“Unquiet Library” Kindle Lending Library Update…01.05.10

New Pew Research Results: Internet Gains on TV as Main News Source…01.05.11

Drupal 7…01.05.11

 

Evolution of the Tablet…01.05.11

100 Things to Watch in 2011…01.05.11

OverDrive eBook app for iPhone…01.04.11

2010 Year of Social Media…01.03.11

Hour Long “Joy of Stats”…01.03.11

Kindle Lending Communities and FREE eBooks….1.03.11

From Booksprung Free eBook Sources:

“SEARCH ENGINES AND LISTS FILE FORMATS

Generally speaking, look for .azw, .mobi, .txt or .rtf for the Kindle. For most other readers, .epub will work.

Check out the Formats page for details on Kindle-friendly formats.

eReaderIQ – Tracks price drops on the Kindle store, or you can enter a specific Kindle title and the system will alert you if the price changes.

‘Best Places to Get Free Books – The Ultimate Guide‘ – Includes lots of links to genre collections and real-world book swapping sites as well.

Digital Book Index – Searches for free and paid versions of ebooks.

GENERAL COLLECTIONS

Feedbooks – Put their catalog on your Kindle and you can download titles directly without needing a PC.

Project Gutenberg – The biggest source of public domain titles, in multiple formats. Like Feedbooks, it offers a catalog for your reader.

ManyBooks – Nearly 30,000 English language titles, as well as books in dozens of other languages.

Foner Books – A hand-selected list of free classics on the Amazon Kindle store.

Google ebookstore – Perform a search, then on the results page select the “free only” filter to see all public domain and otherwise free titles.

Internet Archive – It can be a bit of a chore to slog through the unfriendly interface, but you can find lots of public domain material here in multiple formats.

Open Library – The goal of this project from the Internet Archive is to catalog every known book. If an e-version exists, it will usually be listed.

Bookyards

LENDING WEBSITES

Some readers gather online to swap ebooks via the lend-once feature offered by Amazon and Barnes & Noble. For both retailers, lending can only be done once, the loan lasts 14 days, and is enabled on a title by title basis at the publisher’s discretion. At present lending only works in the U.S., largely due to rights issues in other regions.

Kindle

KindleLend at Reddit

GalleyCat’s facebook page

Kindle Book Lending Club on facebook

KindleLendingClub on facebook

Kindle Lending at Goodreads

BooksForMyKindle

Nook

BooksforNooks.com

BookFriend.me

NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Ebooks libres et gratuits – French language classics.

SCI-FI AND FANTASY

Baen Free Library

Tor Books – Offers lots of free short fiction, plus the occasional longer work.

MISCELLANEOUS

TEXTFILES – Archive of content posted to Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes) in the mid-1980s. Includes some fiction, but the real value is buried in all the other, user-generated categories.

TECH AND COMPUTER BOOKS

FreeTechBooks

Realtime Nexus Digital Library

IT Discover

MAGAZINES, TRADE PUBS, BUSINESS

TradePub

Asiaing

AUDIOBOOKS

LibriVox

Podiobooks – Serialized audiobooks.

Well Told Tales – Sci-fi, horror and pulp stories.

The Drabblecast – Sci-fi, fantasy and horror short fiction.

COMMUNITIES

These aren’t places to find free books, but rather communities you can join to talk to other readers and find recommendations.

Goodreads

LibraryThing…”

Are Libraries That Don’t Change “Screwed”?…01.03.11

From 2010: the year of the cloud:

“…For libraries, 2010 will be seen as the last time that buying any reference materials in print made sense at all.The year doused any smoldering embers of the “library as warehouse” mentality, with surviving libraries being the place where you “do” instead of where you “get” things. This is the year that I’ve truly realized that libraries and librarians that are not changing really will go away – that economics really will trump traditional and sentimentality. And it is the first time I believe this is a good thing. We will be a smaller, more flexible and more vital profession as we adopt to cloud-based realities and merge with technology integration specialists into a single profession. For those willing and able to change at any rate…”

Library Renewal…01.01.11

From Library Renewal:

“Ever wonder why libraries aren’t able to offer electronic content like ebooks, music files and streaming multimedia as well as they offer print materials, CDs and DVDs? We do too…

Core Beliefs:

We believe that society is made significantly stronger by the existence of libraries.

We believe our work and activities should be guided by exactly the same principles that guide our libraries.

We believe libraries are in grave danger of irrelevance if the issues around effective, competitive, top quality electronic content access through libraries isn’t solved properly and soon.

We believe it is necessary to create a new way for libraries and library users to access and distribute econtent, and we believe these new solutions need to be maintained and nurtured by people who understand both the importance of the issue, and who also act in accordance with the underlying principles guiding libraries.

We believe that if we stick to the guiding principles of libraries, we have no choice but to approach technology and electronic content access as an opportunity and a powerful tool that will improve our services, our communities and our society. This makes finding a solution imperative.

We are amazed by the accomplishments of the organizations currently delivering electronic content – companies like Apple (iTunes), Netflix, Hulu and Amazon – and believe a core question guiding our work must be: “If they can do this so well, why aren’t libraries offering similar electronic content services?” We seek the answers to this question, and plan to help solve the problem for and with libraries.

After years of learning, reading, investigation and careful thought, we believe that no existing organizations or businesses are set up, structured and properly designed from the ground up like ours, with an eye to address this issue for, and with, libraries. Only a new kind of organization can accomplish this and we believe Library Renewal, with our partners and with YOU will be that organization.

We believe that Libraries = Content+Community and we are structured in a way that demonstrates that. You’ll see this belief  in action as events and content increase as we grow. You’ll also see ways to keep up and get involved all over our site and also on a variety of active online social sites.

We believe our efforts need your voice, as well as the voices of your friends, family and community-at-large to create a successful movement. It’s the sort of thing that has kept our libraries open for hundreds of years, and it’s required more than ever to ensure our libraries stay open and vibrant for hundreds more…”

Learn “How to Be Alone”…12.31.10