[LISNews] The LISNews For November 29th 2011

Tue Nov 29 11:26:44 CST 2011

On Tuesdays we take a look at the stories that got the most comments in the last week.

And here's the latest from LISNews:

--Liblime Versus Koha: What Is The Libraryland Opposite of Open Source?
- http://lisnews.org/node/40027/
Liblime Versus Koha: What Is The Libraryland Opposite of Open Source? "Briefly, it seems to me that the core idea of Open Source is “Thou shalt not require money or otherwise restrict the use of the
product in any form” while the core idea of Trademark is “Thou shalt not use this product in any form without getting my permission (usually by paying me money)”. These two concepts seem to be
diametrically opposed. This isn’t a case of another company using the same name to mean something entirely different. This is a company that specializes in supporting open source software trying to
trademark the name of the software that they support. They work in this field! LIBLIME SHOULD KNOW BETTER!!!"

--Traditional publishing Cutting their own throats with DRM
- http://lisnews.org/node/40026/
Cutting their own throats If the big six began selling ebooks without DRM, readers would at least be able to buy from other retailers and read their ebooks on whatever platform they wanted, thus eroding
Amazon's monopoly position. But it's not clear that the folks in the boardrooms are agile enough to recognize the tar pit they've fallen into ...  

--Yale Puts The Voynich Manuscript Online
- http://lisnews.org/node/40025/
The Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has put one of my favorite books online.  Written in Central Europe at the end of the 15th or during the 16th century, the origin, language,
and date of the Voynich Manuscript—named after the Polish-American antiquarian bookseller, Wilfrid M. Voynich, who acquired it in 1912—are still being debated as vigorously as its puzzling drawings and
undeciphered text. Described as a magical or scientific text, nearly every page contains botanical, figurative, and scientific drawings of a provincial but lively character, drawn in ink with vibrant
washes in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue, and red. http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/voynich.html 

--Survey Says Americans tepid about libraries
- http://lisnews.org/node/40024/
Americans tepid about libraries Many Americans don't use libraries, favor locally sourced food and would choose President Barack Obama over his predecessor George W. Bush if the two were vying in a
presidential election. A new 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll showed Obama ahead of Bush by 40 to 31 percent in a hypothetical race but 40 percent of the key independent voters, who are often said to decide
elections, chose neither.   But libraries, apparently, are on the wane. Two thirds of people said they never go to the library, or do so only once or twice a year.  

--British Library newspaper archive puts 300 years of history online
- http://lisnews.org/node/40023/
British Library newspaper archive puts 300 years of history online Sixty-five million historic newspaper articles, covering the most significant events over the last 300 years, are now fully available
online from today in a new archive created by the British Library: http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ 

--Mourning a Cultural Hub Disguised as a Used Bookstore
- http://lisnews.org/node/40022/
Mourning a Cultural Hub Disguised as a Used Bookstore Still, more than just another bookstore is closing in Mr. Dawson’s plans to shut down his eerily orderly kingdom of antiquated arcana with the
scrap-metal Don Quixote statue out front. The Raconteur bucked the awful economy, the impossible economics of the book business and the big-box magnets sucking life from suburban downtowns. Even if he
went out on his own terms, that seems small consolation to adherents.   

--It's Not About Libraries, It's About Amazon 
- http://lisnews.org/node/40020/
It's Not About Libraries, It's About Amazon   The Penguin move should be seen not as corporate verdict on libraries, but as a reaction to Amazon's entry into the library market. When Overdrive was
distributing content to libraries on their own platform, the publishers were able to view Overdrive, and libraries in general, as a counterweight to Amazon. But the extension of Overdrive lending to the
Kindle flipped libraries into the Amazon column. That's the best way to understand the Penguin decision, though you won't see them saying that.  

--Cites & Insights special issue now available
- http://lisnews.org/node/40019/
A special issue of Cites &amp; Insights is now available for downloading (or reading in your browser) at http://citesandinsights.info/hiatus.pdf  This two-page unnumbered issue consists of one brief
essay: Not With a Bang ...  (pp. 1-2) Going on hiatus. There will be no more issues in Volume 11. If and when there is an index, it will only be part of the annual volume available at Lulu, if and when
that volume is available.

--Bibliophilia for Beginners
- http://lisnews.org/node/40018/
Tips and Traps When Buying for the Aspiring Book Collector. But there are almost as many ways into the field as there are collectors. The obvious first step is to collect a favorite author—though, unless
your pockets are very deep, think hard about who that is. Writers who were commercially successful may have had larger print runs, but also tend to attract more people who specialize in their books. And
if you like Graham Greene, John Dickson Carr, Philip K. Dick, Ed McBain or P.G. Wodehouse, remember how prolific they were.  

--Stolen card brings $322 in late fees
- http://lisnews.org/node/40017/
This fine is not so fine Lorain Public Library patron Caprice Anderson got a big surprise at the main library Wednesday.  It was a bill for $322 in late fees. But she said she hadn’t been to the library
in months and she never checked out the items for which her card was used.  “I’m actually a frequent book reader, but I normally buy my books,” said Anderson, 27, of Lorain. “I was going to go to the
library and find something I haven’t read. That’s when I found out my card was used.”  Anderson doesn’t know who used her library card, and filed a police report after coming across the staggering late
fees.  

--Libraries borrowing marketing ideas from bookstores
- http://lisnews.org/node/40016/
Libraries borrowing marketing ideas from bookstores “It’s standard operating procedure,” said Pat Losinski, director of the library system. “Our mission and our drive is to make materials relevant to our
customers. We’re going out of our way to show customers that we’re aware of their investment.”  

--Rochester Public Library  Beginning was anything but smooth
- http://lisnews.org/node/40015/
Rochester Public Library: Beginning was anything but smooth Buffalo had one. And Syracuse had just gotten $200,000 from the Carnegie Foundation to build a new one. So it was not easy for Rochesterians to
accept the fact that their fair city, famed near and far for the quality of its industrial products, was entering the 20th century without a municipal library to its name. Especially when the Chamber of
Commerce in 1903 surveyed the seven leading institutional libraries in the city (such as the one at the University of Rochester), and found that their total collection of books numbered only 180,000 —
barely one book per resident, writes former city historian Blake McKelvey. "Rochester is disgraced," former alderman Devillo Selye declared in 1904. Mayor James G. Cutler agreed. So what did the city do
about it?  

--The Future of Information Access
- http://lisnews.org/node/40014/
The future of information access, part 1 and The future of information access, part 2... from Jill Hurst-Wahl. Earlier this month, Sean Branagan, who is the director of the Center for Digital Media
Entrepreneurship in the Newhouse School of Public Communications, asked that she guest lecture in his class on the topic of the future of information access.  The class is seeking input from a wide
variety of industries on what the future may hold and its impact on communications (e.g., news).  In her 1.5 hour lecture, she spoke about the following ideas, some of which are evident in today's
environment...  

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