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Kansas Leading the Fight for Fair Ebook Access in Libraries
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by Nancy K. Herther
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The Kansas State Library dates from 1863 and provides the typical educational, advocacy, and collaborative purchasing that marks other state libraries and multitype networks. Kansas negotiated its first ebook statewide contract 6 years ago and, given the rural nature of the state and increasing availability of internet access, this became a popular service. That original contact, which included the provision of audiobooks, was signed with OverDrive in December 2005. What happened next is the stuff of heroes and legends—or at least history books—what some reporters have called "unprecedented," whose efforts are intended to "wrest" the budding ebook investment from the grip of today's arcane (or even repressive) publisher-defined structure. And it happened in Kansas with the starring role played by State Librarian Jo Budler.
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Pearson Launches OpenClass Free Learning Environment
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Pearson launched the beta version of OpenClass. A key component of Pearson's vision to increase access, achievement, and affordability, OpenClass offers institutions and instructors the ability to engage and interact with their students using the collaborative technologies that students are embracing—at no cost.
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Syndetics Solutions Adds Doody's Book Reviews
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Syndetics Solutions, Bowker's OPAC and discovery layer enrichment tool, is adding content from Doody's Book Reviews, a source of reviews of medical and healthcare works. Libraries that subscribe to Syndetics Solutions can add the reviews to the bibliographic data displayed to patrons through their OPAC or discovery layer, the most common entry points to the library collection. Bowker is a member of the ProQuest family of companies.
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Print Newspapers Get Interactive With Kooaba Partnership With NewspaperDirect
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Kooaba AG, a Swiss startup specializing in image recognition, and NewspaperDirect, a provider of multichannel newspaper and magazine distribution services, are partnering to connect more than 2,000 printed newspapers in 95 countries to the digital world. Using Kooaba's Paperboy mobile app, readers can snap pictures of full pages or articles of interest in their favorite printed newspapers and share them immediately as PDFs via Twitter, Facebook, email, or SMS—or store them for future reference on my.kooaba.com or Evernote.
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Mine the Web Like a Journalist
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by Paula J. Hane
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I recently had the opportunity to sit in on two webinars aimed at journalists. One was sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, titled "Beyond Google: Mining the Web for Company Intelligence." The other was a "LinkedIn for Journalists" training session, which is offered frequently by Krista Canfield, senior manager of corporate communications at LinkedIn. Both proved to be well worth my time. I thought I might share some of the best suggestions I picked up that are applicable for many researchers, journalists or not.
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If you regularly read blogs, add these to your reader:
ITI Books Blog – booksblog.infotoday.com – news, observations, and commentary from the authors, editors, and publishers of Information Today, Inc.'s many book offerings.
ITI Conference Blog – libconf.com – covering ITI's library conferences worldwide.
Library Stuff – librarystuff.net – the library blog dedicated to resources for keeping current and professional development, written by Steven M. Cohen.
InfoToday Europe Blog – infotodayeurope.com – The latest news, analysis and opinion on the information industry in Europe and the UK.
Business of Video blog – blog.streamingmedia.com – Daily posts about the online video industry, business trends and analysis, market data, and research as well as the online video business models in the media and entertainment, broadcast, publishing, advertising and enterprise industries.
destinationCRM Blog – destinationcrmblog.com – a blog from the editors of CRM magazine, dedicated to providing Customer Relationship Management information in a timely manner to connect decision makers and providers.
SpeechTech Blog – speechtechblog.com – updates on speech technology and its applications in daily life. Covers everything from ASR to VUI, with lots of links, threads, and even a few pictures thrown in for good measure.
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