A great new site for library techies (and other librarians too) has launched!! This from the press release:
The Tech Static, a new collection development resource for technology titles, published its inaugural issue today.
The need for such a resource became apparent when October 15 marked the last installment of Library Journal’s “Computer Media” review column, [...]

I mentioned that I was waiting to hear more from Tim about the LibraryThing Reviews for your library catalog. Well, Tim has finally posted about it - and it’s even more awesome than I thought.
Tim compares the LibraryThing service to ChiliFresh and shows that LibraryThing is going to give you a far superior number [...]

I love LibraryThing (and the staff at LibraryThing). They come up with the best tools (aside from the tools from the LibLime developers hehe). Anyway, I just got a sneak peak of ‘Reviews at my Library’ from LibraryThing after reading a short post at the Thingology blog.
We’ll be at Internet [...]

I have to start this review with a disclaimer. I have a plain old cell phone with no data plan That said - I’m thinking of trying to pay off my debt faster so that I can upgrade my phone and get a data plan because of this technology report by Ellyssa [...]

Wow! LibraryThing is full of awesome announcements lately!!
A few days ago, just before hitting thirty million books, we hit one million user-uploaded covers. So, we’ve decided to give them away—to libraries, to bookstores, to everyone.
Learn how to get the covers and integrate them into your websites, opacs, etc.
Technorati Tags: librarything

Awesome news from Tim:
LibraryThing has hit 30,000,000 books cataloged! We also recently hit 1,000,000 user-uploaded covers and 500,000 pieces of Common Knowledge data.* Tags stand just shy of 39 million.
Thirty million—more specifically 30,011,748—was the number of books in the Library of Congress, the largest “real” library in the world.
Whenever I have some down time [...]

This is so awesome!!!
Introducing the LibraryThing Web Services API.
The API will eventually do many things.
For starters it includes all of the data in LibraryThing’s Common Knowledge project, our groundbreaking “fielded wiki” for interesting book information (see original blog post). It includes fields like series, important characters, important places, author dates, author burial places, agents, edits, [...]

First, if you haven’t visited Bookpool - you should! They have some awesome prices on techie books. Second, now is the best time to visit because open source books from OSCON are on sale.
Technorati Tags: bookpool, books

It’s that time of year again:
Third Annual World eBook Fair: July 4th to August 4th
Just two years ago The First World eBook Fair came on the scene with about 1/3 million books, doubled to 2/3 million in 2008, and now over one million.
Created by contributions from 100+ eLibraries from around the world, here are the [...]

I know that this isn’t the point of this guest blog post by Nick Hornby - but it’s an amazing idea!!
Nick talks about why e-books and e-book readers are not going to get the kind of audience they want. He compares books to vinyl and e-books to CDs and e-book readers to mp3 players. [...]

This via Infobib:
After receiving overwhelming positive resonance from our readers and our LibWorld authors we would like to publish a book with updated LibWorld articles. And now we are searching for the ultimate LibWorld book cover!
When you are inspired by the idea of connecting global librarianship and maybe you are a bit talented in graphics: [...]

I just announced that I was published in a book - now I get to announce that I will be editing my own book!! Library Mashups: Exploring new ways to deliver library data will be a compilation of chapters about library mashups!! This is going to be a very exciting project with a [...]

My first book contribution has been printed!! I wrote 2 chapters for Thinking Outside the Book: Essays for Innovative Librarians.
Description
Professionals in all areas of librarianship will find inspiration in the essays collected here—each of them innovative tips for increasing circulation, enhancing collections, and improving flexibility. With extensive experience in the nation’s top [...]

There is a discussion going on on the NGC4Lib List about using Google Books content in our OPACs. Today I read Tim’s post talking about the new Google terms of service for their Books API.
After some delay, Google has now posted–for the first time–a “Terms of Use” for the Google Book Search API (http://code.google.com/apis/books/terms.html). If [...]

I mentioned that the new Borders.com Beta site was available back in January, but the new Borders.com site wasn’t ready until now! If you’re interested in searching Borders online apart from Amazon (which is where Borders has been for years), then give their new site a look.
I certainly like the new homepage and [...]

Tim Spalding has a great post over at Thingology about self publishing sites (specifically LuLu):
Getting Real is an important book. It came along at exactly the right time, said something important. To the extent the greap web-app “explosion” of 2004-2007 had a book, this was it.
And it was successful. According to 37Signals the (paid) version [...]

Tim Spalding has posted a bit of code to get free book covers for your OPAC by using Google. Godmar Back has given a different example for getting multiple covers at once. The Google Book Search API seems to have taken off with libraries & librarians!
Technorati Tags: google books, google book search api, [...]

LibraryThing is now using the Google Book Search API and is providing users with a way to search within their books (if they’re part of Google’s collection):
The official Google Blog and the Inside Book Search Blog just announced the new Google Book Search API, with LibraryThing as one of the first implementors. (The others are [...]

Just the title makes me cringe! In this case, the word “rip” is used in the same way we use it when we refer to copying CDs:
Could the publishing industry get Napsterized? That was my first thought when I saw the marketing materials for the Atiz BookSnap, the first consumer device that enables you [...]

When did this happen? I feel like I’m missing out on so much! I was adding a couple of new books to LibraryThing this morning and saw “status” so I said “what is that?” and clicked it. It’s a way to keep track of which books you’ve read and haven’t read! Finally [...]

I followed a link from Kimbooktu regarding a new way to store my books and found this post about the amazing staircase.

The flat occupies part of the shared top floor of an existing Victorian mansion block. Our proposal extended the flat into the unused loft space above, creating a new bedroom level and increasing the [...]

This via USAToday:
When you walk through the doors of Borders’ (BGP) new concept store, the place feels familiar. As with any big-box bookstore, you’ll find a coffee shop over here and some strategically placed leather chairs over there. And, of course, lots of books.
But follow the table of books snaking off to the right, and [...]

A little bit of trivia for you from a photo on Flickr. I honestly can’t tell if this is a joke or if the person is serious - but if it’s real, this is kind of funny and very sad.

book rental?
Originally uploaded by Nick Triantafillou

It reads:
was just thinking. my sister does -alot- of reading, [...]

I mentioned almost a year ago that Borders was going to be splitting from Amazon.com - now I find a link to Borders beta via MoMB.

Looks pretty spiffy to me. I’ll have to browse later - but if the prices are no different then in the store - I’ll be sticking with Amazon for [...]

Tim Spalding has written a tiny little API to change ISBN10 into ISBN13:
A smart young programmer from a book-related company and I were talking. It turns out that, to validate ISBNs and get back both 10- and 13-digit versions he was submitting ISBNs to Amazon Web Services. That’s like calling NORAD to find out if [...]