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Books Media Writing

Ebook (in)sanity

I just had a brief piece published over at Library Journal entitled Ebook Sanity. It was something that just poured out of my head unchecked one day, and I was lucky enough to find a home for it as a part of the build up to the upcoming Library Journal Ebook Summit. Here’s a very short teaser:

…consider the idea that the First Sale principle doesn’t apply to ebooks and other digital content. Maybe this is the fact: information in the digital age is such a different beast than in the print age that we not only shouldn’t draw analogies but we actually can’t.

I hope that you head over and read it. Also take a look at the other excellent essays linked off the side from Eric Hellman, Barbara Fister, and Char Booth (holy hell how did I end up in a set with those people? I’m so not worthy). I would love to hear any thoughts you might have on the topic…I’m still forming my conclusions around some of these issues. How do you think libraries can and should react to ebooks?

Categories
BIGWIG Library Issues

BIGWIG Showcase 2008 in Library Journal Insider

The BIGWIG Social Software Showcase got a very nice writeup in a recent Library Journal Insider blog post by Josh Hadro. Josh said:

In stark contrast to the LITA Top Tech Trends was the fun and functional chaos of the LITA BIGWIG Social Software Showcase. Though the listeners numbered an order of magnitude fewer, the room hummed with the buzz of their excitement, mounting to a near frenzy following BIGWIG chair Jason Griffey’s introduction when the audience’s attention was released into the wilds of small group discussions. This was the infectious frenzy of mostly librarian associates and assistants genuinely eager to identify new ideas, wrap their brains around the source code, and carry it home with them to bolster their own library’s services. This was a beautiful thing.

Nice! He picked up as well on the difficulty of scaling the Showcase (which we’re talking about already) and the fact that everything we discussed is up online (including the recorded live stream, up on the Showcase page now).

Thanks, Josh, for such a great writeup…glad you enjoyed it.