The Chronicle of Higher Ed talks with Adam Smith, director of product management at Google in this podcast discussion. The two talk about “Book Search, the proposed settlement in the authors-and-publishers lawsuit against it, what it means for academic authors and researchers and so-called orphan works, and fears of a Google monopoly”.
It's no secret that libraries face incredibly difficult prospects in these lean economic times. In recent days, for example, American Libraries ran a story about a possible $227.3 million devastating cut proposed for Ohio libraries over the next two years. Libraries of all sorts are taking extraordinary measures to deal with shrinking budgets. Reduced hours, flat or reduced salaries, voluntary furloughs, layoffs. Not to mention reduced expenditures for collections. Not all libraries experience the same level of hardship—some find themselves fortunate and lightly touched, at least for now.
Do these economic times strike the death knell for technology projects? In my March 2009 column in Computers in Libraries, I suggest that at least in some cases, strategic technology projects may prove worthwhile investment. Well-conceived technology projects can help maintain or improve the position of a library forced to make cuts in other areas.
The downturn in the economy has taken its toll on libraries. Even in the best of times, most libraries have to work with budgets that are barely adequate to support their essential activities. In these recent months, the recession has subtracted significant funds from the parent organizations of many libraries: city, county, and state governments; public and private colleges and universities; schools; and corporations. In the sphere of libraries with which I've interacted, some have faced drastic budget cuts, including givebacks in their current fiscal cycle; others have been more lightly touched, facing only a year or so of zero-growth budgets. I've not heard from any libraries that expect increases in funding on the order of what they had a year ago.
I expect that this harsh economic climate will make an impact on the library automation industry and will likely force many libraries to reconsider the technology projects planned for the next year or so.
Most libraries that I've encountered routinely find ways to execute any given project with the lowest cost and the greatest impact possible. We're frugal organizations used to making every dollar count. Today's environment requires responses that go beyond even the strictest frugality, prompting a strategic reassessment of how a library allocates its resources. In this context, technology and automation may well be wise investments that help maintain the library's mission in times of diminishing resources.
In times like these with budgets constrained more than ever, it's necessary to take a step back to consider technology and automation issues. I don't think that tight budgets necessarily have to mean that all new technology projects should be set aside until brighter times. It's possible that innovative use of technology might provide the most effective way for a library to carry out its objectives with fewer overall resources. Nevertheless, routine technology projects will inevitably suffer.continue reading...
(The full text of my Systems Librarian columns are available on Library Technology Guides 90 days following thier original publication in Computers in Libraries magazine.)
David Armano at the Logic + Emotion blog has done it again. He always creates the best visuals that explain complex topics.
As we evolve our way through making changes in balancing our traditional marketing mix with the digital and social marketing tools that are emerging as so important to our relationship with our communities.
Have you reviewed your marketing mix for your library lately? Is it flexible enough to adapt to coming changes in SEO, Yahoo!, Facebook, e-mail, Twitter, and whatever?
I first heard these statistics from Ken Haycock and I was reminded of them last week when I saw them in the Wall Street Journal (May 20, p. A13)
There are some good reasons to encourage hotel guests to re-use towels on longer stays. It saves the hotel laundry costs and every little bit adds up in helpig to reduce our impact on the environment. Read these communication differences:
1. "Help the hotel save energy" results in 16% towel reuse.
2. "Partner with us to help th environment" results in 31% towel reuse.
3. "Almost 75% of guests reuse towels" results in 44% towel reuse.
4. "75% of the guests who stayed in this room reuse towels" results in 49% towel reuse.
Hmmmm. And Wow.
Now think about libraries. We have alll followed the Flickr group on bad library signs. There's much to learn. If we had a good discussion about behaviours we wanted to encourage what would our signs look like?
If you accepted the research based communication results above, how would you:
1. Communicate about fines or returning books (on time)?
2. Communicate about not reshelving books?
3. Encourage parents and caregivers to attend story hours?
4. Pushing DVD's or books that weren't bestsellers?
5. Appropriate mobile phone use?
6. Encouraging good teen behaviours or dealing with loud and boisterous seniors?
7. Etc.
Lots of good stuff could emerge while creating a postive communication environment.
Stephen
I picked this up from Lone Wolf Librarian (again - it's a library blog worth the RSS feed).
Web 3.0 Concepts Explained in Plain English
"Web 1.0 - That Geocities & Hotmail era was all about read-only content and static HTML websites. People preferred navigating the web through link directories of Yahoo! and dmoz.
Web 2.0 - This is about user-generated content and the read-write web. People are consuming as well as contributing information through blogs or sites like Flickr, YouTube, Digg, etc. The line dividing a consumer and content publisher is increasingly getting blurred in the Web 2.0 era.
Web 3.0 - This will be about semantic web (or the meaning of data), personalization (e.g. iGoogle), intelligent search and behavioral advertising among other things."
This blog posting has 6 web presentations on Web 3.0.
1. The Evolution of Web 3.0 (28 slides)
2. Why Web 2.0 / 3.0? (101 slides)
3. WWW 3.0: This time it's personal (130 slides)
4. Web 3.0 (44 slides)
5. Web 3.0 Explained with a stamp : The Basics (45 slides)
6. Web 3.0 Explained with a stamp : The Techniques (51 slides)
While the publishing industry frets about Google’s looming supremacy over the written word, Google itself just continues on its merry way, scanning books and fine-tuning the presentation of them. Yesterday, Google announced a number of tweaks to its Book Search product, which include improved word search functionality, improved page-turn functionality, and newer, faster ways of jumping back and forth in the text.
You can read about all the changes here.
Look out Amazon, Google’s coming. That was the message at BookExpo America over the weekend. According to an article by Motoko Rich in yesterday’s New York Times, representatives from Google were in discussions with booksellers at the annual trade show about a new platform that would allow users to purchase digital copies of new books directly from Google. The search engine already allows users to browse portions of new books, and includes links to booksellers such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon, where traditional print copies or e-books can be purchased. The new proposal would eliminate the middleman and allow Google to sell directly to consumers.
It would also allow booksellers to set the prices for their titles, which has been a bone of contention between booksellers and Amazon. From the Times:
Google’s move is likely to be welcomed by publishers who have expressed concerns about Amazon’s aggressive pricing strategy for e-books. Amazon offers Kindle editions of most new best sellers for $9.99, far less than the typical $26 at which publishers sell new hardcovers. In early discussions, Google has said it will allow publishers to set consumer prices.
Something else that may have Amazon trembling in its corporate boots is the fact that Google’s proposed program would allow users to access digital copies of books from any device with Web access, such as cell phones. Amazon’s e-books are only compatible with the company’s own Kindle reader.
The proposed new e-book project is separate from the ongoing Google Book Search settlement, which involves payments to rightsholders whose books have been digitized by Google without permission.
Though competition is a healthy thing, Quillblog thinks that the notion of allowing publishers to charge the same price for e-books that they charge for traditional hard copies won’t gain much traction. No one is going to want to fork over $30 for a digital copy of a book, especially when websites (such as, ahem, Google) are already making so much content available online for free.
Publishers Weekly is reporting that U.S. book production both rose and fell in 2008, according to statistics just released from Bowker’s Books in Print database. While the number of new and revised titles released by traditional production methods fell 3% in 2008 to 275,232, the number of on-demand and short run titles jumped a whopping 132% to 285,394. With the two numbers combined, total output increased by 38% to 560,626 books. This marks the first time that print-on-demand titles have topped traditional books in production numbers. From PW:
Kelly Gallagher, v-p of publisher services for Bowker, said the decline in traditional books reflects not only the difficult economy but the decision by publishers to become smarter and more strategic in the titles they published last year. A breakout by segment shows the impact of the economy on publishing. The number of travel titles was down 15% last year as Americans stayed closer to home, while fiction titles fell 11%, to 47,541. The religion segment also had a significant decline with new titles off 14%. The biggest gain among traditional segments came in education where output rose 33%, to 9,510, while new business titles rose 14%, to 8,838.
Since 2002, production of print-on-demand books has leaped 774%, compared to a 126% growth for traditional titles. Gallagher cited the vast improvements in print-on-demand printing technology as a major reason for the change.
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