Niall Harrison, a man whose critical writings on science fiction make my reviews look like the feeble amateur mutterings they are, has a post on LiveJournal about the labelling of novels as science fiction (and/or the unlabelling of science fiction novels to pass them off as ‘straight’ fiction). It’s a subject close to my heart, so I thought I’d chip in with my opinions. Continue reading “To label or not to label? The marketing of science fiction”

The European Commission have been holding their first summit on digital libraries. From PhysOrg.com:

“Our goal is to make Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage available to all European citizens and researchers for their studies, work or leisure. With its immense expertise and knowledge, this group can make an essential contribution to the European digital library,” said Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding.

This is a subject close to my heart in many ways. As I am sure I have mentioned before, I am a book junkie. I love books; I couldn’t imagine life without them, fact or fiction, whatever – books are great things. I am also a library employee, and it is plain to see (from the inside at least) that as an industry we are somewhat flat on our arses thanks to a lack of funding from the government. Falling rates of use have been met with cuts in funding, creating a vicious spiral of decline. Libraries desperately need to modernise and move with the times… Continue reading “Digital libraries”

Now this is a very good little site, if like myself you are an inveterate book junky and general library lurker. Continue reading “A map of the world of books”

Okay, here’s a post for my fellow bookworms; a list of the thousand books most commonly found in United States libraries. The Bible is at number one, unsurprisingly. But the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy is in there at eight, being way more common than almost all of Shakespeare’s works! I must try to find something similar for UK libraries – a comparison would be interesting.

Link perused at BoingBoing.

I have a whole lot of books. I don’t want to get rid of them, but the extra space would be very handy, that’s for certain. Continue reading “Beat Google at their own game…scan your own library automatically”

I love the library where I work, but to tell the truth it’s an ugly late sixties concrete monstrosity that’s about as eco-friendly as a petrol-powered breezeblock. Continue reading “Energy-efficient Library”

George Dyson:

The bound universe has been divided, in recent discussions over the digitization of books, into works in the public domain on one side, works under active copyright on the other, and a vast sea of inactive titles drifting in between. For those who dream of a Universal Library, however, any such classification is deficient, because it neglects the most important sector of the literary universe – books that have not been written yet. Continue reading “George Dyson on the future of books”