Publishers are trying to make e-books act more like print books—but some future library concepts are making print books act more like e-books. In particular, the $81 million Joe and Rika Mansueto Library that has just opened at the University of Chicago. SingularityHub’s Peter Murray has a feature on this fascinating library that stores 3.5 million books and journal volumes in a five-story-tall system of bins that only needs one-seventh as much space to house the books as a normal library. The bins are organized by book size, not by category or other classification, and books are retrieved...

Doctor Who has been much on my mind lately, what with the new Matt Smith season starting up. (Next Saturday’s episode will be the one penned by master horror/fantasy wordsmith Neil Gaiman, and I’m quite looking forward to it.) But as I was discussing earlier episodes with a friend who is watching through them for the first time, I realized one of them touched on a TeleRead-related topic, and I didn’t mention it when it was originally on the air. The episode in question is the season 4 two-parter “Silence in the Library”/”Forest of the Dead”, written by now-showrunner...

On the subject of libraries getting rid of books, Mike Shatzkin has written a blog post following up some comments of his that were quoted without much context in a Toronto Globe & Mail article. The comments had to do with how difficult it would become to find public libraries in the future. Shatzkin notes that the infrastructure for e-book distribution is currently sketchy by comparison to that for printed books which has grown up over the decades—but that won’t always be the case. And when that infrastructure for e-books arrives, the state of the world will look very...

Related to yesterday’s story about whether libraries could be replaced by e-book readers comes a story that one California public library branch is considering doing away with all of its books. The LA Times reports that, as California faces $15 million in library budget cuts, one branch of the Newport Beach library system might remove all its books (though books could be requested remotely to be delivered for checkout the next day) while continuing to provide all its other services as a “community center”. In Newport Beach, which has four city libraries, officials analyzed how patrons...

In  January of last year, I originally argued the librarian’s dilemma was that of figuring out what course of action libraries should take in the eBook arena.  A year later, it seems there is still no clear answer!  Given the recent Google Books decision (info via the Disruptive Library Technology Jester blog) and the public discussions from both OverDrive and Harper Collins, I don’t think any clear answer is coming soon! So what does a library do?  Remember, the choices they make will ultimtely affect you, the eBook buyer, reader and enthusiast! Ultimately, I think libraries should focus for now on the free...

A pair of interesting articles about Google Books came to my attention over the last day or so. First, in The Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal looks at how Google has been tweaking and updating its search algorithms to trawl the linkless world of text on paper, where searchers have radically different needs than those who search the web. In the last couple of days, Google has rolled out a new tweak called “Rich Results,” which presents one extra-large search result if Google thinks that you’re searching for a specific book title. Rich Results is the...

The Bookseller’s FuturEBook blog has an interesting look by Chris Meade at how today’s authors have more power to promote themselves and build relationships with fans than ever before, leading to a new viability for self-publishing. The Amplified Author of 2010 (term coined for authors engaged in the social web) can sit at her desk and speak directly to her readership through a blog, can expand that circle of readers gradually by using Twitter and other social networks, can find an active readership interested in offering criticism and ideas, can publish work through print...

Stanford’s new Engineering Library is getting rid of 7/8 of its paper books in favor of e-book replacements, NPR reports. The change is due to a combination of engineering periodicals moving from print to digital editions and the library running out of room to store its collection. To decide which 10,000 books made the cut, Stanford librarians checked check-out records to see which books were most frequently checked out. It turned out that the vast majority of the library’s books had not been checked out in five years. The e-book replacements will also have a side benefit,...

My mother, Judy, forwarded me an e-mail message from a friend named Peggy Kessenger, a member of the same generation. The letter was part of an ongoing conversation, but I found it interesting enough on its own that I wrote to Mrs. Kessenger for permission to repost it here. She was kind enough to grant that permission, and added the following two paragraphs as an introduction. The locations given are in southwest Missouri; links were added by me. We like to talk about how e-books may be a boon to the older generations for such factors as...

In a controversial presentation, Daniel Greenstein---vice provost for academic planning and programs of the University of California System---said: The university library of the future will be sparsely staffed, highly decentralized, and have a physical plant consisting of little more than special collections and study areas. ... “We're already starting to see a move on the part of university libraries... to outsource virtually all the services [they have] developed and maintained over the years,” Greenstein said. Now, with universities everywhere still ailing from last year's economic meltdown, administrators are more likely than ever to...

Are public libraries necessary? So ask some in publishing, They even wonder if the new tech shouldn’t nuke the old business models. Why not jut have private rental plans? Or just let children and families use online bookstores? Because, dear publishers, free library books are among your best marketing tools. Hook ‘em while they’re young. Bookless libraries ahead? In fact, publishers should worry less about competition from libraries and more about a less-than-happy trend that CNN discusses in a piece headlined The Future of libraries, with or without books. Excerpt: “Books...

The recent post about book scanners that can process 3,000 pages per minute reminded me (and at least one other person) of the Vernor Vinge novel Rainbows End. Since it had been a while since I had read that novel, I decided to take another look. For a while, the novel was posted free in its entirety on Vernor Vinge’s website. It has since been taken down; however, the Internet Archive still has it available in its entirety in the Wayback Machine’s archive of the page. I’m actually surprised nobody reviewed it here back when it was newly published, but I...