Technology

Sony And Panasonic Announce New 300GB “Archival Disc” Storage Medium

Sony & Panasonic announced that they have formulated "Archival Disc", a new standard for professional-use, next-generation optical discs, with the objective of expanding the market for long-term digital data storage.

Optical discs have excellent properties to protect themselves against the environment, such as dust-resistance and water-resistance, and can also withstand changes in temperature and humidity when stored. They also allow inter-generational compatibility between different formats, ensuring that data can continue to be read even as formats evolve. This makes them robust media for long-term storage of content. Recognizing that optical discs will need to accommodate much larger volumes of storage going forward, particularly given the anticipated future growth in the archive market, Sony and Panasonic have been engaged in the joint development of a standard for professional-use next-generation optical discs.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201403/14-0310E/index.html

The Stupidity of Computers

The Stupidity of Computers
The good news is that, because computers cannot and will not “understand” us the way we understand each other, they will not be able to take over the world and enslave us (at least not for a while). The bad news is that, because computers cannot come to us and meet us in our world, we must continue to adjust our world and bring ourselves to them. We will define and regiment our lives, including our social lives and our perceptions of our selves, in ways that are conducive to what a computer can “understand.” Their dumbness will become ours.

http://nplusonemag.com/the-stupidity-of-computers

The Zen of Web Discovery

The Zen of Web Discovery: Whether you're just thinking of getting a new resource discovery layer; are starting implementation but are overwhelmed by the number of configuration options for your new product; or already have a site in production that is unfortunately going unacknowledged by coworkers, this article is written for you. It gives an overview of strategies for successfully managing the change that comes with a new web-scale discovery system.

Many libraries have revitalized their role by offering an updated resource discovery layer. This article gives an informal overview of design principles and best practices for implementing a web-scale discovery system. Emphasis is placed on the proper service philosophy of supporting a new technology, with open communications and evidence-based customization.

A New Year’s Vision of the Future of Libraries as Ebookstores

A New Year’s Vision of the Future of Libraries as Ebookstores
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/a-new-years-vision-of-the-future-of-libraries-as-ebooks...
As the New Year approaches, I have a vision of the future that brings bookstores to every town and invigorates libraries. In this vision, libraries of the future are our local bookstores. I see a future where libraries let people borrow digital books—or buy them.

What Surveillance Valley knows about you

What Surveillance Valley knows about you
http://pando.com/2013/12/22/a-peek-into-surveillance-valley/
This isn’t news to companies like Google, which last year warned shareholders: “Privacy concerns relating to our technology could damage our reputation and deter current and potential users from using our products and services.”

Little wonder then that Google, and the rest of Surveillance Valley, is terrified that the conversation about surveillance could soon broaden to include not only government espionage, but for-profit spying as well.

OpenHatch brings open source to campus

OpenHatch brings open source to campus
Our solution? Open Source Comes to Campus In a Box. We’re carefully documenting every part of our events, from the materials we present to the way we build our publicity websites, from food and space checklists to templates of all the emails we send. Our hope is that local organizers will be able to use our materials to run their own events, as has happened with our Python Workshops.
http://opensource.com/education/13/12/openhatch-brings-open-source-campus

The Netflix for books is here, it’s mobile, and it makes Amazon look old

And no, it's not your library :-)
http://pandodaily.com/2013/09/05/the-netflix-for-books-is-here-its-mobile-and-it-makes-amazo...
Today, New York-based startup Oyster is launching the beta version of its iPhone app. (You can request an invite at Oyster’s website). For $9.95 a month, you get unlimited access to the 100,000 titles from a range of publishers, including HarperCollins and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan are so far notably absent from the list of announced partners.) You also see what your friends are reading, get recommendations and staff picks, and find books sorted by curated categories, such as “Sports Stories,” “Business Essentials,” and “Popular Science.” All of this is packed into a highly usable mobile experience.

At Library of Congress, changes are afoot in technology as well as in physical space

From The Washington Post: "The Library of Congress no longer needs the computer room that visitors once used to search its electronic card catalogue. These days the entire library has a wireless Internet connection, so workers this summer put a collection of old microfilm machines in that room instead. Meanwhile, the library’s old-school physical catalogues, the kind filled with carefully penned index cards, have long since been relegated to cool basement hallways where schoolchildren marvel at their obscurity. “I told them, ‘Before Google, this is what we used to do,’ ” said Fenella France, the library’s chief of preservation research. “They had never seen [card catalogues] before. Then I was teaching children another day, and I said, ‘Let’s go clockwise,’ and they just looked at me. I said, ‘Oh, no. Didn’t you learn analog?’” These are some of the several quiet moves that hint at much larger changes underway at the Library of Congress." Full Story

Why shutting down Groklaw & Lavabit was a bad move

Read opinion piece here.

2 New Services Offer Ready-to-Launch Websites for Libraries

Two New Services Offer Ready-to-Launch Websites for Libraries

Library web hosting provider LISHost this month launched Library CMS, a modular, Drupal-based content management system template tailored to the needs of library websites. The move follows the March debut of Prefab, a WordPress-based CMS template designed for libraries by user experience (UX) consultancy Influx. Both are offered in conjunction with web hosting and are positioned as affordable, comprehensive website redesign services for individual libraries and small systems.

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