Today’s News: Grant awards from IMLS; plans change for NYPL venerable 5th Avenue building; Amazon leading ebooks sales channel; EBSCO’s Serials Price Projection Report; a WikiLand PR scandal; NYPL changes building plan; Semantico scores another contract; the Digital Literacy Task Force seeks comments; and West Des Moines PL selects Sierra Services and Encore Synergy.
Grant Awards Announcement: Connecting to Collections Statewide Implementation Grants
“The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) today announced eight Connecting to Collections Statewide Implementation Grants totaling $1,775,638. IMLS received 14 applications requesting $2,937,713.
“These awards will allow for the implementation of plans developed with Connecting to Collections Planning Grants,” said IMLS Director Susan Hildreth. “Each project addresses at least one need identified by the Heritage Health Index: providing safe conditions for collections, developing emergency plans, assigning collections-care responsibility to staff, and increasing awareness of and support for collections care.”
Click here to view the list of funded projects.”
Amazon Is The Most Lucrative eBook Sales Channel
GalleyCat reports that “not surprisingly, Amazon is the most lucrative sales channel for eBooks, according to Revealing the Business of eBooks: 2009-2012, the fourth eBook survey of publishers conducted by Aptara and Publisher’s Weekly. The study, which was conducted in April, found that 68 percent of eBook publishers sell via Amazon making it the most popular sales channel for eBooks, followed by Apple’s iBookstore which is used by 58 percent of eBook publishers…
EBSCO Releases 2013 Serials Price Projection Report
In case you missed it, EBSCO released their Serials Projection Report last week. They expect the overall effective publisher price increases for academic and academic/medical libraries for 2013 (before currency impact) to be in the range of 5 to 7 percent…” The report also discusses market dynamics, emerging trends and budget factors related to serials.
Corruption in Wikiland? Paid PR scandal erupts at Wikipedia
C|Net reports that “concerned Wikipedians raised the alarm Monday that two trusted men — one a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation UK, the other a respected Wikipedian In Residence — are allegedly editing Wikipedia pages and facilitating front-page placement for their pay-for-play, publicity-seeking clients…”
New York Public Library Shifts Plan for 5th Ave. Building
The New York Times reports that “responding to objections raised by scholars, writers, artists and others, the New York Public Library has revised its plan to remove most of the books from its flagship Fifth Avenue research center to make room for a circulating library. Library officials said that an $8 million donation would help pay for enough new storage space to keep 3.3 million of its 4.5 volumes at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, at 42nd Street. The change, approved by the library board on Wednesday, marks a significant shift in the Central Library Plan, a $300 million proposal to turn the historic building into the world’s largest combined research and circulating library…”
Now Publishers is latest win for Semantico
“Semantico has won the contract to redesign the web publishing platform used to deliver Now Publishers’ highly-respected series of Foundations and Trends® reference journals… Semantico will redesign and reengineer the existing Now platform using industry respected technologies Scolaris and SAMS. Scolaris is the next generation integrated content platform, engineered to manage the complexities of journals, ebooks, reference works and dictionaries. Scolaris promotes discoverability by providing intelligent, full-text search which allows rich taxonomy support for faceted search and browse…”
Task force seeks comments on digital literacy draft report
“One group of literacy experts is asking library professionals to help them answer the question: what does “digital literacy” look like in a library context? The Digital Literacy Task Force – a group spearheaded by the American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy – is now seeking comments on the preliminary report “Digital Literacy, Libraries, and Public Policy.” The document seeks to provide a broad overview of libraries and digital literacy and discusses the current policy context, including digital inclusion, education and lifelong learning, and workforce development…”
West Des Moines Public Library (IA) Selects Sierra and Encore
“Innovative announced today that the West Des Moines Public Library has selected the Sierra Services Platform and Encore Synergy for a complete library technology solution. The Library will be migrating from a SirsiDynix Horizon™ ILS.
“The value-added features in Sierra will free staff to focus more on the Library’s customers. We were very excited by the cost-saving potential of some of the patron-management functionality, allowing us to lessen the number of patron notice mailings,” says Director Darryl Eschete. The Library has also selected a suite of products, including AirPAC for Smartphones, Circa Wireless Inventory, and Program Registration to provide a complete solution to support its community of patrons…”
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