Linked data for libraries - OCLC Video

Produced by OCLC this is a short introduction to the often discussed - but difficult- concepts and technology behind linked data, how it works and some benefits it brings to libraries.

Project Gutenburg Authors Community Cloud Library

Project Gutenberg, developers of the first online platform for free eBooks, has transcended to the next logical step and created a free self publishing portal for authors. The purpose of this portal referred to as the Authors Community Cloud Library is to “create a cloud service for contemporary writers to share their works with reader”. There is built in two way interaction for authors and readers as every eBook has its own Details Page, Star Ratings, and Reader Comment area. 

Users can easily search for their favorite titles by keyword or limiting by genre categories such as adventure, art, biographies, children literature, education, fantasy and technology. There is no charge for using this service. Registration is not required for reading or downloading the books. However, registration is required to upload a book or post a comment.

Libraries can promote this tool on main library portals (blogs, webpages, library guides) as a self publishing platform for contemporary authors to publish their works and as a  social network meeting place for readers and authors to share ideas.

Call for Papers Department of Library & Information Studies, UWI Jamaica 40th Anniversary Conference

Conference Theme : From Search to Discovery: Reimagining the Library and Information Landscape
Date: October 4- 6, 2012
Venue: The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Kingston Jamaica - Mona Visitors' Lodge & Conference Center

Summary:
The theme asks participants to envision how the changing information environment is impacting the role and functions of libraries, librarians, as well as library and information science education and research and information users. Further, persons are asked to relate this change to the current situation in the Caribbean.

We invite persons to contribute research-based paper and poster proposals; best practices; and critical essays on aspects of the conference theme including but not limited to the following:

1. Repositioning of LIS Education for enhanced competencies and capabilities

• Interdisciplinary and collaborative initiatives
• Curriculum redesign
• Online Web-based teaching
• Research directions

2. LIS Research Landscape: Crossing Disciplinary Lines

3. Envisioning Caribbean Libraries for Today, Tomorrow and Beyond

4. Reimagining the Role of the Librarian and the User

5. Creating and Evaluating Competitive Information Products and Services

6. The “I factor”

• Role of Libraries in Information Management
• Cloud computing and libraries
• Visual data
• Libraries and knowledge management

7. Reinventing our brand in the post- modern environment

• Institutional [school, academic, corporate libraries]
• Personal
• Professional
• Synergy with Archives and Museums

Deadline for paper/poster proposal submissions (maximum 1,000 words): July 31, 2012

Notification of acceptance: August 31, 2012

For more details Click here

Libraries, patrons, and e-books - PEW Report

Summary of findings from the latest Pew report on libraries, patrons, e-books:

•  58% of Americans have a library card, and 69% say that their local library is important to them and their family. Library card holders use more technology, and they report that they read more books.
• 12% of readers of e-books borrowed an e-book from the library in the past year. But a majority of Americans do not know that this service is provided by their local library.
• E-book borrowers appreciate the selection of e-books at their local library, but they often encounter wait lists, unavailable titles or incompatible file formats.
• Many Americans would like to learn more about borrowing e-books.
• Library card holders are more than twice as likely to have bought their most recent book than to have borrowed it from a library. Many e-book borrowers purchase e-books, too.
• Leading-edge librarians and patrons say that the advent of e-books has produced a major transformation in book searching and borrowing at libraries.

 Source: PEW Internet & American Life Project

New ALA report explores challenges of equitable access to digital content

Source: American Libraries Magazine

ALA recently released a new report examining critical issues underlying equitable access to digital content through our nation’s libraries. In the report, titled “E-content: The Digital Dialogue,” authors explore an unprecedented and splintered landscape in which several major publishers refuse to sell e-books to libraries; proprietary platforms fragment our cultural record; and reader privacy is endangered.

The report, published as a supplement to American Libraries magazine, identifies a number of ways libraries and publishers can collaborate to lessen the digital content divide. Some of the topics covered:

•  ALA´s Digital Content and Libraries Working Group cochairs, Sari Feldman and Robert Wolven,summarize recent ebook activities and suggest directions for the future.
• Deborah Caldwell-Stone from the Office for Intellectual Freedom focuses on ebook privacy and related ethical issues.
• James LaRue offers perspectives from a reader, librarian, publisher, writer, and bookseller on ebooks today and tomorrow.

  You can read the report in the easy-to-use Zmag web browser format, or download it as a PDF for offline reading. Click on this link to read and download the report: “E-content: The Digital Dialogue”

Unglue it - ebook publishing service launches

Using the tag line Give eBooks to the World, Unglue.it - a new type of e-book servicd-  launched on May 17, 2012 with active campaigns for site visitors to make monetary pledges towards books from five authors they wish to 'unglue'. The idea behind this new service is as simple, as it is innovative, and answers basic questions like the following: What if you could give a book to everyone on earth? Get an ebook and read it on any device, in any format, forever? Give an ebook to your library, for them to share? Own DRM-free ebooks, legally? Read free ebooks, and know their creators had been fairly paid?



Unglue.it as a crowdfunding site, allows book afficinados to pay authors and publishers to make their traditionally-published books free to the world under a Creative Commons license. If supporters pledge a dollar  amount chosen by the books’ rightsholders before a given deadline, these books will be released as “unglued” or free electronic editions under the shared license



There is promise that this concept will catch on and the service will grow as who among us would not want to pledge toward creating ebooks that can be legally free ('unglued') and read worldwide.
The first five authors/publishers to grace the site:

Michael Laser, 6-321


Joseph Nassise, Riverwatch


Nancy Rawles, Love Like Gumbo


Budding Reader, Cat and Rat


Open Book Publishers, Oral Literature in Africa, by Ruth Finnegan.


Source: Unglue.it