Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Journal of the Week Free Access: 19/10/2009, Interlending & Document Supply

Info courtesy: Sir Shuping.

Emerald Group Publishing Limited's Journal of the Week feature provides free weekly access to two of Emerald's high quality journals. Simply click on one of the two active journals and you will be taken to the table of contents page where the free issues will be highlighted. Check back regularly for updates.

This week:
See also forthcoming: Current Journals of the Week

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending

"Electronic book borrowing is a convenient way for libraries to remain relevant, but publishers are worried."

Libraian's View:
"Some librarians object to the current pricing model because they often pay more for e-books than do consumers who buy them on Amazon or in Sony’s online store. Publishers generally charge the same price for e-books as they do for print editions, but online retailers subsidize the sale price of best sellers by marking them down to $9.99.

“ ‘The Lost Symbol’ is $9.99 on the Sony Reader book page, and I just paid $29.99 for that for the library,” said Robin Bradford, the collection development librarian at the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library. Ms. Bradford said she would consider buying additional digital copies if the price were lower. But “to buy nonphysical copies at the same price,” she said, “I just won’t do it.”

Reader's View:

"In libraries, readers are attracted to free material. Nancy Gobel, a dental hygienist who already downloads digital audio books from her library in Indianapolis, said she currently buys print books. But she is considering purchasing an electronic reader so she can borrow them for free. “I would still continue to buy, but I would download as much as I can,” she said. In many cases, she said, buying “doesn’t make sense.”" continue reading:

Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending

Published: October 15, 2009

See on the same shelf:
  • The Elusive eBook, by Sue Polanka
    "The elusive eBook: who knew it would come with so many questions, challenges, and issues for libraries and users? It seems logical that we could catalog an eBook just like a print book, add a URL and be done with it. If only it were that easy! Instead, we are confronted by cataloging, purchasing, access, and interface issues. So what’s a librarian to do? Be aware, get informed, be vocal, and ask for more standardization from publishers, aggregators, and distributors. Let’s take a look at some issues that librarians and users find particularly challenging." continue reading
  • Saturday, October 03, 2009

    Citing, Citations, Siting, and Sighting the Wikipedia

    "Oh in regards to the Wikipedia citations for a given article, this is no guarantee that that citation was actually used to research that article. I've found several instances of Wikipedia citing pages on my site that have NEVER existed (strange but true)."KenB: Why Is Wikipedia On Top in Search Results?

    A Long List of Disclaimers @ WIKI:

    WIKI in Progress:

  • Fake Wikipedia editor unmasked in Webmaster General
  • Where Wikipedia Ends - Yahoo! News
  • Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? - TIME
  • New Amazon wiki and citation features
  • Wikipedia popularity from a citation analysis point of view,
    Alireza Noruzi, http://www.webology.ir
  • LibraryCrunch: "a Wiki citation is toilet paper"

  • Tools of the Trade:
  • Wiki citation maker -- Wiki and Blog citation maker:
    "This page helps you create biomedical citations to use as references when writing on wikis such as Citizendium, Medpedia, Wikipedia, and others. This page also helps create citations for biomedical blogs hosted on Blogger, Wordpress, and other sites."
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