Patchwork quilt post, March 2010

Mar 102010

….made up of scraps I had lying around that you might enjoy…eclecticism ahead…

Role of public libraries in supporting and promoting digital participation – from the British Museums, Libraries and Archives council , examining the role of the public library in the “Digital Britain” Strategy.
The bookends scenarios: Alternative futures for the New South Wales Public Network in NSW in 2030 . Four possible scenarios are discussed – Silent Spring, Buildings Learn, Neuromancers and Fahrenheit 451 – based on matrix of the degree to which libraries and their content are valued and how orderly or chaotic society is. The longer post I had about this is just not going to be finished, but Jo Ransom has written two great responses to it that are worth reading – Thinking about the bookends report , and Bookends scenario .

Preservation guidelines – from the Digital New Zealand site, updated 8 March 2010. Has some great tips about backup formats and procedures.
Creating and keeping your digital treasures – from the State Library of Western Australia, update 10 January 2010. Written for a non-technical audience, it outlines the minimum file format and quality standards for material archived by the library .

Books in the age of the iPad . by Craig Mod. March 2010. Beautitfully illustrated and laid out, this article distinguishes between “formless content” which can go digital without any loss and “definite content” that relies on its container for complete enjoyment of the work. It discusses the future potential and advantage for both.
Web standards for e-books by Joe Clark at A List Apart . 9 March 2010 . Explains why ebooks have so many typos in their layout – partly due to publishers scanning in print versions rather than working from the original digital files, partly due to digital layouts that work fine when the item is printed but not so well when it is interpreted by ebook readers. It outlines a way that authoring using standardised HTML would make it all so.much.better. Check out the epub Zen Garden that shows how you should make your e-book reader do the work to change the layout, not the original text.

Ozlib – chitterchatter for Australian Library folk. A couple of my twitter friends were starting with Friendfeed, so I have created a Friendfeed room for Australian Libraries. Friendfeed allows a longer, threaded conversation that is different from Twitter – and also lets you feed your content from other sources into your account. If you are on Friendfeed, or thinking of joining then feel free, pop into the Ozlib room and join in.

You’ve probably seen this cartoon, based on screenshots made by Brad Colbow, when he tried to download an audiobook using the Cleveland Public Library’s Overdrive service, Why DRM doesn’t work or how to download an audiobook from the Cleveland Public Library . I was pointed toward it by folks in my Twitter stream after I tweeted that I was in a session about e-books and public libraries where the speaker had suggested that bittorrenting wasn’t a viable alternative for many ebooks because the quality wasn’t any good…ummm..no. I suggest that librarians who want to understand this issue learn how to use something like Vuze to download (legal!!!) content, then compare it to the products vendors are trying to sell us.