December 3, 2024

Matt Enis

About Matt Enis

Matt Enis (menis@mediasourceinc.com; @matthewenis on Twitter) is Associate Editor, Technology for Library Journal.

Library Ideas Launches Movie and TV “Hotspots”

Library Ideas, developer of the Freading ebook and Freegal music solutions for libraries, is launching the GoChip Beam, a new type of device for lending movies and television series. Each GoChip Beam device contains a small Wi-Fi router, rechargeable battery, and solid state storage preloaded with five feature length movies or an entire season of a television series, all enclosed in a 3.5″ x 1″ stick.

Marmot Launches Digital Archive

Marmot Library Network has developed a Digital Archive and repository solution, enabling its member libraries to showcase digitized collections of images, postcards, books, magazines, videos, recorded oral histories, music, and academic research. Users…

Impactstory Launches Browser Extension for OA Discovery

Nonprofit altmetrics pioneer Impactstory has launched Unpaywall, a free extension for Google Chrome and Firefox browsers that helps users obtain free full text copies of open access (OA) research papers.

Open Music Library Combines Free and Subscription Databases

Academic database and streaming media publisher Alexander Street is beta testing the Open Music Library (OML), a new online resource that will eschew database paywalls, enabling non-subscribers to discover and use high-quality open access and public domain content from contributors such as the Library of Congress (LC) and the British Library (BL), while offering subscribers a seamless experience discovering and using free and for-fee content together.

Academic Ebook Sales Flat, Preference for E-Reference Up

Academic libraries continue to add to their ebook collections, but while ebooks are becoming the preferred format for reference materials, many students still prefer to read and study monographs and textbooks in print, according to “Ebook Usage in U.S. Academic Libraries 2016,” a survey conducted by Library Journal and sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning.

Kobo Launches E-reader Integrated with OverDrive

Kobo on September 30 will launch the Aura ONE, a dedicated e-reader that promises seamless searching and one-click downloading of library ebooks via OverDrive. Using a review unit provided by Kobo and a personal New York Public Library (NYPL) account, LJ explored the process.

Hosting Tech Camps | The Digital Shift

As community centers, libraries are always looking for new ways to offer educational programming. Some libraries have been fortunate enough to incorporate complete Maker spaces in their buildings, but for those that don’t have the funding or space, all is not lost. Using existing areas and the help of community members, libraries can easily host tech camps (coding, robotics, and more) for patrons.

Growing Mobile | The Digital Shift

Smartphone ownership is quickly becoming the norm. According to the Pew Research Center’s “Technology Device Ownership: 2015” survey, released last fall, almost 70 percent of U.S. adults now own a smartphone, up from 35 percent in 2011. And 45 percent now own a tablet, up from ten percent in 2011. The 2015 Allstate/National Journal Heartland […]

Sno-Isle, OverDrive Test Demand-Driven Ebook Acquisition

At the request of Sno-Isle Libraries, WA, OverDrive has developed a demand-driven acquisition (DDA) model for popular ebooks, enabling patrons to discover thousands of titles for which the library has not yet purchased a license. When a user checks out one of these titles, Sno-Isle is invoiced, and the ebook is added to the library’s collection in a transaction that appears seamless to the patron.