- Bangkok Seeks to be Book Capital:
Bangkok, Thailand is aiming to be UNESCO’s World Book Capital City in 2008. The Thais are trying to motivate their people to read as much as possible. What was interesting in the news article is the point about them doubling the number of public libraries in Bangkok itself to 50. They’ll also be developing their school libraries into “open education centres”. I guess that’s why we’ve been seeing quite a number of groups of Thai visitors to our public libraries in the past couple of months. In conjunction with this initiative, they’ll be organising a Book Expo next month. And just FYI, the World Book Capital City for the next 2 years is Toronto, Canada and Bogota, Columbia is the 2007 World Book Capital City. (via LISNews.com) - Online Book Club Sets Books Free:
BookCrossing.com is a book club with a difference. The members don’t meet up regularly in groups to discuss the books they read, instead they leave books they have read in public places (such as cafes, parks, the zoo, etc) in the hope that someone would pick up the book to read. They have about 400,000 members in 120 countries and the membership figures are rising. One French BookCrossing member found that the book he left on a bridge in Paris has travelled to Mongolia and Russia. How did he know? Well, he label the book’s inside cover with a tracking number and whoever picks it up can go to the BookCrossing website to log it. I might just try it one of these days by leaving a book in Starbucks or Coffee Bean. (via LISNews.com) - ALA TechSource Blog:
A blog on technology related to and used in the library field. They have quite a strong team of writers so I’m sure the quality of the blog posts will be good. (via Tame The Web) - What Should I Read Next?:
Similar to what we are currently offering in Central Lending Library as part of our Fiction Advisory service, except it’s online. The site was launched in September 2005. It is set up as “a ‘social marketing’ project that gives people useful book recommendations on the basis of aggregating collective taste”. I can see how we can utilise this site to facilitate in the provision of the Fiction Advisory service. (via Library Stuff) - To View or Not To View - The Legalities of DVDs and games in Libraries:
A post by a Queensland, Australia librarian on some legal issues that she’s facing in screening DVDs on their new A$9,000 plasma TV in a new Youth Library, VerbYL. Seems like it’s going to be huge bill each month if they do decide to go ahead with the screenings as it’ll cost them A$55 for each screening and they MUST seek permission from the distributor for each screening. - Epson’s E-Paper RFID Tag:
Epson’s latest RFID Tag incorporates a display. However, it’s still relatively expensive to manufacture thus it won’t be appearing in a NLB book anytime soon. (via Engadget)
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