From the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Announcement: As part of its work on the 2011-2012 Key Initiatives, the IFLA Governing Board appointed a working group to draft a background paper on digital lending. At its April meeting the IFLA Governing Board endorsed this paper, and we are now pleased to present a version for download. The paper attempts to: Provide an overview of the issues relating to eBooks in libraries; Summarise the current positions of publishers in both the scholarly publishing and trade publishing sectors; Summarise the differences in the way that academic/research libraries and public libraries address the issue of digital collections; Address...

OverDrive APIs that were supposed to launch in April are now set to become available in July. From the OverDrive Digital Library Blog: OverDrive’s product and development teams have been hard at work developing a suite of APIs (application programming interfaces) that will enable approved vendors to deeply integrate OverDrive-hosted catalogs and nearly 1 million digital titles with their apps and platforms. In July, we’ll launch the OverDrive Developer Portal along with the first set of OverDrive APIs. As part of the development process, we’ve been working with a group of booksellers, publishers, school, library, discovery platform and mobile technology partners to collect...

The new version of the OverDrive library app, for e-books and audiobooks, has just appeared for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad III. Compared to past incarnations, 2.4.2 should delight many a patron. Users of Apple’s IOS operating system will enjoy ‘more control over text justification, line spacing, page margins, and font selection.’ And the just-released Android variant from OverDrive even offers double- and triple-column options in landscape mode, and serif, nonserif and typewriter-like monospaced styles in both regular and bold. Might such marvels from OverDrive on the way for my iPad soon? I’ve long begged OverDrive for all-text bolding, and I thank the company for responding...

From an email sent to me by Gale: There are very few magazines that are able to stand the test of time while so accurately capturing the moods and attitudes of an entire country. Liberty Magazine, a weekly that rivaled the Saturday Evening Post in its heyday, has found new life within the family of Gale Digital Collections. Gale today launched the Liberty Magazine Historical Archive, 1924-1950, a complete digitization of the entire run of Liberty Magazine, nearly 1,400 issues, with more than 17,000 fiction and non-fiction articles and thousands of advertisements all in a searchable, full-color format. If the Stanley Cup playoffs have got you interested in...

Duke University Libraries: eBook Strategy and Advocacy Model: "Published August 2011 and Prepared by Duke University Libraries E-Book Strategy Committee. E-Book Advocacy Model Duke University Libraries E-Book Advocacy Model E-book Advocacy Statements PDF Version of Materials (10 pages) Statements Cover the Necessary Functionalities of eBooks To Support Research: Conceptualization and Discovery Reading Theory Formation Documenting and Synthesizing Collaboration Publishing and Disseminating (Via LJ INFOdocket.)...

From paidContent: Hachette, which has not made new e-books available to libraries since 2010, is reconsidering the idea. In a pilot program starting this spring (which is…now?), the publisher is working with two e-book distributors to bring a “selection of HBG’s recent bestselling e-books to 7 million library patrons.” Hachette would not confirm which distributors or libraries it is working with — whether it is partnering with leading digital distributor OverDrive and/or with an OverDrive competitor like 3M Cloud Library or Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360. “These pilot programs will help us learn more about library patrons’ interests, usage, and expectations,” Hachette said...

I watched Ghostbusters with my parents recently, and as I was watching the first five minutes, featuring a ghost in a big old library, I was struck by how dated that part of the movie is now, with those big card catalog drawers opening and cards spewing out all over. You’d be hard-pressed to find a physical card catalog in many libraries these days; even the small public library from the town where I grew up is all computerized now. And that thought again came to mind when I came across Ars Technica’s look at the present and future...

American Libraries Magazine has an article by ALA President Molly Raphael, who last week led a 4-person delegation to meet with Hachette Book Group and four national organizations representing authors. Raphael calls the meeting “very promising” with regard to convincing Hachette to resume providing libraries access to its newer e-book titles. (Hachette stopped providing its e-books to libraries in 2009.) It quickly became obvious that Hachette Book Group executives and digital strategists have spent considerable time thinking about the library ebook market. Hachette sees libraries as strong partners because of our benefits as direct customers and...

From South Coast Today: The Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese-American Archives at the Claire T. Carney Library and the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture of the UMass Dartmouth announce the addition of 14 Portuguese-language newspapers published in California between 1885 and 1940 to its Portuguese-American Digital Newspaper Collections. [Clip] The unique collection, which includes some of the earliest known Portuguese-language newspapers in the United States, such as O Progresso Californiense, first published in July of 1885, may be accessed through the Internet for free and without a password at http://lib.umassd.edu/archives/paa/PADigitalNewsColl.html. Each issue of the newspapers in the collection may be browsed in its entirety or...

From the press release: As part of its work on the 2011-2012 Key Initiatives, the IFLA Governing Board appointed a working group to draft a background paper on digital lending. At its April 2012 meeting, the IFLA Governing Board endorsed the IFLA E-Lending Background Paper, and there is now a version for download. The paper attempts to: Provide an overview of the issues relating to ebooks in libraries Summarize...

From the EBSCO Announcement: Gateway to America: The People, Places, and Organizations of 19th Century New York and Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books archive databases from the New-York Historical Society, are now available from EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO). [Clip] Gateway to America: The People, Places, and Organizations of 19th-Century New York is a diverse collection of historical directories, year books, registers, member lists, organization reports, guidebooks, primary source documents and publications, and name rich sources from the New-York Historical Society. This unique collection, which includes historical maps, advertisements, and vital records, presents a history of the people and organizations of New York from the...

Speaking of the Espresso, a digital publisher’s paen to self-publishing through it led me to a blog post from last year in which librarian Rick Anderson of the University of Utah’s Marriott Library discussed the Espresso’s pros and cons in a bit greater depth than I’ve seen other posts go into. The problems Anderson found mainly have to do with a few technical glitches in the device itself, particularly due to the desert climate of his library being drier than the Espresso was originally designed for. Also, the device has a 45-minute-to-1-hour warmup time due to the glue...