Awful Library Books: "The Hippy's Handbook."

"The Hippy Handbook." 1967.
Priceless subtitle: "How to live on love." Sheesh.

This is from the Awful Library Books blog, a site kept by librarians, about which they say: "This site is a collection of public library holdings that we find amusing and maybe questionable for public libraries trying to maintain a current and relevant collection. Contained in this site are actual library holdings."

Enjoy the awful.

"There is nobody on the planet who knows how to make a computer mouse."

At TEDGlobal 2010, author Matt Ridley shows how, throughout history, the engine of human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas. It's not important how clever individuals are, he says; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is.

What's the process that's having an effect in cultural evolution as sex is having in biological evolution? And I think the answer is exchange, the habit of exchanging one thing for another. It's a unique human feature. No other animal does it....As Adam Smith said: "No man ever saw a dog make a fair exchange of a bone with another dog."

In the best TED tradition, this talk is a brainy -and slightly cheeky - romp through human history, anthropology, biology, and economics.

[When Ideas Have Sex, a TED talk by Matt Ridley.]

New Drink Policy in the Library

On an experimental basis, drinks in covered containers are permitted in the library!  Please help us make the experiment successful by disposing of trash properly and recycling when possible. Recycling bins are currently available in the main entrance way and will be available on each floor in the near future.

Handheld E-Book Readers and Scholarship: Report and Reader Survey

The American Council of Learned Societies has released Handheld E-Book Readers and Scholarship: Report and Reader Survey.

Among the topics discussed are difficulty with format conversion, online versus handheld, loss of print page numbers in some formats and cost analysis.

From the report:
Among the staff there was some preference for the MOBI edition on the Kindle in terms of display, searching and mark-up; and for ePub on the Sony Reader for its direct touch-screen functionality.

Summarized from Digital Koans. Follow the link above to read the report.

Library Sandbox Progress

Here are a few photos of this week's work on the sandbox space:

Sandbox Construction Update

Last week the walls around the sandbox space were installed:

Construction Officially Underway

Construction of our new collaborative technology sandbox space officially began this week! The carpet, ceiling grid, and lights have been removed to make way for new task lighting, sound absorbing panels, and updated, comfortable furnishings. If you visit the library, be prepared for drilling and construction noises.  Here are a few photos:

Government Backs 'Jailbreaking' Of iPhones

From the article at NPR, news for us:

In addition to jailbreaking, other exemptions announced Monday would:

— Allow college professors, film students and documentary filmmakers to break copy-protection measures on DVDs so they can embed clips for educational purposes, criticism, commentary and noncommercial videos.

"Gov't Unlocks Apple's iPhone But Is The Jailbreak Era Over?"

From an editorial at NPR:

The iPhone ecosystem, which Apple protects with the ferocity of a Smoke Monster, is about to get wilder.

And we have the Library of Congress to thank for it....

What other entrenched, unimpeachable American institution will be the next to take Apple down a notch? Betty White?

Gulf Oil Spill Information Center Research Guide

The University of South Florida Libraries have created a great research guide to information and data on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spoil and the clean-up efforts.


Gulf Oil Spill Information Center Research Guide