May 24, 2013

Reference News from the Show | ALA Midwinter 2013

Reference News from the Show | ALA Midwinter 2013

As usual, ALA was a whirlwind of panels, book buzzes, parties, and my favorite—meeting librarians in the inevitable lines for food and bathrooms (will the conference centers ever figure this out?). The best fun was at the AAP Library Family Feud, where librarians took on authors about such burning questions as what 100 librarians said [...]

ALA Midwinter Rundown: Ebooks, Dues, and Library/Vendor Relations

Welcome to Midwinter banner

Despite conventional wisdom that conferences held on the coasts draw smaller crowds and complaints from some vendors that show floor traffic was down, Keith Michael Fiels, executive director of the American Library Association (ALA), reported that this year’s Midwinter attendance totaled 10,731. That’s up slightly from 2012’s 9,929 and 2011’s 10,110, though below 2010’s high of 11,095.

Chicago Public Library Signs Deal With BiblioCommons

The Chicago Public Library has joined the list of major U.S. libraries that have signed on with Toronto-based BiblioCommons as its discovery provider. An investment from the Chicago Public Library Foundation made possible the three-year deal that was announced Saturday. Among the other libraries where Bibliocommons’s BiblioCore catalog is live are Seattle Public Library, Cleveland [...]

ReadersFirst, Vendors Search for a New Lending Model

On a late rainy Monday afternoon at the end of the American Library Association’s Midwinter meeting, 39 leading librarians and library vendors gathered for about 90 minutes around a horseshoe-arrangement of tables on the fourth floor of the Seattle Public Library to discuss how to create a new lending experience. The group came together at [...]

DPLA Nominating Committee Looking For Board Candidate Recommendations

From the Digital Public Library of America Blog: The DPLA Nominating Committee was established by the DPLA Board of Directors during a December 2012 meeting to recommend two additional members for the DPLA Board of Directors. The Nominating Committee is composed of the following individuals: Cathy Casserly, DPLA Board of Directors (Treasurer) Luis Herrera, DPLA [...]

Scholarly Publishing: Palgrave Macmillan Launches Open Access Option for Monographs and Palgrave Pivot Publications

From the Palgrave Macmillan Website and News Release: Palgrave Open offers authors and their funders the option to publish open access (OA) research across all publication formats. Palgrave Macmillan journal articles, monographs and Palgrave Pivot publications can now be made available with immediate open access upon publication. [Clip] Palgrave Open publishes OA content under the [...]

ALA Midwinter: A Modest Notable Books Proposal

ALA Midwinter: A Modest Notable Books Proposal

Don’t kid yourself; the life of an editor is not all glamor. Sunday evening, I had to leave a HarperCollins dinner early with my dinner in a bag, abandoning an interesting table conversation about the realignment of Barnes & Nobles with the independents, the difficulty of planning book talks at libraries in the brave new [...]

Scholarly Publishing: Slides Now Available From SCOAP3 and eScholarship PLUS Updates (ALA Midwinter 2013)

The ACLTS (Assn. for Library Collections and Technical Services) Communications Interest Group held a program at the ALA 2013 Midwinter Meeting yesterday in Seattle and slides from the presentations are now available online. 1. SCOAP3 Presenters: Ann Okerson (CRL) and Tom Sanville (LYRASIS) Direct to PPT Slides 2. eScholarship PLUS: Sustaining Open Access Scholarly Publishing [...]

ProQuest’s “Expansion of History Vault” Opens New Perspectives on Pivotal Eras in American History & More Recent PQ News

ProQuest Product Announcements Made at ALA Midwinter Meeting 2013 ProQuest’s Expansion of History Vault Opens New Perspectives on Pivotal Eras in American History In 2013, ProQuest will open content that has been largely inaccessible to global researchers with a significant expansion of its acclaimed History Vault, a five-year program to provide central access to the [...]

EBSCO Adds More Ebooks to Academic Library Collection & Other Recent EBSCO Product Announcment

EBSCO Announcements Made at ALA Midwinter Meeting 2013 EBSCO Publishing Increases E-book Content for Academic Libraries eBooks on EBSCOhost continues to grow as thousands of e-books have been added to the eBook Academic Collection —increasing the number of e-books to more than 112,000. [Clip] EBook Academic Collection is offered on an annual subscription basis with [...]