via The Next Web: Kindle owners borrowed KDP Select books 295,000 times in December alone, Amazon announced today. As you may know, Amazon Prime subscribers can freely borrow a book a month from the newly created Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Its catalogue currently boasts 75,000 titles thanks to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishers Select program. From [...]
"Amazon's Kindle Lending Library Now Boasts 75,000 Books, Borrowed 295,000 Times Last Month"
Filed by on January 12, 2012
EPIC Urges Federal Trade Commission to Investigate Google Search
Filed by on January 12, 2012
From the Electronic Privacy Information Clearinghouse: In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, EPIC has called for an investigation of recent changes by Google to Google Search, the dominant search algorithm on the Internet. EPIC cited Google’s decision to include personal data, such as photos, posts, and contact details, gathered from Google+ in Google [...]
Jerome Rubin, Helped forge LexisNexis and Co-Founder of E Ink Dies at 86
Filed by on January 12, 2012
From the AP: Jerome Rubin, who helped bring to market the commercial online research database today known as LexisNexis and the display technology behind millions of Amazon Kindles and other e-readers, has died in New York. He was 86. [Clip] Rubin was trained as a physicist and attorney, but in the 1970s was hired by [...]
Smithsonian Gets Dedicated Funds for Digitization and New Media, Will Spend $8.7 Million In FY 2012
Filed by on January 12, 2012
From Federal Computer Week: The Smithsonian Institution expects to spend $8.7 million to engage in digitization, social media, mobile and Web efforts in fiscal 2012, according to an agency official. That represents roughly a $500,000 increase to be spent on those efforts this fiscal year, in comparison to fiscal 2011, Linda St. Thomas, a Smithsonian [...]
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: The King Center Imaging Project Goes Live on Monday, Thousands of Never-Before-Seen Documents Will Be Available Online
Filed by on January 12, 2012
Direct to King Center Archive (Live Monday, January 16, 2012) From a News Release: JPMorgan Chase & Co. working in partnership with AT&T Business Solutions and EMC, along with The King Center, today announced that The King Center Imaging Project’s website – www.thekingcenter.org/archive – will go live on Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The [...]
ITHAKA Issues Public Statement Rejecting Research Works Act Legislation
Filed by on January 12, 2012
UPDATE 6: Nature Publishing Group Statement, “NPG and Digital Science Do Not Support the Research Works Act” UPDATE 5: Cambridge University Press expands on its position UPDATE 4: University of California Press and Rockefeller U. Press Join List of AAP Members Not Supporting RWA UPDATE 3: Richard Poynder is Also Posting How Other Publishers/AAP Members [...]
Two Drafts Published by the W3C HTML Data Task Force Look at Microformats, RDFa, Dublin Core, and More
Filed by on January 12, 2012
From the W3C Web Site: The HTML Data Task Force of the Semantic Web Interest Group has published two documents today: The HTML Data Guide aims to help publishers and consumers of HTML data. With several syntaxes (microformats, microdata, RDFa) and vocabularies (schema.org, Dublin Core, microformat vocabularies, etc.) to choose from, it provides guidance on [...]
UK's National Archive is to Digitise 165 Years Worth of British Telecom's and its Predecessors' Historical Documents
Filed by on January 12, 2012
From iTWire: The project is a collaboration between Coventry University, BT Heritage and The National Archive and aims to catalogue, digitise and develop a searchable online archive of almost half a million photographs, images, documents and correspondence. It is being funded with a grant from JISC (formerly the UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee). [Clip] The [...]
Open-Source, Real-Time Bus Tracking Is Coming to All of New York City
Filed by on January 12, 2012
Update: New from the City of New York: “Interactive Map Shows NYC Street Closures” (via NBC New York) Direct to NYC Street Closures Via TechPresident: New York City’s public transit provider, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, is set to pour millions of dollars into a high-tech project that will give New Yorkers a real-time view into [...]
Serials: Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL) Goes Open Access
Filed by on January 12, 2012
From the LITA Blog LITA is pleased to announce that Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL) will become an open-access, electronic-only publication, beginning with the March 2012 issue (volume 31, issue 1). This change will help ensure the long-term viability of the journal by making it more accessible, more current, more relevant, and more environmentally friendly. [...]
