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Kindle & Nook Book Lending

Feb 5th, 2011
by pollyalida.
4 comments

When Amazon added the ability to loan some purchased Kindle ebooks, I knew it wouldn’t be long before we saw some new services to help people borrow & lend titles.  A month later, there are several operating or in development.

While I love the idea of being able to loan the few books I’ve purchased, the restriction on loaning a title only once will turn me into more of a hoarder than a lender. If I’m going to loan a title that I really enjoyed, I want to loan it to a friend, a good friend. And not just any good friend, but that one very good friend who will love the book the most. And the one who can get through it in the limited 14 days. Don’t bother loaning me anything, I’m a slow reader.

(Of course this all begs the issue of where libraries fit in this picture! Visit, and lend your support to, Library Renewal for information and discussions around that essential question.)

Nevertheless, with the help of Bobbi Newman’s list of ebook loaning services as a starting place, I decided to check out some of the services.

Kindle Lending  Club – (changed name to BookLending)

This service grew out of Facebook page started on December 31,2010 by Kindle user Catherine MacDonald and has a very easy to use interface. Sign in with your Facebook account or register with your email. (more…)

Night Owls

Feb 3rd, 2011
by pollyalida.
1 comment

What a great idea!  Night Owls -  Cuyahoga County (OH) Public Library’s after-hours book discussion is held on Thursday evenings in the Notes section of their Facebook page. There were about a dozen folks there tonight sharing their latest reads.

Your weeded books can do some good

Jun 5th, 2009
by pollyalida.
2 comments

Elisabeth Abarbanel wrote a great post about what they do with books they weed at her library. Many of them are donated to Better World Books. Read  her post for details. This could be a great volunteer project for kids and adults. 

(Thanks to Buffy Hamilton for noting this  on Facebook)

7 Ways Your Public Library Can Help You During A Bad Economy

Jul 22nd, 2008
by pollyalida.
No comments yet

7 Ways Your Public Library Can Help You During A Bad Economy: Handy short article on the ways library services and resources can help people at ANY time, not just during a bad economy.

1. You can get pretty much any book at the library
2. Yes, we have movies
3. Kids Activities
4. Save Money and maybe your life!
5. Make new friends
6. Find a new job
7. Libraries listen to consumers!

Really interesting comments from library users listing lots of additional services that they find valuable. I loved this comment in particular:

Using my local library has been one of my resolutions for 2008 and I can report that its going great. I’ve saved a ton of money by reading books from my library vs. Amazon.com. I use Amazon.com to research and keep track of titles and when I’ve read one of those titles from the library I check the “I own it” so I can get better recommendations.

Can’t wait for the day we all have catalogs that have those sorts of “amazon” features….. someday soon?

(via LISNews)

Interpreting the Evolution of English

Jun 30th, 2008
by pollyalida.
No comments yet

My nephew is writing some wonderful stuff!

Interpreting the Evolution of English – Accents, dialects, slang and how we got from King James to hip-hop swagger.

Reviews of: The Prodigal Tongue, by Mark Abley and By Hook or by Crook, by David Crystal.

By Timothy Farrington, editorial staff of the New Yorker.
Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2008; Page W8

Fun stuff from Connecticut Libraries

Jun 13th, 2008
by pollyalida.
No comments yet

One of the things I love about traveling all over to teach is hearing about new projects and ideas from the library staff in my classes. I always come back with a bunch of scribbled notes on pieces of paper that eventually sift out of my notebooks, folders, pocketbook and who knows where in my suitcase.

So here are the notes that have surfaced from last week’s trip to CT:

  • Mystery on Pine Street – Wacky, fun, stop-motion claymation style video created by kids at the Cornwall (CT) Free Library as part of their 2007 Summer Reading Program.
  • Forman School Library – Short audio book teasers to encourage summer reading. The mp3 files are stored on their wikispaces account and presented with an embedded audio player.
  • Writers Club – Norwalk (CT) PL – Great project had kids reading their own riddles, writings and offering book reviews. They’ve used the handy playtagger audio player that comes from del.icio.us. Nice simple way to embed an audio player on a regular web page.