Textbook Rentals

Inside Higher Ed has an article titled “Rent, Read and Return,” which I found pretty interesting and I would recommend reading.  It focuses on a number of sites that allow students to rent books for a reduced price. However, unlike Netflix, there often are late fees and penalties if books are not returned on time. Chegg, one of the sites profiled, agrees to plant a tree for each book rented.  Author Stephanie Lee writes:
“The site has gone on to make $10 million in revenue last year and more than that amount this past January alone, according to company officials…In an arrangement that will go live in August, McGraw-Hill Companies will provide the site with new books and share an undisclosed portion of the revenue, according to Couch. Until now, Chegg has been purchasing books on its own and through affiliate programs.”
I found this joint venture between Chegg and the publisher McGraw-Hill to be very intriguing-and I’m quite curious to know what those revenue portions are.  What do you think? The author links to an earlier Higher Ed article titled “Wanted: Book for a Term.”  In the comments section, University of Oregon Librarian Andrew Bonamici links to a program they’ve undertaken with their campus bookstore to try and reduce the cost of textbooks for students.  One commenter, ML, offered this opinion: “The single thing that would make the biggest difference in the money that students I know have to spend on books would be a liberalization of copyright law.”  Based on my own experience, I’m tempted to agree.  I often had to buy coursepacks, which were expensive, loosely bound article reprints-the cost of those materials was certainly not due to fine paper or binding.   With so many different stakeholders with competing interests, it’s hard for me to imagine a single, successful, solution built on compromise. 

Black Thought and Culture: black leaders from colonial times to present

New database here in the library! Black Thought and Culture has wonderful range of primary sources — essays, articles, speeches, books, and interviews — from black leaders from colonial times to present.  Includes hard-to-find work like letters, pamphlets, and interviews, plus (in the showcase area) issues of the Black Panther Party Newspaper and audio of the Black Panther Party Interviews.  Well-organized for teaching themes across various primary sources; use the narrow subject terms to browse.  Also has a way to browse by historical events, so that you could, for example, find primary sources specifically focused on Reconstruction, World War II, or the Dred Scott decision.

Advances in barcode technology

Our collegues across the river at the MIT Camera Culture lab have created a new barcode technology called Bokodes. Bokode You can see a description at this link: http://web.media.mit.edu/~ankit/bokode/ Also the BBC has picked up on this story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8170027.stm The interesting thing about this is that this new technology could change the way libraries track assets such as books and media. However, the conversion cost may not be practical since the standard 3 of 9 barcode system has been in use for decades and converting millions of physical items to a new system is a daunting task. I would compare this conversion as similar to converting from Dewey Decimal to Library of Congress.

Online Exhibits

We’re working on creating a new template for online exhibits for the Library.  As part of the process, I’ve been looking at a number of online exhibits, and found the subject matter of “She is More to be Pitied than Censured” at Brown University to be particularly interesting.  The case of Mary Rogers reminded me of the young women lured to the big city, that Erik Larson so expertly describes in The Devil in the White City .  H. H. Holmes would also prey on similar young women who traveled to Chicago.  The Brown exhibit highlights a number of cases, including many that took place in Massachusetts and throughout New England.  It also deals with the Beecher-Tilton scandal, in which Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother was accused of adultery.  The exhibit is organized around the 1894 song “She is More to be Pitied than Censured” by William B. Gray.  I was able to find an old recording of the song by Marguerite Newton at the Internet Archive! Explore on your own, and let me know what you think.

Censorship and the library

Over the course of a week, I have been reading and seeing information about censorship in the library (c/o my MLS courses).  The issues of controversial books, censorship, and professional ethics have all come into play. Take a simple children’s book for example: And Tango Makes Three.  This heartwarming book chronicles the relationship and family life of an unusual pairing of penguins: Roy and Silo, two males. Traditionally, every year a female penguin and male penguin find each other and create a permanent attachment to one another, similar to that of a human relationship. However, one year, two male penguins created a bond outside of the traditional boy-girl pairing. As their relationship developed and they began nesting like all the other penguin couples, they realized that there was something missing from their duo: a baby chick. After being given an abandoned egg from a zookeeper, the pair began to care for the egg diligently and finally the baby chick, named Tango, was hatched from the egg to become the first baby at the zoo to have two daddies. And Tango Makes Three cleverly describes a male homosexual relationship in the animal kingdom world to young children.  We actually have this book at Snell Library in the Favat section (see link above). According to Worldcat.org, in addition to Northeastern, there are about 1800 other libraries around the world that also own this book.  However, this book has some very controversial topics (namely homosexual realtionships) and they are being presented to young children, which may not sit well with some parents and even librarians who select children’s materials.  It wasn’t until I read Debra Lau Whelan’s article A Dirty Little Secret: Self-Censorship for one class, that I realized there may be censorship of this book going on, despite the number of libraries who own it.  According to the article, it appears there is a “quiet” censorship that happens outside of the more public act of removing a book from the shelf due to controversy.  Librarians are simply not buying materials for the library because of the backlash the materials might recieve from the community (what would ALA say, re: VI and VII?). This may not apply to an academic library in liberal Massachusetts, but is And Tango Makes Three an appropriate book for children and ultimately a school library?  Are there libraries out there that might “self-censor” this book?  Do libraries actually have the right to “self-censor” books because of the fear of backlash, or is it a required part of professional ethics that they put aside those fears and personal convictions? You know, in case people wanted a little “light” discussion. 🙂