Category Archives: Books

SitePoint Reference

SitePoint Reference is an online guide with a wealth of information on web design.  Divided into three sections, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it is a great place to find that bit of information you need while designing or editing a … Continue reading

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NYT Best Sellers API

The New York Times Blog announced today that they have released an API for their Best Sellers list.  Library programmers should jump on this.  Imagine being able to display information about an item’s rankings – dates, placement, etc. – in … Continue reading

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Library Books in your Search Engine

Why you can’t find a library book in your search engine is an article in The Guardian.  It is a good overview of the broader issues surrounding the OCLC Licensing problem, and is written for the general reader (i.e. this … Continue reading

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By Any Other Name

By any other name is the title of a blog post/essay by Mandy Brown which encapsulates the history of stored writing in just a few paragraphs.  Take a short few moments and read it… you will be glad you did. … Continue reading

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CPSIA and Libraries

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), passed by Congress last August and due to be enforced beginning February 10th, is designed to protect children from exposure to products containing unsafe levels of lead or phthalate.  All well and good.  … Continue reading

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Cataloging Flash Mob

In Beverly, Massachusetts a mob of 20 LibraryThing enthusiasts cataloged the entire collection of St. John’s church library, as well as the rector’s book collection, consisting of over 2,000 books (averaging 100 books per person). Akin to an Amish barn-raising, … Continue reading

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Tech Static

The Tech Static is, as stated on the site, “Your collection development resource for technology titles”. They are using a blog to house reviews of technology books and resources, and are planning to publish monthly.  It looks as though they … Continue reading

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The Final Opus

I thought it both appropriate and noteworthy for the final Opus comic to end on a literary note: The final strip, minus the final panel. The final panel. via LISNews

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Google Book Search Copyright Settlement

Google has reached a settlement with the group of publishers who filed suit in 2005 over the book digitization project.  It is a legal document with many elements, and I cannot hope to make an overall evaluation of the agreement … Continue reading

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Five drafts and One Sophie Book ago…

If you don’t have it already, install the Sophie Reader on your computer and take a look at this version of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. It features five drafts of the famous speech, displayed so that you can compare and … Continue reading

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Stories Behind 10 Dr. Seuss Stories

Stories Behind 10 Dr. Seuss Stories is a post at the Mental Floss blog with information about the inspirations (and representations) behind several of the great books by Theodor Seuss Giesel. via LISNews

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Embeddable Google Books

Google Books can now be embedded into a web page in a similar way that a YouTube video is able to be embedded. Besides the “nifty cool” aspect of this, I can see one element of this that should make … Continue reading

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Book Covers and Copyright

I missed this last month, but a post on the LibraryLaw Blog suggests that book jackets may be protected under a clause in the copyright law aimed for advertisements and commentaries. found via LISNews

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Harry Potter and the Unfair Use Lexicon

TeleRead has an excellent post dissecting the recent ruling against the author of the Harry Potter Lexicon.  It examines the Fair Use aspects of copyright as they apply to this particular case. via LISNews

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Three Great Book Repair Guides

A Simple Book Repair Manual is a web-based guide created and hosted by the Dartmouth College Library.  It covers what a library needs to set up a toolkit and make straightforward repairs. Conservation Book Repair : A training manual by … Continue reading

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Open Shelves Classification

Tim Spalding of LibraryThing has started a new ambitious project: develop a new shelf classification system that would eliminate the baggage of the 100+ year-old systems many libraries have in place, as well as create a system free from the … Continue reading

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Free L’Amour

To celebrate the 100th birthday of Louis L’Amour, Bantam Books is providing a free copy of “Education of a Wandering Man : The Centennial Hardcover Edition” to any free lending library in the United States. found via the Unshelved blog

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Online Textbook Copyright Infringement

Peter Suber at Open Access News has an excellent post on the language being used when discussing copyright infringement of textbooks. I personally prefer what I have in the title of this post; results may vary. We have been through … Continue reading

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Zoomii Books

Zoomii Books is not library related… yet. It is a virtual bookshelf built around Amazon’s book cover images and inventory. However, the concept would make for an excellent method of “browsing” a library catalog. The company founder has even mentioned … Continue reading

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Death of a Digitization Project

Microsoft announced today that they are shutting down their book digitization project. They also announced that the Live Search Books site will be shut down sometimes next week. This is a disappointment in that I was hoping that the competition … Continue reading

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