Brave New World: eBooks Free With Ads

Brave New World: eBooksFree With Ads

"The Victorians gave us the Penny Press, Short form and episodic fiction, serialisation and book and pamphlet advertising. Some will suggest that today’s developing digital market can learn much from yesterday’s initial era of mass reading. Today we read of another ‘new’ Victorian‘ idea – the ebook with adverts. We see adverts on many digital services today. You have to suffer the pop-up 20 seconds, before they let you into where you want to go. Now www.eBookPlus.com , is introducing ebooks with adverts on a ‘with advertising it’s free’ model.  A service offer based on the premise that you will accept adverts at the front of the book and each chapter to get the content for free. Adverts in ebooks is going to happen, it is now a question of how it will happen and the implications of the change. We believe that no single platform will prevail and it is somewhat hard to see how it is a sustainable unique selling point. But what about the questions we need to ask ourselves? ..."

Twitter for Researchers

Twitter for research by University of York Information

Should we be involved in this at RUL?

altmetrics...............  (article from the Library Journal)

."..It’s a field that is ripe for the type of analysis to which librarians are ideally suited, he said. Academic librarians could maintain more relevance in the research process by studying these metrics and helping students and faculty get more impact out of their research output and publications...."

RUL study waiting to be done!

Academic library use and student retention: A quantitative analysis

"....For the institution, these findings can inform the development of library services to target specific student groups on the basis that higher library use may lead to improved integration and retention. In addition, the study describes a research design that is replicable in other institutions and contributes to library use and retention literature."

Undergrads use of Library resources vs Wikipedia

 

 

“You Just Type in What You Are Looking For”:Undergraduates' Use of Library Resources vs. Wikipedia   from J of Academic Librarianship.

The popular fiction books are shelved in an aumbry!

aumbry, n.

Library as Place: Learn from Retailers

libraries to watch entertainment technologies, because those techs will be mainstays for all of us very soon...ways to engage clients – markets – communities.  Like retail, we don’t see ‘non-users’, we see ‘potential users’.

     Amsterdam Central Library

OLA's Institute on Library as Place: Christopher Hume

 transforming library spaces “From Reading Room to Living Room”

 

The Mendeley Dilemma

I just came across this very interesting article commenting on the sale of Mendeley to Elsevier - oh dear!

Canada: University Libraries in Nova Scotia Test eBook Sharing

A group of Nova Scotia university libraries is testing a new approach to ebook lending that offers unprecedented levels of access to students and faculty. Novanet – a consortium of 10 academic libraries founded in 1988 – has negotiated a new deal with publishers to allow the sharing of electronic books among libraries as freely as the sharing of print books. In a pilot project that began in November 2012, the member libraries deposited a total of $100,000 to access a shared collection of about 16,000 ebooks through vendor EBL.

Redefining the Academic Library

Just published, the USA’s University Leadership Council’s report:
Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services


Full report in pdf
 
Content:
Transformational Change in the Information Landscape:

    Unsustainable Costs
    Viable Alternatives
    Declining Usage
    New Patron Demands

Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services

I. Leveraging Digital Collections

    The Promise and Perils of Ebooks
    Patron-Driven Acquisition
    Print-on-Demand

II. Rethinking the Scholarly Publishing Model

    Centralized Licensing Structure
    On-Demand Article Access
    Open-Access Publishing

III. Repurposing Library Space

    Data-Driven Deselection
    Collaborative Collection Management
    Building the 21st Century Library

IV. Redeploying Library Staff

    Externalizing Low-Impact Activity
    Roles in Teaching and Learning
    Roles in Research and Scholarship
 

AAUP Publishes New Guidelines on Librarians | Inside Higher Ed

AAUP Publishes New Guidelines on Librarians | Inside Higher Ed
....recommends that colleges and universities involve librarians in governance issues, such as curriculum development, said Deanna Wood, a reference librarian and associate professor of reference at the University of New Hampshire who helped draft the updated guidelines. That way, students won’t enter the library to do research and find “there’s nothing there to support it.”

Developing core competencies for library staff

January 2013 College & Research Libraries News vol. 74 no. 1 14-35

From the conclusion:
"...Library staff was keenly aware of the changing environment throughout libraries, particularly academic libraries, and as such, ultimately understood the need to enhance skills in order to meet the demands of our users. Resetting the performance bar, when explained as part of the overall support and development of staff personnel, can be and was accepted by the staff as an important part of moving the library into a new culture of highly skilled and professional individuals."

Secret Lives of Readers


Books reveal themselves. Whether they exist as print or pixels, they can be read and examined and made to spill their secrets. Readers are far more elusive. They leave traces—a note in the margin, a stain on the binding—but those hints of human handling tell us only so much. The experience of reading vanishes with the reader.  How do we recover the reading experiences of the past? Lately scholars have stepped up the hunt for evidence of how people over time have interacted with books, newspapers, and other printed material.

Pests in the Library

Library bedbugs: Growing threat to borrowers of paper books—and another justification for library e-books?

READING in bed, once considered a relatively safe pastime, is now seen by some as a riskier proposition.  That’s because bedbugs have discovered a new way to hitchhike in and out of beds: library books. It turns out that tiny bedbugs and their eggs can hide in the spines of hardcover books. The bugs crawl out at night to feed, find a new home in a headboard, and soon readers are enjoying not only plot twists but post-bite welts.

The Librarian (I-III)

Entertaining movie series similar to the Indiana Jones series. The Librarian (of the New York Metropolitan Public Library), played by Noah Wyle, is curator of historical artifacts and treasures including the Arc of the Covenant, Excalibur and Pandora's Box.

The adventures of The Librarian are entertaining (albeit light) with corny lines and some interesting characters. At the least, the traditional image of librarians is challenged!

Available at the RUL.

30 tips for successful academic research and writing

Choosing something that you are passionately interested in to research is a great first step on the road to successful academic writing but it can be difficult to keep the momentum going. Deborah Lupton explains how old-fashioned whiteboards and online networking go hand-in-hand, and advices [sic] when it is time to just ‘make a start’ or go for a bike ride. 

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/11/28/lupton-30-tips-writing/

OA in Argentina

Interesting article which relates to the presentation at Berlin 10 OA conference by Silvia Nakano of the Science & Technology National Directorate of Physical Resources,Argentina.  She spoke about the Latin American experiences of institutional collaboration for accessibility and visibility of scientific and academic output

 

 Prospect for Development of Open Access in Argentina

From J of Acad Librarianship:

Abstract

This perspective article presents an overview of the Open Access movement in Argentina, from a global and regional (Latin American) context. The article describes the evolution and current state of initiatives by examining two principal approaches to Open Access in Argentina: golden and green roads. The article will then turn its attention to: the support that Open Access receives from governmental sources; collaboration with international projects; and the perspective of Argentine authors regarding Open Access and self-archiving. It concludes with a reflection on the outlook, the main barriers and opportunities for Open Access in Argentina.

Teaching Library Internet Workshops

Teaching Library Internet Workshops a free guide from UC Berkeley Library

Academic Libraries and Research Data Services

ACRL has released a new research report, “Academic Libraries and Research Data Services: Current Practices and Plans for the Future” to provide a baseline assessment of the current state of and future plans for research data services in academic libraries.... Academic libraries may be ideal centers for research data service activities on campuses, providing unique opportunities for academic libraries to become even more active participants in the knowledge creation cycle in their institution."