LISNews - Librarian And Information Science NewsLibrarian And Information Science NewsRowling blow to plans to age-band books- July 3, 2008 Bad News For plans to make all childrens books carry age guidance were in tatters last night as JK Rowling came out in opposition to the move. The support of the Edinburgh-based Harry Potter creator was welcomed by authors determined to sabotage moves to introduce age-banding on all childrens titles by the autumn.http://www.lisnews.org/node/30522 Oregon County budget: fewer deputies, no libraries- July 3, 2008 Sad News from Oregon: Numerous unsuccessful pleas for money to reopen county libraries marked a 50-minute public hearing on the Josephine County 2008-09 fiscal year budget. Its a tough decision, said Commissioner Jim Raffenburg, but you cant call the library for help in the middle of the night.http://www.lisnews.org/node/30518 Has "The Long Tail" been refuted Probably Not- July 3, 2008 Marginal Revolution has the best comment I could find on This Paper (Summarized Here on "The Long Tail." Overall I cannot call this one for Elberse. If you take a genre as given, the web looks less revolutionary but part of the long tail is the creation of new genres. We have blogs now, for instance, and we didn't fifteen years ago, even though blog readership is quite concentrated among the top sites....You could have rewritten that as "The Long Tail hypothesis is basically true, just don't..http://www.lisnews.org/node/30510 Bit of a programming heads-up- July 3, 2008 As we've gotten over the middle of a busy holiday week in the United States, it is best to give a little hint about what is coming in LISTen 28. The next episode of LISTen is going to have interviews with two fiction writers who have large fan bases. One of them referred to a "porn" text he wrote as being merely a "dirty book" and was surprised that public libraries actually owned copies. The other who is known for his "honor" brought up his speculative views on the future of...http://www.lisnews.org/node/30504 See what the New York Times is suggesting- July 3, 2008 Tip of the week at the NYT: Tip of the Week: Look Up Books at Your Library From Home See full tip here.http://www.lisnews.org/node/30509 Green Sci-Fi from Bacigalupi's 'Pump Six'- July 3, 2008 Sci-fi writer Paolo Bacigalupi uses real environmental science as a starting point for his stories. His collection, called Pump Six, describes a near future where massive droughts create a black market for calories. Hear full interview on NPRhttp://www.lisnews.org/node/30508 No Shushing in this Library- July 2, 2008 Here's an article from the San Diego Reader that we missed (dateline June 18). Lots of readers wrote in with kudos for author and playwright Alex Finlayson, who hangs out a good deal of the time at her local branch, North Clairemont.http://www.lisnews.org/node/30506 Falling Over Fallback Password Questions- July 2, 2008 Some major sites on the Web want to know: What was the last name of your kindergarten teacher, the name of your dog, your mothers maiden name, the brand of your first car or in what year did you graduate from high school These are some of the commonly asked fallback questions that Web sites pose to users who need to reset their passwords. Some are just as difficult to remember as the password itself. Others are easily guessable (heres a list of common pet names, for example.) Internet companies.http://www.lisnews.org/node/30505 A Netflix for Magazines- July 2, 2008 Folio reports that Time, Inc. will be offering a new service called "Maghound." It allows consumers to choose titles from a variety of publishers for a mix-and-match subscriptions where they pay one monthly fee and have the ability to switch titles at any time. The Freakonomics Blog has some interesting commentary on this.http://www.lisnews.org/node/30503 A Tangled Info Web- July 2, 2008 Newsweek says Don't Be Deceived; Even A High-Tech Library Still Needs Shelves Of Books And Journals. "Who made the decision that everyone who is not computer-literate-very computer-literate, in the ease of our new library-could be left in the cold Who is pretending that men and women from low-income neighborhoods, schooled without computers and without computers at home, can use this library And how many decades will pass before everyone who graduated from pre-computer colleges is dead, and...http://www.lisnews.org/node/30502 |