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Joyce Ogburn is elected Vice President/President of ACRL

Horrors! I left this out of the June Print ATG Rumors!!!! How could I be so stupid??!

The incredible and wonderful and perfect Joyce L. Ogburn, university librarian and director of the University of Utah Marriott Library, has been elected vice-president/president-elect of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL).  She will become president-elect following the [...]

Has anyone reading this bought an iPad

Inquiring people like Dennis Brunning and Katina Strauch want to know. Thanks!

Against the Grain Crossword

 

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The new new textbook?

Want to write a textbook? Just take one that’s already written and customize it for your class or even for yourself. See this article in today’s New York Times – “Textbooks That Professors Can Rewrite Digitally,” by Motoko Rich. Reportedly, in August, Macmillan will introduce software called Dynamic Books which will allow professors to make [...]

Kirkus is not dead

This is from the Chronicle of Higher Education, February 11, 2010 — The article “New Owner Takes a Shot with Kirkus Reviews.” Herb Simon, owner of the Indiana Pacers, has bought Kirkus Reviews.  Simon also owns Tecolote Books, an independent bookstore in Montecito, California. “With the growth of e-books and e-reading devices, no one can [...]

Open letter to the library community from John Barnes, Gale

http://www.gale.cengage.com/fairaccess/index.htm

EBSCO acquires fulltext rights to Time, Inc. titles

I didn’t make it to ALA Midwinter in Boston (broken ankle) but I have heard all sorts of Rumors about an Announcement that was made by Ebsco at the Luncheon during ALA about Ebsco securing the exclusive full text rights to several of the more popular journals. A press release has not yet been issued [...]

Kirkus Reviews and other Nielsen Business titles bite the dust!

From the latest Chronicle of Higher Education comes news that the venerable Kirkus Reviews will be shut down along with Editor and Publisher, Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, Backstage, Adweek, Brandweek, and Mediaweek. And according to Folio, Nielsen Business Media has agreed to sell to Global Media, a new company formed by private equity firm Pluribus Capital [...]

SLA will not change its name

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) announced the results of its association-wide vote on a new name today.  Voting in record numbers, SLA members failed to approve a proposal to change the organization’s name to the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals. 50 percent of those members eligible to vote participated in the referendum, with 2071 voting [...]

Blackwell and YBP?

WOW! Who would have thought? Baker & Taylor Inc. today announced it has acquired Blackwell Book Services North America (BNA) and Blackwell’s Australia-based James Bennett bookseller. In addition to the acquisitions, Baker & Taylor’s YBP Library Services and Blackwell U.K. have entered into a strategic sourcing agreement under which YBP Library Services will source all [...]

The case of the broken right ankle

For Thanksgiving, I gave myself a wonderful present! A broken right ankle, a visit to the hospital, an operation, and a long recuperation period! Will wonders never cease!? Seriously, the good news is that I can get to my computer. The bad news is that I didn’t eat much turkey (or maybe that’s good news [...]

Against the Grain and Inside Higher Education

Was thrilled to read in the November 25, 2009, Inside Higher Education praise from Scott McLemee about our ATG November issue features “Is There Any Such Thing as an Out-of-Print Book Anymore?” See “The Cusp of Every Bibliomaniac’s Dream,” by Scott McLemee. And thanks to John Riley and Bob Holley who guest edited the issue [...]

Google publishes Stanford dissertations online

Noticed this article in the San Francisco Chronicle courtesy of Academic Impressions Daily Impact, November 19, 2009. Seems that, beginning a few weeks ago, doctoral students at Stanford will be able to post their works online through Google rather than delivering hard copies. Says the ground-breaking Michael Keller Stanford’s library director among many other things, [...]

Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact

Interesting article in yesterday’s online Financial TImes.  There has been lots of buzz about Rupert Murdoch (Owner of the Wall Street Journal and the Sun among other things) “de-indexing” the newspapers’ websites from Google. Now, apparently they are being joined by Microsoft protecting its Bing search engine.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a243c8b2-d79b-11de-b578-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_c&nclick_check=1