'Libraries have to ask what people want to read'

A freewheeling conversation with the director of Bibliotheque Nationale de France

The changing educational, social and recreational role of the library is a hotly debated subject among planners and readers alike. On a visit to Delhi, Bruno Racine, director of Bibliotheque Nationale de France (National Library of France), explains to The Hindu how public libraries need to become more interactive spaces. France and India have signed an MoU for digitisation of old manuscripts in the National Library of France. India is working on a National Virtual Library with French support, and France will be seeking India’s assistance to decipher its collection in Sanskrit and Tamil. There is a possibility that all these will be made a part of the joint digital collection.

Excerpts from the interview with Mr. Racine:

Excluding research scholars, far fewer people are visiting libraries today. What is the French experience?

I have to say, the trend is downwards. But we have to make a distinction between those who read online and the ones who come to the reading room. The libraries have not emptied out. Students do come here; I suppose they like to work from here. They may not borrow books, but libraries offer a quiet place and a friendly environment for the young. To address the young, public libraries have to offer services that correspond to their aspirations and give them rooms where they don’t have to whisper and can work together. We have five million items online, excluding copyright material, and our experience shows that people tend to use online resources and confine their visits to the library for a specific enquiry. So, the answer to your question is, the number of books being consulted and the number of physical readers has decreased slightly because more and more people have moved online. 

What is the role of a public library as a public space today?

In France, public libraries are city libraries. There are two state-funded public libraries, one at the Centre Georges Pompidou, and the other which I head. I don’t have recent figures, but I think globally the trend is of fewer people coming to libraries. A lot depends on local factors prevailing in a city. If a city opens a new modern library with reading services, it can become popular. If you go to an opera, it is not cheap. Museums are not free. In France, the policy has been to orient the library to the public. The traditional librarian thinks that if the books are good for the public, they will come. This is not the way it happens now. Libraries have become more interactive now. Libraries have to understand what the public wants. Librarians have to ask people what they want to read. 

How does the public funding of libraries work in France?

The library is completely funded by the government. We had to raise money on our own for heritage acquisition, where the access to the public is not free. Ninety five per cent of the budget of the National Library is funded by the Ministry of Culture. This has always been the case, which is quite different from museums in France, which have millions of visitors and can rest a little less on government money. We have about one million visitors each year to the library. The digital library gets 15 million visitors and is growing very fast. The library in France is a very old institution whose origins can be traced back to the 14th century, the time around which kings built their library of books, which became a permanent institution at the beginning of the 18th century. The practice of acquiring books was established in the 16th century, structured in a very systematic way at the beginning of the 19th century. Whenever a book is printed, it could be audiovisual records too, it has to be deposited at the library as well. Until a few years ago, the publisher had to deposit four books with the library. Now we have simplified the process, as we don’t have the space. We ask for only one copy by the publisher. There is a law since 2006 that gives us the mission of archiving books. The paradox is, when they are online they are free; once they are in our collection, you require authorisation to access them. 

What kinds of readers visit your library?

We have two kinds of readers. We have a public library which youngsters, young students and college students visit, for which the fee is very nominal. I have proposed to the government to make it free. On the other hand, for the digital library, we get an annual grant for digitisation of printed material and journals, which allows us to digitise 10 million pages every year. We get six million euros a year which is quite significant. 

What brings you to India? What are your plans?

Digitisation knows no boundaries. We are interested in countries that are looking at digitisation, and we are trying to understand their priorities. We have an Indian collection which we can share. If we want to have a single digital portal, for instance, for France and India, which is what I would like to discuss, our formats have to be compatible. Exchange of information is always useful, in particular in the area of long-term preservation, which is a big issue for digitised heritage. Another area I am looking forward to is cultural cooperation, because in France, we are interested in Indian collections because of our shared history. Since we know that India is working on a national digital library, we have some material which could be of some interest, which would require expertise from India for cataloguing it. We have 2,500 miniature paintings, and paintings which are not the most beautiful in the world but interesting, and over 1,800 manuscripts in Sanskrit and Prakrit in our collection and over 1,000 manuscripts, in diverse Indian languages, which we refer to as the Indian collection. 

How should the state go about funding public libraries? What should be the terms of engagement?

There are over 2,500 public libraries in France. The majority of them are run by professional librarians. Every few years, a contract is drawn between the government and the libraries, which defines goals and measures performance. Libraries are cultural institutions and they have to conduct their policy within a clearly established framework drawn between the government and the libraries. 

Source | The Hindu | 8 November 2015

Today's librarians more than keepers of books

Michele Lind doesn’t fit the image of the librarian sitting behind her circulation desk muttering “Shhhh!” every few minutes.

In fact, she says she would be thrilled — not embarrassed — if her principal walked in while kids’ chatter filled the library.

“My philosophy on quiet has changed,” said the library media specialist, who works at Roosevelt and Lewis and Clark elementary schools in Mandan. “I don’t want it to be wild and crazy and out of control, but I want it to be a little noisy.”

So do a growing number of school library heads who no longer see their sole purpose as keepers of books. They increasingly provide activities to prompt kids' imaginations and collaborate with teachers to integrate technology into the classroom.

The shift from old-school librarian to present-day library media specialist has occurred gradually over the past two decades. Still, local library media specialists find themselves debunking myths about their jobs.

Lind, for one, can see why people might question sending her students on a geocaching expedition. With GPS devices in hand, they searched their schools last year for hidden treasure.

“We are teaching them how to use technology,” she said. “We are teaching them how to apply latitude and longitude. They learn those concepts, but they are so foreign to them.”

Makerspaces

In some ways, children’s weekly visits to the library mimic those of their parents and grandparents. In Mandan and Bismarck public schools, they still check out books and listen to a library media specialist or an assistant read aloud.

“When I started, we were the study hall,” said State Librarian Mary Soucie, who worked in school libraries in the 1990s. “That’s where kids went when they were being disciplined.”

Some students today also spend their recess in the library, Lind said.

The difference? They come because they love “makerspaces,” which are designated areas within a library for kids to create anything from robotics to bookmarks.

The spaces popped up in school libraries throughout the country over the past several years, including in Bismarck and Mandan.

Library media specialists provide the supplies, then let the kids do the rest. Lind split classes into teams last year and gave each 100 red Solo cups. Each group had to come up with a way to stack the cups to ensure the structure would stand.

“I don’t think kids have time to play anymore,” Lind said. “A lot of them are on devices and computers. They forget about playing and creating.”

Misti Werle started a popular makerspaces club last year at Solheim Elementary School in Bismarck. The library media specialist, who earlier this month became the districtwide library media systems innovator for Bismarck Public Schools, regularly oversaw 25 kids who packed her library for weekly meetings after school.

“I had to turn kids away,” she said.

Collaborating with teachers

Blogs, Twitter chats, conferences and school library journals keep library media specialists up to speed on the newest tools available to enhance teaching.

The challenge is finding teachers who want to collaborate, Werle said.

“Often times, they don’t know what you can do for them,” she said.

The way she describes it, library media specialists have to advertise.

Lind knows what that's like. She researches what teachers at her schools are doing so she can devise ways to support them.

One tool she wants to try is Glogster, which she describes as a computer posterboard that can embed pictures, video and text.

“We are still trying to get that up and going,” Lind said. “It takes persistence and one teacher to set the example.”

She found some success last year teaching students email. She showed all her schools' third-, fourth- and fifth-graders how to compose and send an email, requiring them to use proper capitalization and punctuation. Every student messaged her, and she responded to each one.

One of the Lewis and Clark teachers then integrated that lesson into her class. Instead of turning in a sheet of paper with answers to questions, that teacher asked her students to email their responses to the assignment.

Split time

Lind sees the email lesson as a start to more collaboration. Part of the problem, she said, is that she’s split between two schools. She’s not always present when it’s convenient for a teacher to work with her.

That’s the case for library media specialists in Bismarck, too, which has 19 specialists split between 24 schools. Many work at two Bismarck schools, though there are several assigned to three, Werle said.

Kirsten Baesler was the librarian at five elementary schools when she started working for Bismarck Public Schools in 1989. Before she was elected state superintendent in 2012, she served dual roles at Saxvik Elementary School: assistant principal and library media specialist.

“My time as a library media specialist was the best training ground to know my responsibilities as a state superintendent,” she said. “It was absolutely essential for one to know all the standards on all the subjects for all the grade levels.”

Navigating resources

In doing so, Baesler could work better to assist teachers with classroom projects. As a young librarian, she frequently scoured the shelves and borrowed books from neighboring libraries to supply kids with an adequate amount of research materials.

“My big challenge was to make sure there were enough resources available to our students,” she said.

That changed by the time she was elected state superintendent. She taught kids to sort through the plethora of information available online, discerning reliable sources such as .gov sites from Wikipedia articles.

“There are people who say libraries aren’t relevant anymore,” said Werle, explaining that kids’ first instinct is often to turn to Google.

Students will probably find higher-quality sources in databases, which can quickly sort through articles with the search of a keyword, she said.

The State Library at the Capitol grounds in Bismarck pays more than $270,000 each year for databases, including Encyclopedia Britannica, and makes them available to school districts, Soucie said.

Werle said Bismarck Public Schools alone could not afford all those subscriptions.

“Libraries have and always will be about making connections,” Soucie said. “We’re just using different tools to do that now.”

Source | http://bismarcktribune.com/

 

Govt Launches eBasta, A Digital Library Of Downloadable School Books.

The Digital India initiative is spreading it’s wings in every area possible. Over last few months there have been many initiatives launched under this scheme, but most of them have been geared towards transparent Governance and other Government related services.

Now, under Digital India initiative, the Government has launched a platform that extends may help Indian school students tremendously. Aptly called eBasta (Basta means school bag in Hindi), this new platform was unveiled today by the Government that will provide digital and eBook versions of school books and other study material to school students through-out India.

The platform, eBasta, is merely not a library of books, but a collaborative platform where school Book publishers, School teachers, students and even various etailers can participate.

According to the eBasta website, “it is a framework to make school books accessible in digital form as e-books to be read and used on tablets and laptops. The main idea is to bring various publishers (free as well as commercial) and schools together on one platform. In addition to the portal, a back-end framework to facilitate the organization and easy management of such resources has also been made, along with the web based applications that can be installed on tablets for navigating the framework.”

What Can School / Teachers Do with eBasta?

The school or teachers can log on to the portal and search for eBooks and other digital content. They can then logically organize it by creating eBasta for their own students. It’s exactly like you create a bag full of schools books that are related to each standard or course.

School teachers can choose and bundle content according to their teaching methods. Access to variety of resources – text, simulation, animations, audio books, videos, etc – to choose from.

What Can Students Do with eBasta?

eBasta provides an Android Application download, which students can install on their mobile phones or tablets. The students can then go to eBasta and download the eBasta that has been created by their school or teachers. This way, the students will have all the content as required by their teachers.

Because the content is in digital format, it can be stored on any device and shared or copied making the entire content very accessible and portable for students to use.

What Can Publishers Do with eBasta?

For school book publishers, eBasta becomes a marketplace where they can read out to thousands of schools across the country. They can register on the portal and then list, sell and distribute all their content in digital format.

Apart from listing and showcasing their content, the publishers can get direct feedback from teachers and students regarding the digital content they offer. The platform also supports DRM, so they do not have to worry about piracy of books too.

Here is how all stakeholders are involved on eBasta

Source | http://www.ebasta.in/

The Best E-Book Service: Oyster Vs. Scribd Vs. Kindle Store Vs. iBooks

There is nothing better than the antique smell of a book and the feel of pages turning under your fingertips. But thanks to tablets, we can now carry around a virtual library with us — any book we own is accessible in just a few taps and swipes.

There are pros and cons on both sides of the paper vs. e-book debate, but let's face it — e-books are easy to read, as tablets offer brightness adjustments, zooming and letter resizing.

They're more convenient than lugging around a 700-page novel and are more environmentally friendly because you're saving trees!
There are a few popular tablets selling themselves as readers – such as Amazon's Kindle or Barnes and Noble's Nook – though any smartphone or tablet can be used as an e-reader. But when it comes to buying e-books, what's the best service?
Let's take a look at how Oyster stacks up against Scribd, Kindle Store and iBooks.
Oyster

Oyster, commonly called the "Netflix for books," announced on Wednesday, April 8, that it's launching an e-book store. That means users will be able to own the books they read instead of just renting them as part of Oyster's monthly subscription.

Those who subscribe to Oyster Unlimited for $9.95 a month will have access to over a million titles to rent from the virtual library — which include new releases, daily deals and classics. Users will however have to buy any books they want to read that aren't available as part of the subscription, on top of the monthly fee.

Oyster offers recommendations based on the types of books you like to read, as well as book reviews from a high-profile editorial team. Among others, the service provides books published by Hachette and Penguin Random House — who are both supporting Oyster after refusing to participate in the subscription business model.

Those who use Oyster can download their e-books through the app available on Apple's iPhone or iPads, Android smartphones, Amazon's Kindle Fire, Barnes and Noble's Nook HD, as well as the web — making it a service for just about anyone with a smartphone or tablet.
Those who buy books on the web can see them at oysterbooks.com when they sign in. In case of cancellation, a user can still keep the purchased books, accessing them on the Oyster app. This feature makes Oyster ideal for a bookworm who wants to try out a subscription service, but might cancel after a month or two.
Scribd

Scribd started as a popular document-sharing service and expanded in 2013 to include an e-book subscription service. It costs users $8.99 a month for an unlimited subscription, which is available on iOS, Android, and for the desktop — giving tablet and smartphone owners another "Netlfix for books" option.

In 2014, the service added audiobooks to its virtual library with Grammy award-winning narrators, and in February of this year, Scribd signed a deal with big comic book publishers like Marvel, Valiant and Archie Comics to provide more than 10,000 titles in a comic book section — a feature that sets this subscription service apart from the others. So if you are a huge comic book fan, this service is the right one for you.

Editors and algorithms also help recommend books based on the titles read, and there is no limit to number of titles downloaded at the less-than-$10 monthly fee.
Kindle Store

Amazon's Kindle Store offers users a subscription option as well as a traditional e-store. For $9.99, Kindle Unlimited gives the user access to more than 700,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks available to download on any device, such as the Kindle Fire HDX, iOS devices or Android smartphones and tablets with the free Kindle app.

The service uses Whispersync for Voice, which allows you to switch from reading your book to listening to it — all without losing your place.

The Kindle Store also offers the ability to purchase e-books without the subscription, offering best sellers and book deals. The popular Amazon vs. Hachette feud has however made some books from the publishing house unavailable for purchase.
Author James Patterson is strongly against Amazon, which is the primary seller of e-books in the U.S., and authors like J.K. Rowling are reluctant. So if you want to support a favorite author who is publicly against Amazon, the Kindle Store may not be for you.
Amazon also has a Kindle First program, where uses can read next month's new releases now — another cool feature for book lovers who want to read the latest and greatest before anyone else. Users can read one of the four Editors' Picks on a Kindle device or on any device through the app for $1.99, but Prime users get it for free.
iBooks

Apple's iBooks allows iOS users to read books on their iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Mac, offering everything from classics to best sellers. The iBook store offers more than 2.5 million books. Some are free, while others will cost you. There is no subscription service option for iBooks, making this the option for people who are light readers and don't want to pay for a service they won't use often.

If a book – such as a textbook – is updated, the app will give you the option to download the updated version of the book for free, replacing the old one — a feature the others don't offer.

There's also a Multi-Touch option on some books, which allows you to swipe through a photo gallery and rotate a 3D object with your finger, as well as bringing animation to life and accessing audio commentary. These books include textbooks and volumes found in the Food and Cooking, Travel, and Arts and Entertainment categories.

All of your books can be stored on iCloud, so you can read them on multiple Apple devices once you tap to download it. This makes iBooks the choice for the person who wants to read over the phone on the way to work and on the iPad in bed at night.

If you're reading in low light, iBooks automatically switches the text to white on a black background, making it easy to read — a feature you would have to manually adjust on non-Apple devices. There is also the ability to share quotes via message, mail, Facebook or Twitter — right from the page.

Users can also keep PDF files in iBooks so all their guides and proposals are easy to access in one place. Though only some books are free, there is an option to download book samples so you can read a section before committing to the purchase.

There are ups and downs to every e-book service, with some features that make each stand out against the pack. The right option for you depends on how often you read and if you want to pay one monthly fee for a large library, or pay by the book for the ones you really want.

Source | http://www.techtimes.com

Even in the Internet age, good research needs a good library

When the foundation stone for the Prince of Wales Museum, now the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), was laid on November 11, 1905, by the Prince of Wales (later King George V), it also marked the beginnings of the library that became an integral part when the museum was thrown open on January 10, 1922.

One of the oldest reference libraries in the country, the library at CSMVS has managed to remain the primary source of information for archaeologists, historians, artists, heritage conservationists and students, despite the onslaught of the Internet and social media, say officials at the museum.

“This is a reference library where researchers and scholars can find all important reference books and latest publications on art, history, archeology, heritage and culture,” said S Mukherjee, director, CSMVS.

“Since we are a reference library, noted scholars and researchers access the library for primary information. We also get students from various colleges, including our own students of Post Graduate Diploma in Museology,” he added.

What started off as a modest library with around 5,000 books has now grown into a rich collection of over 30,000 books and 5000 periodicals and journals.

There is a massive collection of 200 rare books and manuscripts and these can be accessed only with special permission. The oldest among these include ‘Travels in India During the Years 1760, 1781, 1782, 1783’ by William Hodges and ‘Jataka, Volume 4,5 6’ by V Fassball among others. While the pages in some of these books are worn out, the process of restoring them is currently underway.

The library, is divided into two primary sections.

The first floor stores journals, which includes Marg, Artibus Asia, Annals of Bhandarkar, Journal of Bombay Asiatic Society, Islamic Culture, Journal of Indian Museums, Indian Journal of History of Science, Epigraphia Indica, The Indian Antiquary, Rooplekha, Rupam, National Geographic and Oriental Art.

The floor also houses the rare books that are stored carefully.

The ground floor, which includes computer facilities and reading tables, has books segregated into dedicated sections covering paintings, Ancient History, Archaeology, Geography, Sanskrit literature, Indian Civilisation, Zoology, Mahabharata and Ramayana, Mughal period, British period, customs, language and folklore, Sociology, Economics, Hinduism, Vedic religion, Buddhism, Jainism, Mythology, Religion and Philosophy, Library Science, Textiles and Handicrafts, pottery, terracotta and jewellery, coins, sculptures, temple architecture, Indian, Western and Mughal Art.

While the library was refurbished in 2013 with the help of funds from the Kala Ghoda Association, it is currently engaged in digitisation of its collection.

“I started using the library since I was studying for my BA in history in 2012. I am currently pursuing my masters in history and I am simultaneously pursuing my PG diploma from the museum. I am working on my dissertation on museum exhibition and this library is a one-stop information platform,”said Ajay Salunkhe, a student.

Sofiya Karanjia, who teaches art and design at Rachana Sansad, is another regular. “It is not an ordinary library and has a huge resource in art and culture from the beginning of the 20th century.”

The museum staff consider the library as “a robust back-end resource”. The curatorial staff consult the source material for writing books, catalogues, guide books and research papers. “

“It is an integral part of the museum as we need research and references for our collections. We need to refer to the books here constantly so that we can effectively communicate about the collection to our visitor”,” said Bilwa Kulkarni, education officer, CSMVS.

Even in the Internet age when information is readily available by entering the correct terms in a search engine, the library is quite popular among its users.

“The Internet and social media revolution has a discernible impact on physically accessing books, youngsters want to take shortcuts which is definitely a cause for concern. However, it is heartening to see that people still do come to the library,” said Mukherjee.

Source | Indian Express | 11 March 2015

Paper Books Will Never Die

After eight years of writing about past visions of the future, I've learned to never make predictions of my own. Nobody knows what the future holds, so unless you want punk ass kids featuring your dumb ass predictions on some smarmy ass blog called PaleoFutureFuture or some shit in the year 2065, it's best to keep those things to yourself. But I'm about to break my own rule because I'm just so damn confident in my prediction: Paper books will never completely disappear.

Okay, I'm going to almost immediately hedge and say that I can't get behind the concept of "never." Never is a long time. So for lack of a better way to measure, how about we call it within your grandkids' lifetime? Because after your grandkids are dead nobody you know or care about will still be alive. That puts us at about a century out. And since I've got maybe 30 or 40 good years left on this planet if I'm lucky, a century is basically forever for me.

So how can I be confident that paper books are going to be with us for a long time to come? First of all, because they're lovely and I refuse to believe they'll ever disappear. But also because paper books are still a fantastic and irreplaceable piece of technology. 

College students overwhelmingly prefer deadtrees to e-textbooks. In a recent survey, a whopping 92 percent said that paper books allowed them to concentrate better. And it's easy to see why! Your deadtree Chemistry book doesn't have the siren song of Twitter or Facebook calling you from the digital rocks.

Believe it or not, paper book sales have made a modest comeback in the past year. Ebooks are mainstream. But paper books have too many benefits to simply die out anytime soon. 

Paper books aren't hindered by DRM or evolving media storage standards* or a need for electricity that'll turn your Kindle into a nice paperweight when that nuclear EMP blast finally hits and we're all bringing our kids to the burned out husk of a library to show them what the Before Times were like. Paper books sit on the shelf and mind their own fucking business like they should.

Even short of the more apocalyptic scenarios one can dream up, paper books still serve a purpose and will for the foreseeable future. And anyone who disagrees is almost certainly buying into myths about tech adoption that have poisoned the national discourse about progress for far too long.

It's so easy to think of technological media progress in linear terms. As I mentioned in my post earlier this week about the long forgotten experiments of radio faxpapers, the popular narrative goes something like this: First there were newspapers, then radio made them obsolete, then TV made radio obsolete, and then the web made TV obsolete. This is generally how we prefer to understand the evolution of mass media. But, of course, it's dead wrong.

We still have newspapers, radio, and TV. But with the emergence of each new technology, those older modes were forced to adapt-to refocus on the features that new technologies couldn't offer. It happened for newspapers, radio, and TV, and it's happening for books printed on paper and bound together. That's not to say that ebooks aren't superior in some ways. Rather, that one mode of technology has sharpened the utility of another.

"In the future no book will ever be out of circulation," Nathaniel Lande, a New York publishing consultant, told the New York Times in 1991. Which is a fantastic dream, and a great reason to embrace ebooks. The cost of distribution for electronic media borders on nothing. And digitization will certainly help preserve culture, save nuclear annihilation.

But the battle between paper books and ebooks isn't a zero sum game, even though we tend to imagine technological progress as an endless war between mediums that can only have one victor. In reality, it's more like a stew in which each ingredient is being constantly, subtly redefined by the others. 

Paper books and ebooks are each distinct modes of technology, with distinct strengths and weaknesses. They can co-exist in harmony and almost certainly will forever. And rest assured that if they don't, some punk ass blogger will take great pleasure in telling me how wrong I am. Stupid punk ass bloggers.

*Remember all those firewire hard drives you bought that are now sitting in a drawer somewhere like a time capsule from 2002?

Source | http://www.gizmodo.in/

Never trust a corporation to do a library’s job

As Google abandons its past, Internet archivists step in to save our collective memory

 

Google wrote its mission statement in 1999, a year after launch, setting the course for the company’s next decade:

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

For years, Google’s mission included the preservation of the past.

In 2001, Google made their first acquisition, the Deja archives. The largest collection of Usenet archives, Google relaunched it as Google Groups, supplemented with archived messages going back to 1981.

In 2004, Google Books signaled the company’s intention to scan every known book, partnering with libraries and developing its own book scanner capable of digitizing 1,000 pages per hour.

In 2006, Google News Archive launched, with historical news articles dating back 200 years. In 2008, they expanded it to include their own digitization efforts, scanning newspapers that were never online.

In the last five years, starting around 2010, the shifting priorities of Google’s management left these archival projects in limbo, or abandoned entirely.

After a series of redesigns, Google Groups is effectively dead for research purposes. The archives, while still online, have no means of searching by date.

Google News Archives are dead, killed off in 2011, now directing searchers to just use Google.

Google Books is still online, but curtailed their scanning efforts in recent years, likely discouraged by a decade of legal wrangling still in appeal. The official blogstopped updating in 2012 and the Twitter account’s been dormant since February 2013.

Even Google Search, their flagship product, stopped focusing on the history of the web. In 2011, Google removed the Timeline view letting users filter search results by date, while a series of major changes to their search ranking algorithm increasingly favored freshness over older pages from established sources. (To thedetriment of some.)

Two months ago, Larry Page said the company’s outgrown its 14-year-old mission statement. Its ambitions have grown, and its priorities have shifted.

Google in 2015 is focused on the present and future. Its social and mobile efforts, experiments with robotics and artificial intelligence, self-driving vehicles and fiberoptics.

As it turns out, organizing the world’s information isn’t always profitable. Projects that preserve the past for the public good aren’t really a big profit center. Old Google knew that, but didn’t seem to care.

The desire to preserve the past died along with 20% time, Google Labs, and the spirit of haphazard experimentation.

Google may have dropped the ball on the past, but fortunately, someone was there to pick it up.

The Internet Archive is mostly known for archiving the web, a task the San Francisco-based nonprofit has tirelessly done since 1996, two years before Google was founded.

The Wayback Machine now indexes over 435 billion webpages going back nearly 20 years, the largest archive of the web.

For most people, it ends there. But that’s barely scratching the surface.

Most don’t know that the Internet Archive also hosts:

• Books. One of the world’s largest open collections of digitized books, over 6 million public domain books, and an open library catalog.
• Videos. 1.9 million videos, including classic TV, 1,300 vintage home movies, and 4,000 public-domain feature films.
• The Prelinger Archives. Over 6,000 ephemeral films, including vintage advertising, educational and industrial footage.
• Audio. 2.3 million audio recordings, including over 74,000 radio broadcasts, 13,000 78rpm records, and 1.7 million Creative Commons-licensed audio recordings.
• Live music. Over 137,000 concert recordings, nearly 10,000 from the Grateful Dead alone.
• Audiobooks. Over 10,000 audiobooks from LibriVox and more.
• TV News. 668,000 news broadcasts with full-text search.
• Scanning services. Free and open access to scan complete print collections in 33 scanning centers, with 1,500 books scanned daily.
• Software. The largest collection of historical software in the world.

That last item, the software collection, may start to change public perception and awareness of the Internet Archive.

Spearheaded by archivist/filmmaker Jason Scott, the software preservation effort began on his own site in 2004 with a massive collection of shareware CD-ROMs from the BBS age.

After he joined the Internet Archive as an employee, he started shoveling all that vintage software onto their servers, along with software gathered from historicFTP sites, shareware websites, tape archives, and anything else he could find.

But actually using old software can be rough even for experienced geeks, often requiring a maze of outdated archival utilities, obscure file formats, and emulators to run.

In October 2011, Jason Scott wrote a call-to-arms aimed at making computer history accessible and ubiquitous — by porting classic systems to the browser.

“Without sounding too superlative, I think this will change computer history forever. The ability to bring software up and running into any browser window will enable instant, clear recall and reference of the computing experience to millions.”

The project started attempting a Javascript port of MESS, the incredible open-source project to emulate over 900 different computers, consoles, and hardware platforms, everything from the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 to your old Speak & Spell and Texas Instruments graphic calculator.

Two years later, it was all real.

In October 2013, the Internet Archive tested the waters with the Historical Software Collection, 64 historic games and applications from computing history playable in the browser. No installation required — just one click, and you were trying out Spacewar! for the PDP-1, VisiCalc for the Apple II, or Pitfall for the Atari 2600.

By Christmas, they launched The Console Living Room, nearly 3,000 games from a dozen different consoles. Popular systems like the ColecoVision and Sega Genesiswere represented, but also obscure and hard-to-find consoles like the FairchildChannel F and Watara SuperVision.

A year later, they launched the Internet Arcade — hundreds of classic arcade games emulated with JSMAME, part of the JSMESS package.

Earlier this month, the Archive made headlines with the latest addition to its collection: nearly 2,300 vintage MS-DOS games, playable in the browser.

A technical breakthrough, the games are played on the popular DOSBoxemulator, ported to Javascript by one brilliant, talented engineer.

The experience of clicking a link and playing a game you haven’t seen in 25 years is magical, and many other people felt the same way.

News of the MS-DOS Game Collection got widespread media coverage, includingThe Washington Post, The Verge, and The Guardian, with thousands of people hitting the site every minute.

Millions of people are discovering software they’ve never seen before, or revisiting games from their past. People are making Let’s Play videos of 30-year-old games, played in a Chrome tab.

When this launched, there were dozens of confused comments from people wondering what old videogames has to do with Internet history.

In my mind, this stems from mistaken perception issues of the Internet Archive as solely an institution saving webpages.

But their mission and motto is much broader:

Universal access to all knowledge.

The Internet Archive is not Google.

The Internet Archive is a chaotic, beautiful mess. It’s not well-organized, and its tools for browsing and searching the wealth of material on there are still rudimentary, but getting better.

But this software emulation project feels, to me, like the kind of thing Google would have tried in 2003. Big, bold, technically challenging, and for the greater good.

This effort is the perfect articulation of what makes the Internet Archive great — with repercussions for the future we won’t fully appreciate for years.

But here’s a glimpse: last week, one of the JSMESS developers managed to getNetscape running on Windows 3.1 with functional networking. All of computing history is within our grasp, accessible from a single click, and this is the first step.

It’s not just about games — that’s just the hook.

It’s about preserving our digital history, which as we know now, is as easy to delete as 15 years of GeoCities.

We can’t expect for-profit corporations to care about the past, but we can support the independent, nonprofit organizations that do.

Source | https://medium.com

Indians prefer printed books over e-books: Survey

Despite all the strides taken by India in the digital world, nearly four out of five respondents in the Tata Literature Live! Survey 2014 conducted across the country say they favour printed books over electronic reading. 

In an attempt to understand the evolving landscape of literary reading, amidst technological, social and behavioural impacts, the survey brought forth key insights into Indians' reading habits, a press release from the Tata Group said.

According to it, the results of the survey revealed the preference of printed books across all generations. 

From among the respondents, hyper-connected post-millennials in the age group of less than 20, rank highest in this preference with 81%. This is followed by those in the age group of 21-30 with 79%, 31-40 age group and 41-50 age group with 75% each, the lowest being the age-group of 50 and above with 74%.

Regionally, Mumbai respondents lead with 80% opting for the printed word. This is followed by Delhi with 79%, Kolkata with 78%, Bengaluru with 77% and Chennai with 76%.

"The Tata Literature Live! Survey 2014 is an effort to look into contemporary India's literary leisure reading. The survey has not only explored reading tastes, but more importantly how India is reading today. It is heartening to see India's love for the written word, and the findings encourage us to celebrate it even further at the forthcoming editions of Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest!" says Mr. Anil Dharker, Founder and Festival Director of Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest.

Dr. Mukund Rajan, Member – Group Executive Council and Brand Custodian, Tata Sons, says, "The Tata Literature Live! Survey has thrown up very interesting findings. In a world of primetime TV, breaking news, and intensive social networking, reading books remains a popular activity. Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest endeavours to promote the cause of literature, particularly amongst the younger generation, and the findings of the survey enthuse us to strengthen our efforts in this direction."

The survey looks deeper into other aspects of reading habits as well. Some of the highlights are:

• 60% respondents read a literary piece once a week 
• 42% respondents ranked reading as the best means to survive a bad day
• 74% respondents prefer reading to internet, social media or gaming 
• 69% respondents prefer reading over watching television shows or movies 
• 61% respondents prefer reading over socialising 
• 60% respondents prefer reading over outdoor/indoor games 
• Mumbai respondents show highest preference for printed books (80%) and choose reading over digital entertainment (78%), socialising (66%) and indoor/outdoor games (64%)
• The survey crowns Kolkata as the literary capital of India as - 67% people opt for leisure literary reading once a week, 17% respondents have more than 300 literary books and 49% people choose reading as an escape from a bad day, all highest among other metros
• Across generations, it is the post-millennial readers (73.49%), who read literary pieces more often than any other age-group
• Also, people of 50 years and above emerge as the generation of book hoarders, with 20.59% claiming to have more than 300 books on their shelves
• Further, disclosing author preferences, respondents across regions and age-groups shared mythology as a genre where they enjoy Indian authors more than their non-Indian counterparts.
• Interestingly, when quizzed about what they would bargain to read, about 37.61% of the respondents are willing to let go off their daily dose of favourite TV shows for reading, ranking the highest amongst other categories such as, giving up their lives, skipping a plan/party with friends, taking a day off at work, or not giving up anything at all

Tata Literature Live! Survey 2014 is an exclusive study by the Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest on Indian reading habits. Conducted in October 2014, the survey took a close look into the evolving landscape of literary reading amidst technological, social and behavioural impacts. It focuses on how India is reading today and dwells into the perceptions on literature, across demographics. The research was conducted online, accumulating responses from 1,426 individuals, across the country.

The fifth edition of Mumbai's international literary festival, Tata Literature Live, brought internationally renowned writers and performances from all over the world to Mumbai. The festival which took place at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Nariman Point, and, for the first time, at Prithvi Theatre and The Easel in Juhu, had an invigorating line-up of debates, talks, and creative performances which not only started a vibrant exchange of ideas, but also connected with literary conversations currently happening on a broad global stage.

Extremely happy with this year's edition, Dharker said, "The past four days have been an incredible experience. We have witnessed a huge turnout of audience which is overwhelming. Our sessions have seen full attendance and we have had live projections to other venues which have been full as well. Literature has taken hold of the city in a significant way and perhaps Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest! has contributed in a small way to that."

Over 120 writers, thinkers and performers from countries as diverse as England, the USA, Germany, Italy, Israel and Ireland took centre stage at the festival.

Source | http://netindian.in/

In a world of electronic media, physical libraries still essential

LIMA — Not so many years ago, the notion of the public library would invite images of people flipping through their favorite author’s new novel as they were surrounded by shelves filled with thousands of books. Patrons would flip their fingers through index cards, mastering the Dewey Decimal System while looking for their next read.

However, as technology has advanced, alternatives to books have become more popular. Devices such as the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook have seen sales in the millions, offering the convenience of holding an entire library on one device, eliminating the need to go to libraries or bookstores.

In addition, as smartphone usage has grown, many Apple and Android apps, including the Kindle App, iBooks and Google Play Books, offer customers the chance to read electronic books without even buying a dedicated e-reader.

Is it making a difference?

These trends have made an impact on how Americans choose to read. A March study by the Pew Research Center noted that 28 percent of adults are reading e-books, although only 4 percent read them exclusively.

“There are a few areas where e-books have an advantage, such as in the area of convenience and storage,” Lima Public Library executive director Gary Fraser said. “Downloading an e-book in less than 10 seconds from your home may be worth the price of purchase for some, especially for best sellers.”

In July, Amazon came out with a new service that could potentially increase that trend. Amazon Kindle Unlimited is a monthly subscription service for e-books and audiobooks, much like Netflix for movies and television. For $9.99 per month, Kindle users can have unlimited access to more than 700,000 titles, including such popular books as “The Lord of the Rings” series and “The Hunger Games.”

So do people even use libraries anymore?

While the reading public have many new alternatives to making the trek down to the local library unneccessary, statistics are showing that the local library is still holding its own. The Pew Research Center reported that 69 percent of Americans over 16 are either heavily or moderately engaged with public libraries, with 90 percent of Americans saying that closing a library would have an impact on the community.

That sentiment was echoed on The Lima News’ Facebook page by area readers.

“I still go to the library,” Lisa McCourt Hollar wrote. “My son loves reading paper books more than he does on my Kindle.”

“I still visit the library regularly to stock up on books for my whole family,” Cassandra Gonzalez Pangle wrote.

“Two things I will love forever are records and books,” Kate Bindel wrote. “There’s something about being able to physically hold something.”

Library staff members feel their institution still has a lot to offer.

“Anything that gives people more access to books is great, but we’re still offering a free service through the libraries,” Auglaize County District Public Library adult services coordinator Andrea Burton said. “There will always be people who do not want to pay for books.”

Jessica Hermiller, director of the Bluffton Public Library, agrees.

“For us, we’re offering a community experience you can’t get anywhere else,” she said. “We have some fabulous libraries in this area that do a lot of good work.”

Adapting to the times

While all area libraries still feature the same book-laden shelves as always, they also are integrating 21st century technology into its services. The Ohio Digital Library, also known as Overdrive, is an online tool used statewide, offering e-books to any card-carrying library member.

“We offer thouands of e-books through the Ohio Digital Library,” Burton said. “Sometimes the wait times for the new e-books can be very long, since there are only so many digital copies available. But they are an option here.”

Many libraries also offer assistance to members looking to become more familiar with e-readers such as the Kindle.

“We still have the majority of patrons coming in looking for help with their Kindles, wondering how they’re activated or what features are available,” Hermiller said. “We also do ‘Tutor Me Paperless,’ which is tech tutoring for people, so they can come in one on one with any device.”

Many local readers also take advantage of these services.

“You can get e-books through the library,” Becky Swora wrote on Facebook. “That’s how I get the majority of books I read on my Kindle.”

Libraries are also putting a renewed focus on community outreach and education.

“On a regular basis, we’re helping people apply for jobs, go through the Ohio Benefits Bank, and we actually provided a Medicare Navigator who would come in and do one-hour appointments with people to walk them through the website when it was open,” Hermiller said. “We have all the kids coming over after school looking for homework help.”

How libraries will look in the future is still unknown, but for Hermiller and other librarians, change is not something to fear.

“I think of libraries as a growing organism rather than a stoic guard of the past,” she said. “It’s something people find important and it’s a way to connect with others. So I think there will always be a space for us.”