Libromancer's Apprentice

16 Fantastic Gifts For Lit Lovers Who Have Enough Books Some cute ideas here, but nothing for me in the overwhelming "I want that."  Except for #16, that's really spot on. Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year: “Science” I like basing their choice on the queries people were making. Twitter gobbles up more cookies with retargeted ads, says users have privacy choices Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  Still makes me go "ick."  I have enough trouble with Twitter because of the amount of retweets and targeted tweets at people I'm following that I have utterly no interest in.  Pretty much the only thing I use my account for is the meta-experience it provides when attending online conferences and seminars. "For users who bristle at the thought of another Internet company tracking them, Twitter offered a few options. Users can uncheck the box next to "promoted content" in their privacy settings and Twitter will not match their acco...

Reading belongs in the sentence "...Sex, drugs and rock and roll..." somewhere. It's a mind altering state just as potent as any other. - Scott Kenyon

The Human Body as Touchscreen Replacement Interesting read 30 Things Librarians Love Hehehe... yeah... Keep Cool this National Ice Cream Month with Book-Inspired Flavors! I would totally eat these. Next Two Congressional Hearings On Copyright Reform Show The Exact Wrong Approach Because copyright issues are not just a fight between technology innovation and content creation, it's WAY more than that. Libraries & Privacy in the Internet Age This is something I work with every day. That’s Not Very Feminist of You, Bella: Feminism and YA Romance Novels 25 Signs You’re Addicted To Books #8, 10, 13, & 15 describe me rather well.  My insomnia however is legitimate most of the time. SEXTadvice Think of this as an online reference desk for sex questions, which is fantastic since some questions can get awkward to ask at the reference desk (especially when a family comes up to borrow a museum pass).  Alternatively any good adult toy store should be knowledg...

Lets combine a few awesome things, like Reading Rainbow & Jim Morrison (or at least a well done Jim Morrison imitation)!

"Okay, for anyone who's still not convinced that books--paper books, as sold in brick-and-mortar bookstores--are not absolutely indispensable to even the most shallow among us, here's my go-to argument, my deal closer, as it were. Listen up, horny people, and hipsters: Anyone who ever said they got laid reading an e-book is lying. It is physically impossible to look cool in the coffee line holding a tablet. You just can't do it! But if you've got a thin volume of Baudelaire poems, say, or a Murakami novel, look out! That Rolodex you bought at Goodwill is gonna fill up in a hurry, bro! You know why? Because books are social currency, always have been. Books will always be cool. Even if most people don't read them. As long as they buy them, the rest of us will be okay." --Jonathan Evison, author of The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving , in an essay called "The Argument for Books: 'Heavy, Smelly, Cumbersome, Perfect Bound Books' ...

In response to being interviewed for this article ,  I wrote in my last blog post : All of the complications concerning library ebooks aside, and there are many, booms in technology are bringing new opportunities to libraries.  The internet has not killed libraries, but it did drastically change aspect of our services.  Ebooks are changing libraries, and the needs that we meet are changing as well.  Flexibility in meeting is necessary to sustain demand and viability of libraries, but ebooks aren't the end of the road for books, and books are not the only service libraries provide. I then found several articles today about how bound paper books might just not be as doomed as everyone's been saying.  In particular tying both my interview and these new articles together, is a Pew Study displaying an increase in ebook reading and a decrease in printed book reading .  What's really interesting about this study is that it doesn't really show the death...

Just some book love in the words of Wil Wheaton , I strongly recommend reading his entire post, but the last few paragraphs just hit me as beautiful. Excerpt from the quietest and most constant of friends , " I love my eBooks. I love the convenience of having a book sync across all of my various devices, always at my fingertips wherever I am and whenever I need it (unless I’m on an airplane; a stupid and pointless rule that really needs to be changed). I love the instant gratification that comes with buying a book and reading it within minutes after hearing about it, without ever leaving the chair I was already sitting in. As an author who exists primarily on the Internet, I’ve made a very good living due in no small part to eBooks. And yet. And yet there is a romance and a power and a beauty and a permanence and a sense of reality that actual printed books have, which also does not translate to electronic format for me. I haven’t read nearly as many books this ye...