Photo: Beirut The Corniche 1972

Beirut: The Corniche 1972Yesterday I met someone who had grown up in Beirut but moved to the US just as the civil war started in the late 1970s.  The PND family only visited (for real) once in 1968 and I recalled to him how we had stayed at The Phoenician which is the larger oblong shaped building facing...

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Pew Report: Libraries 2020

This presentation was made in June 2012. The conclusions are very much towards the end of the presentation regarding the role of the librarian and the expected needs of the library user.  The author uses some research data on use of the library, reading accessibility and mobile penetration to extrapolate the changes that may be engendered. Libraries 2020: Imagining the library of the ...

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LOC: International Summit of the Book

A 1 1/2 day summit event at the Library of Congress next week which they hope to turn into "an annual global meeting of minds to discuss and promote the book as a crucial format for conveying societies' scholarship and culture" (LOC).Here is the schedule (apologies for the formatting).Thursday, Dec. 6, 2012 Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building 2:00-2:20 p.m. Welcome: Hon. John Larson (CT),...

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MediaWeek (V5, N48): History & Future of Books - Video with O'Reilly, Friedman, Auletta on Charlie Rose, Follett CEO, The Friendly Intenet + more

A discussion about the history and future of books with Tim O'Reilly, Jane Friedman, Jonathan Safran Foer, Ken Auletta, and David KastanLibrary Journal (Digital Shift) reports on the appointment of Mary Lee Schneider to CEO of $2.1Billion Follett Corporation.In a signal that Follett Corporation is stepping up its digital efforts, the company’s board of directors has unanimously appointed Mary Lee...

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MediaWeek (V4, N47): App Developers, Saylor Education, 'Stealing Content', Free Apps + More

Why the App Developer's life is like an author's: lonely, expensive and (generally) anonymous (NYTimes):For many of the developers not working at traditional companies, moreover, “job” is a misnomer. Streaming Color Studios, a game developer, did a survey of game makers late last year. The 252 respondents, while not a scientifically valid sample and restricted to one segment of the app market, indicated...

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Waikiki, Kapiolani Park and Diamond Head 1975

Several years before we moved to Hawaii a photo from some arduous business trip taken by PND senior. In the early eighties, I ran around Diamond Head occasionally both for fun and in the Honolulu Marathon. The outbound leg goes off to the left and the return comes back on the sea side to the right. The finish...

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BISG Report: Consumer Attitudes to E-Books

From BISG the annoucement of the final installment of their study into consumer attitudes towards e-Books.v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE...

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Cengage Revenue Off 22% - Analysts Nervous

Describing a 22% revenue decrease as a "self-inflicted wound" and the result of a single customer reducing their purchases will represent a tough backdrop when Cengage management calls on their Bankers in the next few months to refinance some of their debt.  Quoted in the Financial Times, CFO Dean Durbin stated that he doesn't "think that we are moving toward a restructuring,” telling analysts...

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MediaWeek (V4, N46): Library Clouds and Data, Open Ed Resources, GOP, Pearson Investigated

Campus Technology looks at Bucknel University's libary and their implementation of OCLC's cloud based library system. In addition to saving the library money and allowing them to reallocate resources the experience for users is also significantly improved (Campus Tech):The OCLC implementation radically changes the library experience for students, researchers, and faculty. In a traditional library...

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Photo "Democracy Plaza": Election Night 2012

Wandered around here early on Tuesday evening before the election results came in.  Turns out democracy plaza is brought to us by Microsoft Windows 8.  It's all over now though and the right guy won.This image carving is above the door to 30 Rock and that crown is normally in gold leaf; however I thought...

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Pearson's Blue Sky Project

At lunch with a media banker several weeks ago, she had me thinking differently about the proliferation of aggregated content platforms such as Deepdyve, Credo Reference and others (particularly in medical).  In education, there's a rush for content going on and big incumbent education companies such as Blackboard and Pearson are starting to take notice. While these companies are big and retain...

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MOOCs, MOOCs and more MOOCs

Short on conclusions (but then this is all quite new) the Education section of the Times this weekend gushed about those Massive Open Online Courses (NYTimes)“This has caught all of us by surprise,” says David Stavens, who formed a company called Udacity with Sebastian Thrun and Michael Sokolsky after more than 150,000 signed up for Dr. Thrun’s “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” last fall,...

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MediaWeek (V4, N45): Flatworld Knowledge, McGraw Education, Conde Nast + More

Things were so bad last week, I actually read a paper newspaper, maybe things can get back to normal this week.Hoboken from the storm (WaPo)Education textbook trailblazer Flatworld Knowledge is changing their business model to paid rather than free content (IHE):As usage of Flat World’s materials increased (the company’s latest promotional materials assert that the texts are being used in more than...

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Hurricane Outage

At PND towers we've only had to worry about our power supply while many others in Hoboken have lost everything.  That accounts for the lack of posts this week.  Power at PND HQ is not expected before Monday but we've not lost anything relative to many other unlucky neighbors.  Here's what...

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