On Libraries and New Media, powered by Library Journal and School Library Journal
Anticipatory and contextual discovery, open hardware, one-click server installs, mobile-first design, institutional digital assets management, and even biohackerspaces were some of the topics discussed this year at the Library and Information Technology Association’s (LITA) Top Tech Trends panel, held June 29 at the American Library Association (ALA) 2014 Annual Conference.
I have a colleague who has been attending the Google I/O event ever since it began in 2008. This year was no exception, and in his trip report he highlighted what Google calls “Google Cloud Dataflow”. From what I can gather, it is sort of like Google’s version of Hadoop, but presumably better (at least […]
I’ve long been an interested reader of the New Media Consortiums series of Horizon Reports. So when I heard that they were doing a “Library Edition” I just about fell off my chair. The way I heard was that they are seeking examples of projects that illustrate the trends that their panel of experts have […]
“Fencing out Knowledge: Impacts of the Children’s Internet Protection Act 10 Years Later” concludes that institutions using filtering software in order to receive certain federal funds routinely block more content than required, depriving students of access to information and collaborative tools.
The Library of Congress has now made specific recommendations on the best file formats for preserving access to content of various types: Textual works and musical compositions Still images Audio Moving images Software, electronic games, and learning modules Datasets and databases They take pains to explain that these recommendations are not meant to replace their […]
EBSCO Information Services and Infotrieve this month launched a new partnership that will pair the metadata and search functionality of the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) with the e-content access and management features of Infotrieve’s Mobile Library, enabling “mutual customers to combine their search, content access, rights management, and document delivery into one platform,” according to a joint announcement. Essentially, the deal will let researchers purchase immediate access to content that shows up in search results, but to which they don’t already have full text rights.
When ebooks or other digital materials are not readily available in libraries, publishers “are missing a key conduit to a market that [they] can’t tap any other way,” Rebecca T. Miller, editorial director for Library Journal and School Library Journal, stated in her opening remarks for the “The Untapped Retail Channel: Public Libraries” panel on Friday, May 30 at the 2014 BookExpo America (BEA) conference in New York. Leaders from top library ebook and streaming media companies weighed in on this issue during an hour-long discussion.
Innovative Interfaces Inc. on May 30 acquired VTLS, developer of the Virtua integrated library system (ILS), VITAL digital asset management system, Chamo Discovery layer, MozGo mobile application, and other library technology solutions. Following Innovative’s acquisition of Polaris on April 1, the move further consolidates the library automation marketplace while expanding Innovative’s global presence and solidifying the company’s position as one of the largest library technology providers in the world.
The American Museum of Natural History’s (AMNH) research library last month hosted the official launch of its new online image database for Digital Special Collections. Begun as a project to digitize 1,000 of the museum’s photos and rare book illustrations, the Digital Special Collections program has evolved into a long-term project that will offer the public free online access to the museum’s research library collection. The new database includes more than 7,000 archival images, including photographs from 19th century scientific expeditions and illustrations from rare books dating back to the 16th century.
Recently I’ve been taking the very good CodeCademy course on the Python programming language. I’m doing this for several reasons. A number of my colleagues use Python, and I’ve been using their code and libraries. Knowing what I’m doing might be a good idea. Also, Python seems to be more of the language of choice […]
