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Thursday, January 06, 2011
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Review of the Year 2010 and Trends Watch 2011
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by Paula J. Hane
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The year 2010 saw the emergence of the iPad, the Android, and apps—lots and lots of apps. The market for mobile computing skyrocketed this year. And, information industry providers were quick to jump in with content delivery apps of all kinds. But I actually think it's a toss-up for top news of the year. While some say 2010 was the year of the app, there's also a very strong case that it could be considered the year of the ebook. And in our information industry, you could make a claim for it being the year of the platform relaunch (and I did, in my December 2010 NewsBreak Update column in Information Today,.
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OverDrive Apps Now Support Direct Ebook Downloads
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OverDrive, a global distributor of ebooks, audiobooks, and digital content to libraries and schools, released apps for the iPhone and Android that enable users to download library ebooks and audiobooks directly to their devices for the first time. The free apps include a Get Books feature that guides users to their local library's digital catalog of best-selling and new release titles, allowing them to easily browse, check out, and download with just their device. More than 13,000 public libraries, schools, colleges, and universities now offer ebook and audiobook downloads via OverDrive, including institutions in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, and nine other countries.
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ARL Announces 'Lib-Value' Website
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The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) recently announced that a website for "Value, Outcomes, and Return on Investment of Academic Libraries (Lib-Value)," a 3-year project (that began Dec. 1, 2009) funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), is now available at http://libvalue.cci.utk.edu.
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National Archives Launches Online Public Access System
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The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration announced that a new Online Public Access prototype is being made available to the public. The public portal provides access to digitized records, and information about the records. It also provides a centralized means of searching multiple National Archives resources at once. Currently, researchers perform separate searches in the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) for catalog descriptions, histories and biographies; Access to Archival Databases (AAD) for electronic records; and Archives.gov. The new interface illustrates a streamlined search experience for users, searching across all of these resources.
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WikiLeaks: A Critical Catalyst, But for What End?
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by Nancy K. Herther
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Launched in October 2006 with the byline of "we open governments," WikiLeaks has positioned itself in the eye of more than one media storm in the past 4 years. The site presents itself as a "non-profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure, and anonymous way for independent sources around the world to leak information to our journalists. We publish material of ethical, political and historical significance while keeping the identity of our sources anonymous, thus providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored injustices."
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If you are interested in sponsoring the NewsLink newsletter throughout the year, please contact account executive LaShawn Fugate for details: lashawn@infotoday.com.
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