New York Times 100 Most Notable Books of 2007

The New York Times Book Review has released their list of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2007. We even have several, such as Legacy of Ashes and Edith Wharton, right here at Memorial Library! How many of these notable books have you read? (I have read one.)

Thanksgiving Break Hours

Memorial Library will be open during the following hours over Thanksgiving Break:

Tuesday 11/20 Close at 6 PM
Wednesday 11/21 Close at 5 PM
Thursday 11/22 CLOSED
Friday 11/23 CLOSED
Saturday 11/24 CLOSED

Have a safe and fun Thanksgiving!

E-book readers part deux

This isn't the first time that e-book readers have been the Next Big Thing. The Franklin eBookMan was released in 1999 and has been followed by a litany of failures -- the Gemstar REB, the Rocket eBook, the Sony Reader. Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos thinks he has finally hit on a winning formula with the Kindle. (Of course, he also thought society as we know it was going to be upended by the Segway.)

The Kindle is a paperback sized, shaped, and weighted electronic device that uses eInk to simulate the look of a printed page. Like many new electronic devices it is "always on" and receiving and exchanging information. The Kindle uses the same technology as cell phones, and thus can be connected to the Internet without having to be at a WiFi hotspot. You can purchase eBooks from Amazon, access Google and message other users. Of course, you can already do that with a computer... or a cell phone... or a Game Boy. In fact, the Kindle sounds an awful lot like a Personal Data Assistant, another already failed concept, attached at the hip to Amazon.com. There are two main reasons you would turn to a book instead of an Internet resource:

1. You are learning about something complex and involved that requires that lots of information be conveyed over an extended period involving studious contemplation.

2. You want to lose yourself in a narrative (the so-called reading trance) and turn off the conscious parts of your mind for a while. For instance, before you go to bed.

Neither of these ends is served by buddy-lists, click-through links, offers of the day, low battery warnings and all of the other "features" of the Kindle that one turns to a book to get away from.

The Web has already been done better elsewhere, texts have already been done better elsewhere, portable multipurpose machines have already been done better elsewhere. What need does an always connected eBook reader fill that isn't already met better somewhere else?
Is this really the book of the future?

via iLibrarian

What it is like to be a student today (In case you didn't know already)

Michael Wesch from Kansas State has posted a video that describes what life is like for students today. Wesch claims that you have 26.5 hours of things to do each day. Does this video describe you?

Wesch has previously released the popular videos The Machine is Us/ing Us and The Information R/evolution.

Deep Web resources

Did you know that Google indexes only a small percentage of the Web? Here's some good links for getting to information that Google can't find:

http://aip.completeplanet.com/ : A search engine for finding specialty search engines
http://www.goshme.com : A Deep Web "assistant:
http://www.pipl.com/ : Search hundreds of databases at once for information on people
http://www.blinkx.com/ : Search across the web for videos in one spot

Health and Career Fair

Come check out the health and career fair from 1 PM to 4 PM today in the library. Companies and resources from around the state are at your fingertips!

Daylight Saving Time ends

Daylight Saving Time ends on Sunday, November 4. (At 2:00 AM should you be up at that time.) Your clocks should "fall back" so that, for instance, 6 AM becomes 5 AM. That means an extra hour of sleep! Time changes are also a good time to check the batteries in your smoke alarms.