Summary of an article about ebooks: "At the Tipping Point"
from Library Journal, August 2010 Vol. 135 No. 13

This article is split into four sections. The first is called “Libraries, Ebooks, and Competition” by Eric Hellman. He compares ebooks to the internet and how it changed the balance of knowledge with the public. It is important for libraries to stay with technology to keep up with the shifting needs of the community.

The second section is called “Ebooks and the Retailization of Research” by Barbara Fisher. This section looks at the downside of ebooks. Four major points against ebooks are the inability to share books, the ability of amazon to simply make a book vanish, the ability for others to see what and how long you were looking at a book, and the lack of browsing capabilities like in a bookstore. While this could make books cheaper and easier for everyone to get, there are also a lot of problems with ebooks and ebook readers.

The third section is called “Ebook Sanity” by Jason Griffey. This section questions what exactly libraries are trying to do with ebooks. The purpose of a library is to share knowledge and in what Griffey calls a “misfit between models,” limiting the number of digital copies to fit the limitation on checkout copies is simply silly.

The fourth section is called “E-Texts for All (Even Lucy)” by Char Booth. This section is about the inaccessibility of ebooks for the blind. Originally, because Braille texts aren’t very practical, online texts were created for blind people. However, as ebooks have become increasingly commercial, they have become increasingly inaccessible to people unable to see.

Every section was interesting, but most of them brought up points that don't have answers yet, especially the section by Jason Griffey. This article focuses on how ebooks relate to libraries, but authors, publishers and literary agents are also arguing over the prices and accessibility of ebooks. Even amazon is in the fray, trying to lower ebook prices so more people will buy kindles.

Banned Book Week starts today

Thanks to Stephen's Lighthouse for showcasing this video and keeping an important idea at the forefront of our thinking.

Jeannette Walls in Winnetka

From the Bookstall website: JEANNETTE WALLS talks about her writing and the phenomenal success of her memoir The Glass Castle and her most recent bestseller, Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel, the compelling story of her grandmother that became an instant classic when it was first published, in 2009. It’s new in paperback. For more information call: 847 446-8880. In addition to a luncheon, JEANNETTE WALLS will speak about and sign her books at the store at 7 pm on Tuesday, September 14, 2010.

The Hunger Games: The whole series

The last book in The Hunger Games series is finally out! For anyone who hasn't read the books, they are about a futuristic America in which The Capitol rules twelve districts with an iron fist. To show their power, the Capitol forces the districts to send two teenagers to the hunger games in which they must fight for survival - and against each other. This series questions just how would a person be willing go to protect those they love or for an ideal? How much of themselves would they be willing to sacrifice to stay alive? These questions persist throughout the entire series. It is a fun read, but at the same time, it makes you question what is really the right thing to do. I would suggest this series to everyone I know.

Breakfast Club and 25 years

I have been thinking about Breakfast Club lately and just learned that the 25th (!) anniversary collection is coming out today.

All of that angst and all of the issues about identity and "fitting in" are still universal themes which are appearing in novels for young adults. An example that comes to mind is Perfect Chemistry by Elkeles, one of the titles nominated this year for the Abe Lincoln award. Check out reactions to this book and others at our companion blog, Uber Abe 2011. Leave a comment and let us know ... do these books realistically portray issues that teens face today? Will we be seeing them at the movies or being reissued in 25 years?

12 Events That Will Change Everything, Made Interactive

"12 Events That Will Change Everything," which appears in the June 2010 issue of Scientific American has an interactive companion website.  IGSS students will be exploring global ethical issues in 2010-11 and hopefully, they may want to  explore some of the global ethical issues related to future events and how societies can best respond.

I am currently looking at essays from a recent NT library purchase:

This Will Change Everything: Ideas That Will Shape the Future
Edited byJohn Brockman. Harper Perennial,which is Part of a series stemming from his online science journal Edge (www.edge.org), including What Have You Changed Your Mind About? and What Is Your Dangerous Idea? 

In this book author and editor Brockman presents 136 answers to the question, “What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?” 

From the book's website: Milan architect Stefano Boeri responds with a single sentence: “Discovering that someone from the future has already come to visit us.” Most others take the question more seriously; J. Craig Venter believes his laboratory will use “digitized genetic information” to direct organisms in creating biofuels and recycling carbon dioxide. Like biofuels, several topics are recurrent: both Robert Shapiro and Douglas Rushikoff consider discovering a “Separate Origin for Life,” a terrestrial unicellular organism that doesn’t belong to our tree of life; Leo M. Chalupa and Alison Gopnik both consider the possibility resetting the adult brain’s plasticity—its capacity for learning—to childhood levels. Futurologist Juan Enriquez believes that reengineering body parts and the brain will lead to “human speciation” unseen for hundreds of thousands of years, while controversial atheist Richard Dawkins suggests that reverse-engineering evolution could create a highly illuminating “continuum between every species and every other.” 

Many of these ideas are related to those in the Scientific American article. The June article is available full text in the library's print periodicals section.  ProQuest database does not offer the article full-text.