REMOVING LIBRARY BOOKS FROM THE KINDLE

If patrons are having trouble removing expired library book files from the Kindle or wish to return items early, please share this step-by-step tutorial:

http://www.tildee.com/YK6gNe



--Andrea @Central

HOW TO DOWNLOAD LIBRARY BOOKS TO A KINDLE

If patrons are having trouble downloading library books to a Kindle, please share this step-by step tutorial:

http://www.tildee.com/KBrYse


 --Andrea @Central

Which is better--the Nook, the Kindle or the iPad?

 Photo by Libraryman 

If patrons ask "Which is better--the Nook, the Kindle or the iPad?" A few opinions to offer...

A comparison chart: http://paidcontent.org/table/comparing-e-readers-and-tablets-november-2011

and brief reviews about the Kindle Fire: http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=1604#m14081

--Karen H @Rice Street

Libraries' Mobile Future - Tech Breakfast

Libraries’ Mobile Future

Cody Hanson

U of MN Libraries, web development & user services

Mobile technology poses more challenges than opportunities to public libraries. He didn’t pose solutions during this presentation, because he thought it was important to discuss the challenges.

The Shift to Mobile

We’re at the beginning of a huge shift, also one of the quickest and one of the most important. Libraries ignore it at their peril.

The largest PC manufacturer in the world is Hewlett Packard (HP).

In August, 2011 HP announced they were getting out of the PC game.  It was changing too fast and was too competitive given the mobile revolution.  They were also spinning off their tablet business, when they arguably had the 2^nd most popular tablet, after the iPad. 

Leo Apotheker is not the CEO anymore.  However, the current CEO, Meg Whitman (former CEO of eBay) also says the market is really uncertain. 

If there’s any part of your business that relies on computing looking the same in 5 years as it does today, you need to rethink it.

Computers and internet access are wildly popular in public libraries.  However, that won’t continue to be true in the long run.

Everyday 100,000 are getting their 1^st smart phone.

Twitter, 6 May, asymco (Horace Dediu)  Asymco.com: Curated Market Intelligence 

ComScore survey says 587,000 Americans per week are switching to smart phones from non-smart phones. 

Twitter, 30 Aug, Horace Dediu

It took more than 20 yrs to grow the worldwide base of PC users to 600 million, smart phones got there in 8. 

Twitter, 7/12/11, Horace Dediu

As of 4th qtr 2010, smart phones outshipped PCs. 

The mobile revolution is not only faster than the PC revolution, but different.

Forrester Research reports that over 60% of corporate IT supports consumer technology - personal hardware owned by employees - partially because consumer tech may very well be more powerful than anything the corporation can afford to provide.  Also, many people prefer to use their personal device and connect to the corporate network instead of also carrying a corporation-issued device.

Mobile operating system (OS) development is now pushing PC OS development. Examples are Windows 8 and Mac Lion.

Mobile computing is having an incredibly profound and disruptive effect on PC computing.

Digital Divide:

There’s a different divide in mobile vs. PC.  

With PCs, the divider is race and income. The mobile digital divider is age.  Although 55+ is the fastest growing market for smart phones, so that may change.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life project April 26 - May 22, 2011 Black and Hispanic Americans are more likely to own a cell phone and use it to access internet than White Americans.

Many folks who primarily use mobile devices in their online life have internet PCs at home.

The upshot is that more and more people have access to internet.  The number of people we are serving with this service are an increasingly shrinking portion of the population as a whole.

Information Services:

Factors people balance when fulfilling an information need:

Availability

Authority

Expense

Libraries were well positioned to provide information services because we fulfill these criteria.  This was when we lived in a world of “scarce information and abundant attention,” according to LorcanDempsey. 

Now that we live in an environment of abundant information and scarce attention, high transaction costs equals low/no availability - Lorcan Dempsey.  People aren’t willing to pay a price (money, time or convenience) for information if they don’t need/want it badly enough.

Mobile computing fulfills those 3 factors. The possible problem is only getting access to good-enough sources, instead of the best, and most of the time it’s not worth searching out the best source.

Stat from Google: during evening hours, search volume from smart devices now exceeds that from PCs.  #thinkhealth

Twitter, Timoreilly

Circulation

Mobile devices are Trojan horse for eReaders.  You can have a large number of eReader apps loaded on a mobile device.

An Economist story from 9/10/11 says Ikea redesigned Billy Bookcase to be better showcase for tchochkes, ornaments - anything that is except books that are actually read. 

The Economist article also reported that in the first five months of 2011, sales of ebooks overtook sales of hardcover books. 

There’s a very limited license for ebooks – they are not bought and sold; they are leased.  Therefore, the first sale doctrine - once you buy something you have the right to sell it again- no longer applies. 

There’s currently only one vendor for popular reading ebooks – Overdrive.  Their catalog only contains three of the Kindle bestsellers, and less than ½ of the NYT bestsellers.

Clarifying terms – you can put an Overdrive book on Kindle, but you can’t borrow a Kindle book from the library.  They’re two different things, and even doing the former advertises for Amazon.  A sweet deal for them.

AMZN making sure Kindle owners are disappointed in their libraries.

Twitter, 9/21/11, ulotrichous (Eli Neiburger from Ann Arbor PL) 

Only most motivated users will use ebooks from libraries because, when compared to buying ebooks, borrowing them is fiddly and difficult.

Amazon (easy, with cost) competing with piracy (free, with hassle) - so the ease competes with low, low (no) price.  EBooks will make libraries = free, with hassle.

Eli Neiburger at the LJ/SLJ eBook Summit:  Libraries are screwed. YouTube, 9/29/10

Cloud services are more viable with the shift to mobile than they used to be.

Mobile tech is rapidly and extremely disrupting all content models.  Libraries are in the content business. 

There’s no motivation for econtent providers to partner with libraries.  When the price comes down far enough that people are willing to pay without thinking about it, we’re screwed. 

Publishers would rather sell than lease. 

Publishers don’t want to see their content devalued by giving it away for cheap or free.  Agency pricing was a result of this perception.  They want people to know a book is worth such a value.

Amazon pays publishers for a sale every time they lend a book through their new lending program.  Publishers are still setting up to sue Amazon for devaluing their product.

Who do you think might be the next target?

Advocacy

Libraries can play a role in advocating and educating on privacy and internet safety.  We should at least be thinking about the technologies we use and how they affect our patrons and the kind of example we’re setting.

More people are accessing internet with mobile but it’s currently lousy and expensive.  However, FCC’s net neutrality rule doesn’t apply to mobile.  

WhatismyIP.com - shows you your IP address, which travels with you and shows your location.  ELM uses it to locate you so you can access when you’re in Minnesota without using your library card.

QR codes are live - every time you read one you go through the service that encoded it.  So the service can track the use of QR codes.  This is a privacy issue.

Melissa @ Central

Science Fiction & eBooks Presentations @ MLA2011

At MLA 2011 I participated in 2 presentations, one on Science Fiction Readers Advisory, and one on eBooks. 

“To Boldly Go:  Fantastical Journeys through Science Fiction Readers’ Advisory” was my solo science fiction readers’ advisory presentation.  I started out by making the point that SF is literature, and, in many ways, SF RA is the same as any other sort of RA. Then I talked about how it’s different, and went through various science fiction tropes and subgenres.  In lieu of handouts, I created a blog, a Delicious account (mirrored on Diigo, due to Delicious’ recent upgrade), and a GoogleDocs page, all of which are linked here.  About 30 people attended, which is pretty good for 8:00 am, and the audience was enthusiastic and asked questions.

“E-books:  What’s All the EXCITEMENT About?” was the eBooks panel I participated in and moderated. We kept the discussion philosophical, and some of the topics discussed were what the panelists’ libraries are doing with eBooks, the future of print and eBooks, the library’s role in the future of eBooks, meeting patrons’ expectations, the library’s role in matters of patron privacy in the digital age, the availability of eBooks for lending and what are publishers thinking, anyway. The discussion was wide-ranging and enthusiastic, with lots of audience participation, and it was standing-room only.  We created a wiki including statistics, free eBook sources, and a bibliography of eBook resources. .

I also attended some interesting panels, including “The History of Copyright in 45 Minutes,” “RDA:  DOA or A-OK?  A Town Hall Debate” (on Resource Description and Access – the new cataloging system being discussed), "Things in a Flash:  The Latest Web 2.0 Tools," and the “50 in 60 Book Blast,” which covered Nordic thrillers, teen, contemporary women's fiction, fantasy and science fiction, and paranormal fiction and featured our own Barb Pierce and Jennifer Larson.  You might want to check out the MLA 2011 presentation materials. There was also fairly active tweeting and photo taking; check out the Twitter hash tag #mnlib11 and the Flickr photostream. 

Melissa @ Central.

(A version of this article also appeared in the November issue of Communique.)

RDA: DOA or AOK?

RDA:  DOA or AOK?

MLA2011
Town meeting. 

RDA = Resource Description and Access.  Proposed successor to AACR2. 

This panel was a town meeting of catalogers discussing the still-controversial RDA, and whether it would be implemented wholesale or abandoned.  As this took the form of a debate, the opinions of the presenters was divided, but they did poll the audience and said they’d let us know the results. I haven’t heard yet.  

First, what’s RDA?

Here’s a really good article from Reference and User Services Quarterly (RUSQ) that gives the basics of RDA and some of the implications for reference. ”Resource Description and Access (RDA):An Introduction for Reference Librarians” by Diane Zabel, Editor & Liz Miller, Guest Columnist.

 

The changes mainly have to do with the data model.  AACR2 is based on:

• Limited resources determining the method of providing access - catalog cards only provide description and carefully delineated access points. Space and access points were limited resources in the world of the card catalog and early computing, but are not any more. 
• Linear searching. In a card catalog, there’s a limit to the number of ways you can access an item – author, title, subject.  That’s not true in the current digital world.
• A lot of the semantic weight of a catalog card is in one place – the chunk of text that makes up the description.  Computers have a really hard time interpreting that because it’s not divided up into discrete data points.  Designed for humans, not computers.  

A few things RDA does differently:

• Designed with the user, not limited resources, in mind – richer searching, no abbreviations, all the creators listed, etc.
• Designed for use with the semantic web – data is divided into very small pieces and consists of data points and the relationships between them.  A name, and that name’s relationship to the item being cataloged, for instance. The point of the semantic web is that with the discrete data points and the relationships, the computer can understand the data better and create meaningful data blocks without specific instructions.  The semantic web is not here yet, but it’s coming.
• It’s a lot more flexible than AACR2.  AACR2 is still based on catalog cards, RDA is not.  RDA is based on a digital environment.

RDA has been a long time in development. The original meeting of what became the Joint Steering Committee for the Development of RDA  where RDA was proposed was in 1997, and we’re at a conditional endpoint.  We’re just coming off of an extensive testing program, where a number of libraries all over the country (including MNHS) tried RDA on a limited corpus of documents in real-life conditions. The final decision is that RDA will be implemented by the three national libraries – LC, National Agricultural Library, and the National Library of Medicine - not before Jan 2013, as long as certain conditions are met. Each library will need to decide whether to implement it or not. 

Most of the members of the MLA panel liked RDA, at least in theory.  They agreed that AACR2 has seen its day, and we can’t keep going on as we have been. The main issues the panelists had with RDA had to do with cost. Whether they were AOK or RDA was determined by if they thought the pros outweighed the cons.  Here are some of the points they made, pro and con.

• Pro: RDA is designed to work with AACR2, and theoretically, everything won’t have to be recataloged. 
• Pro: There is a team working on revising MARC.  Con: MARC is a legacy system, as far as the non-library world is concerned, and therefore a huge stumbling block. One of the panelists expressed grave doubt that RDA would work in any meaningful way with MARC.  MARC is a flat, rigid system designed to work with the computer technology of the late 60’s.  RDA does things the designers of MARC might have dreamed of. The panelist didn’t think MARC in any form would be sufficient – the basic construct is inadequate.  We need a whole new supporting software structure, and that means that not only would a new system have to be designed and implemented, but all records would have to be recoded, largely by hand.  MARC still has a lot of data in unwieldy chunks – physical description is all in one field, for instance – height, pagination, illustration, etc, and a computer would have great difficulty in picking it apart with any accuracy. 
• Pro: RDA is based on XML, and is designed for interoperability and data sharing outside the library world. Under AACR2 and MARC, libraries have all this great data that no one else can import in any usable fashion, and vice versa. A specific example given was that libraries might be able to import data directly from publishers so as to cut down drastically on cataloging time. 
• Con:  Current ILS systems wouldn’t be able to implement RDA to anything close to its full potential.  While RDA’s interoperability would mean ILSs would be far less specialized and difficult to build, the initial changeover would be expensive.
• Con: The expense of training
• Con: The extra expense of the RDA Toolkit, which libraries would need in addition many of the cataloging services they use now.

Melissa @ Central.

iPad Features

USING ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES ON THE iPad (or iPhone or iTouch for that matter)

I attended the class “What is an iPad?" at the Vision Loss Resource Center in Minneapolis (there is an office in St. Paul too).  I learned some very helpful information about accessibility features for those that have low vision and I’d like to share them with you.  This helpful information is taken from the teacher’s handout. 

1. The user guide for the iPad can be found in the bookmarks of the Safari web browser.  There is an entire section on how to use the accessibility options.

2. There are four accessibility features on the iPad (and other Apple mobile devices such as the iPhone and iTouch).
• VoiceOver that converts text to speech
• Zoom which enlarges everything on the screen
• White on Black which changes the screen from color to white on black (this is an easier way for some low vision people to read). 
• Large text which can increase the text size up to 56 point font but only in the mail and notes apps.

3. The accessibility features are turned on by going to the icon for “settings” on the desktop, selecting “general” and then “accessibility.”

4. VoiceOver cannot be used when Zoom is on and vice versa.  However, White on Black can be used with both VoiceOver and Zoom.

5. If you are a low vision user and want to toggle between VoiceOver and Zoom, it is recommended that you enable the feature “Triple-click Home” which can be turned on in the accessibility area of “settings.”  If you quickly triple click the home button, a dialogue box will pop up allowing you to choose either Zoom, VoiceOver or White on Black. 

6. VoiceOver has specific gestures associated with it.  These are different from what a sighted user would use.  These are described in the user manual but here are the basics:
• When you put your finger on the screen, VoiceOver will tell you what you are touching.  For example, if you touch the icon for the Safari web browser, it will say “safari.”  If you want to open the app, double click with one finger.
• VoiceOver usually reads text in chunks and puts a black rectangle around what it is being read.  If you want to scroll up or down a page, use a light three finger flick.  VoiceOver will tell you what page it is on.
• If you want to pause VoiceOver as it is reading, tap the screen once with two fingers.  Do the same again to resume reading from the point at which you stopped.  This gesture is extremely handy when you have headphones on and someone begins talking to you!
• To turn VoiceOver off, use a three finger double tap.  It will say “speech off.”  Use another double three finger tap to turn the speech back on.
• To have VoiceOver read an entire document, do a two finger flick upward near the top of the first page.  It will begin reading and not stop until it reaches the end.

7. Here’s the downside of VoiceOver – it works with all the apps that come pre-installed on the iPad, for example, the Safari web browser, iBooks, iCalendar, and notepad.  But it often does not work with third party apps that you buy from the app store, and you often have no way of knowing this until you have bought the app (fortunately many are free or only a few dollars).  Apple encourages its app developers to make them compatible with VoiceOver but many do not.

8. Here are some apps the teacher likes and that work with VoiceOver:
• iBooks – if you can buy it from the iBook store, VoiceOver will read it.
• NPR or National Public Radio app.
• Audible app – gives you access to a store that sells audiobooks.  You can buy them and immediately download them to your iPad.
• Dragon dictation – allows you to dictate e-mails and send them. 
• Read-to-go – this app links you to the Bookshare website and allows you to download any of its content:  books, magazines, newspapers.
• Bamboo paper – if you buy a special pen, you can take notes in your own handwriting on the iPad.  VoiceOver will not read them but with Zoom or simply large handwriting, the notes are easy to see for someone with low vision.

So now, go ahead and practice.  It takes a bit of getting used to but is quite fun to try. 

                                                                                                            - Deb Kerkvliet

Newly Acquired Minnesota State Government Reports Oct 2011

Hello!

The Legislative Reference Library has put out their monthly list of Newly Acquired Minnesota State Government Reports.

Here are some of special interest:

Shepard, Mark. Short Subjects: State Elected Officials' Compensation (Updated). Publication Date: October 2011.  From House Research.

Dyson, Deborah A. Classification of Cities (Revised). Publication Date: September 2011. From House Research

Chun, Randall and Danyell Punelli. Eligibility of Noncitizens for Health Care and Cash Assistance Programs (Revised). Publication Date: September 2011.  From House Research.

Stadium Proposal Risk Analysis. Publication Date: 2011. From Metropolitan Council; Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission.

Financing Education in Minnesota. Publication Date: September 2011.  From the MN House of Representative’s Fiscal Analysis Dept.

Department of Human Rights Case Management Summary Report. Publication Date: October 10, 2011.  Mandated by: 1997 Minn. Laws Chap. 239 Art. 1 Sec. 15 Subd. 1

Enjoy!

Melissa@Central

Government Documents Coordinator