine a library card-holder wanting a good read, book on CD, or DVD, last-minute, and the library is closed. Where does he or she turn? A bookstore, the bestseller rack at the grocery store, or a local superstore? All scenarios require spending money on new material. Or, that same patron, using his or her library card, could turn to your library’s quick and easy lending machine, open 24/7 for the ultimate convenience."

What do you think? Is Allegany County ready for this?

NYTimes: Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending

From The New York Times:

Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending

Electronic book borrowing is a convenient way for libraries to remain
relevant, but publishers are worried.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/books/15libraries.html

Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting
http://itunes.com/apps/nytimes

Jtaube@allconet.org
301-697-7384

Similar Books feature in the Catalog

Our colleagues at Shenandoah County Library in Virginia have implemented a feature where they suggest "similar books" for the titles they loan.

Let us know if you would like to see this feature in our catalog?

Web-Based Tutorial from LoC: Finding Census Data for Business Research

 

 

Sent to you by john taube via Google Reader:

 

 

Recently Released Web-Based Tutorial from the Library of Congress: Finding Census Data for Business Research

via ResourceShelf by resourceshelf on 10/8/09

This web-based Flash tutorial runs approximately 10 minutes (depending on how fast you click). The content was developed by Angela Wilson, a Business Reference Specialist at the Library of Congress.

Access Tutorial: Finding Census Data for Business Research

According to this page, expect more web tutorials from the Business Reference Section, LC:

Lbrarians in the Business Reference Section, in cooperation with the Cooperative and Instructional Programs Division of the Library of Congress, are creating a series of interactive online instructional modules

Source: Business Reference Services–Science, Technology & Business Division–Library of Congress

 

 

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The Library-Catalog Wars: 'Chronicle' Readers Weigh In

Interesting debate in the Chronicle of Higher Ed regarding Library Catalogs.

Why do library catalogs leave so much to be desired?

Is it the librarians fault, the users fault or the catalogs fault?

I think the issue is much bigger than the library catalog itself and more about getting libraries to thrive in their role as "one node" of information choices (albeit with very good resources) instead of the historical mindset of the "only node" for information. We have to shed the notion that we should be at the head of the food chain when it comes to knowledge workers and knowledge work. What do you think?

PhotoFilmStrip- another picture to movie tool

PhotoFilmStrip is another free tool that allows you to make a movie out of your pictures. It allows you to add your own background music, zoom in and out, and fade in from one picture to the next.

Unlike PhotoStory 3, this tool allows you to save your movie in a variety of formats (mpeg4, DVD, or other formats), thus avoiding the conversion step. Check it out.