Day: February 3, 2010

What I did with Wednesday

Today was just your average, garden variety Wednesday. We had a meeting at work this afternoon to discuss e-books and, more accurately, e-inspection/examination copies. (That’s when a professor asks to see a book before potentially adopting it for a class. There are restrictions built in, and sometimes it’s a physical copy and sometimes it’s electronic. But if it’s a legitimate course, and we think there’s potential for course adoption, the book is free.) An informative, if not exactly exciting meeting, though I did find myself joining in when the discussion turned to this whole Macmillan/Amazon kerfuffle and e-readers.

I keep meaning to post something more in-depth about the whole thing, about e-books in general, and Amazon and the new Apple iPad more specifically. But, for now, the short version is this: I’m still honestly thinking about buying an iPad, despite some misgivings about what is (and isn’t) available in the initial version, and I’m learning to like Amazon a little less every day.

But, honestly, nobody has any clue about the future of e-books. We’re all just trying to muddle through and guess where things are headed.

We also got a surprising e-mail at work today from human resources, informing us that the company will be offering summer hours from July to September. What that means is, we work the same number of hours, but a little more on Monday through Thursday. Then we get to leave at one o’clock on Friday. I don’t have to let them know until May, but I’m definitely thinking about it. I’d most likely work 8:30 to 5:15 four days a week, which wouldn’t change my schedule too much, and it would mean my weekend would start three hours earlier.

And who doesn’t like a few extra hours in their weekend?

Wednesday various

  • This could be interesting: apparently Redbox is looking to install DVD rental kiosks at libraries. As a librarian at the link above writes:

    Unfortunately I think Redbox will only target libraries in large cities and wouldn’t bother with a small town like mine. It would be a great service to the community, but probably not enough profit to make it interesting for them.

    Where it could do some good — that is, by generating foot traffic and providing DVDs to libraries that couldn’t otherwise afford them — Redbox likely won’t be interested, but will instead focus on locations where they might actually do some harm — by charging for what are now free rentals, and by sharing only a tiny percentage of that charge with the libraries. If nothing else, though, I think it suggests that Redbox understands the precariousness of its existence; as online streaming becomes the dominant industry model, it will need to seek out more and new rental locations to survive.

  • There are two ways to look at this: the first, “Obama cancels moon mission,” makes for a quick and easy soundbite. But the second, “Obama scraps Bush’s wildly empty promise and redirects funding to more important areas” is probably more accurate. Still, it’s a shame we’re not going back to the moon any time in the near future.
  • I’m not sure all of the titles on the Oddest Book Title of the Year award longlist are really that odd, but what library would be complete without Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes, Map-based Comparative Genomics in Legumes, or Planet Asthma: Art and Acitivty Book?
  • An interesting article by A.O. Scott on Smoking in ‘Avatar’ and the Limits of Boundaries on Ratings.
  • And finally, there have got to be easier ways to get around New York [via]: