Tag: Corning

StarCat & The STLS Digital Catalog – What’s The Difference?

Linda Reimer

I had a patron ask me a question this week that I’d never been asked before! She asked me what the difference was between StarCat and The STLS Digital Catalog.

I thought that was an excellent question! That question is one that those of us who work in library land know the answer to; and we know the answer to the question to the extent that it would not ever occur to us to even mention the differences in to patrons in person, on Facebook or on our library tech blog!

So that was an excellent question!

And the answer to the question: “What is the difference between StarCat and the STLS Digital Catalog?” is that StarCat is the catalog of physical library materials and The STLS Digital Catalog is the catalog of digital library materials.

With StarCat, which you can access via the Library Catalog link on our website found at http://ssclibrary.org/, you can:

  • Request books or other library materials – so if you want to read the latest Susan Mallery novel or watch the new DVD Lincoln you can place a request (also known as a hold!) – all you need is  your library card number and PIN number (your PIN is initially the last four digits of your telephone number).
  • Renew items you have checked out (So you don’t have to run to the library during a very busy day!)
  • Access your library check out history (To see if you checked out a specific title before – so you don’
  • Simply see what items you currently have checked out
  • And see the status of any items you have requested (aka placed on hold)

Here’s a direct link to StarCat if you’d like to check it out!

http://starcat.stls.org/client/default

With the STLS Digital Catalog, which you can also access via our homepage found at http://ssclibrary.org/, you can:

  • Check out e-books
  • Check out digital audio books
  • Check out digital videos
  • Check out digital albums
  • Request e-books, digital audios, videos and albums
  • See what digital items you currently checked out.

And here’s a direct link to The STLS Digital Catalog:

http://stls.lib.overdrive.com/6D66E60E-4731-4EE4-83EB-17D4BA99B797/10/50/en/Default.htm

So in essence, the difference between the two catalogs is that StarCat is for physical items held in the real world that you must visit the library to check out and The STLS Digital Catalog is for digital materials that you can check out to a computer from anywhere you have an Internet connection.

Important Note: You can indeed check out  library e-books, digital audios, videos and albums and download them to a computer. However, with e-books and audio books you can also download titles to a great variety of smartphones and tablets. Basically if you have an Apple or Android app device you can go to your app store and download the OverDrive Media Console app – and then download e-books and MP3 audios through that app and listen to those audios and/or read those e-books on your smartphone or tablet!

If you want to check out a WMA formatted audio – you can do that too! However, you will have to download it to a computer first and then transfer it to an Apple or Android device.

At the present time albums and videos must be listened to or watched on a PC or a handful of portable devices – but may not be watched or listened to on any Android or Apple devices.

If you have questions about which formats in the STLS Digital Catalog can be used to read, listen to and watch titles in the STLS Digital Catalog you can post questions to this blog or check out the OverDrive Device Resources Center found at the following link:

http://www.overdrive.com/drc/

Have a great weekend!

Linda R.

 

 

Mashable’s Top Ten YouTube Channels For You – If You’d Like To Learn More & New York City Subway Gets Touchscreen Kiosks

Linda Reimer

Mashable’s Top Ten YouTube Channels For You – If You’d Like To Learn More: Apologies for the title but I couldn’t resist! The tech site Mashable published a list today of the top ten YouTube channels they recommend you visit if you’d like to learn more about the universe, usually in 15 minutes or less and without going back to school! And as a huge proponent of public libraries, their goals and services I am all for life-long learning so I thought the article was cool and so are the videos on each of the channels!

Most of the channels focus on scientific topics but some, like Crash Course, offer other subjects as well like history and philosophy and every one of the videos I’ve checked out so far really is cool and has offered a fun learning experience.

Here, briefly are the top ten channels – and if you’d like to learn more about any of the channels click on the link below the channel list to access the Mashable article.

1) Veritasium:  The name is Latin and means “Truth” (not to mention it is the name of a truth telling potion in the Harry Potter Universe!): This channel features neat videos that briefly seek scientific truth on one topic or another and one of the most popular is titled “Slinky Physics.”

2) Vsauce:  a philosophical channel that offers videos focusing on existential questions like “What if the sun disappeared” and “What if everyone jumped at once?”

3) C.G.P. Gray: This channel covers a great range of topics from small items like the correct pronunciation of a word to all the basics of copyright law.

4) MinutePhysics: A channel that focuses on the obvious topic of physics!

5) Smarter Every Day: This channel is hosted by real Rocket Scientist Destin who takes his viewers with him on his daily quest to be smarter every day.

6) SciShow: A fun channel that features science videos.

7) Crash Course: This channel offers really quick introductions to a number of topics. For example they have a video on the origins of World War I that runs 11 minutes and 45 seconds (this is my favorite channel so far as it offers quite a few cool history videos!).

8) Numberphile: A channel that offers video clips that focus on numbers and math.

9) ASAP Science: This channel offers videos by biologists Gregory Brown and Mitchell Moffit and their science related videos are so popular they’ve been written up in The Atlantic and Scientific American magazines.

10) Bad Astronomy: In this case “Bad” can be equated with the hip version of the word “Cool;” as in good! This is the companion YouTube channel for Philip Plait’s space related website.

Here’s the link to the Mashable article which is titled 10 YouTube Channels That Will Make You Smarter:

http://mashable.com/2013/04/04/youtube-education/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=rss

New York City Subway Gets Touchscreen Kiosks: The New York City subway system is in the process of having 77 new 47” touch screen information kiosks installed at its subway stations. The kiosks, which are said to be indestructible, will allow people to see exactly where they are in New York City and to access information allowing them to easily see on a displayed, interactive map, how to get where they want to go. I think interactive touch screen displays like the subway kiosks are the wave of the future. And that in the near future not only will you find touchscreen computers in public places that will allow you to access all sorts of useful information on demand; but you’ll also be able to have your smartphone, tablet or smart watch communicate with the information kiosk computers via the evolving Near Field Communication technology. So in essence, the New York City touchscreen kiosks are a foreshadowing of that even more advanced communication era that we’ll see unfold in the next ten years or so!

Here’s a link to the Business Insider article which is titled New York City Subways Are Getting A New Touchscreen Network:

http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-subway-touchscreens-2013-3?op=1

And here’s a link to an article from The Wall Street Journal’s All Things D blog on the subject of Near Field Communication – which offers an explanation of how that technology works:

http://allthingsd.com/20130218/nfc-what-you-need-to-know/

Have a great evening!

Linda R.

References

Al-Green, Bob. (2013, April 4). 10 YouTube Channels That Will Make You Smarter. Mashable. Online.

Dickey, Megan Rose. (2013, March 28). New York City Subways Are Getting A New Touchscreen Network. Business Insider. Online.

Goode, Lauren. (2013, February 18). Near Field Communication. All Things D.

Cool Historic Tech Sounds Slideshow & Warner Brothers Archival Streaming Video Service Debuts

Linda Reimer

Cool Historic Tech Sounds Slideshow: I came across a neat slideshow on the tech site IT World yesterday that offers the actual sounds some obsolete (or on their way out) technologies made while operating – like the sound the dial up connection for dial up Internet makes, the sound of AOL’s old email greeting (“You’ve got mail.”), the greeting sound of various versions of Windows (this is the sound you hear when you first turn on a Windows PC and it is starting up), the sound of a telephone busy signal (in the days before voice mail!), the sound of a dot matrix printer jamming  and the sound an old carousel slide projector made as you clicked from one slide to the next!

The slideshow features 22 slides with sound effects – and it is fun!

Here’s the link:

http://www.itworld.com/slideshow/88695/20-historic-tech-sounds-you-may-have-forgotten-348135?source=fkcarouseltechsounds

Warner Brothers Archival Streaming Video Service Debuts: Warner Brothers has just debuted a streaming video service offering select archive television shows and movies for  unlimited streaming to subscribers for $9.99 per month. And while I think it is past time for some of the major networks and media companies to get onboard the Digital Revolution bandwagon and start making more of their back catalog titles available for consumers to access as streaming videos; I think a $9.99 per month fee they are charging consumers to access the few hundred titles they have in their streaming catalog is a rather high price to expect people to pay. After all you can subscribe to a streaming subscription for Netflix and gain unlimited access to the thousands of titles in their streaming library for $7.99 per month and you can gain access to the thousands of titles in the Amazon Prime streaming library for a yearly price of $79. So why would people want to pay more to Warner Brothers to access a few hundred old movies and televisions shows? Nevertheless the fact that Warner Brothers is offering a streaming subscription service is notable and they should be applauded for doing so! And perhaps they’ll increase the number of titles in their catalog in the near future.

Here’s a link to a short Endgadget article on the new Warner Archive Instant video service:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/02/warner-archive-instant-launches/

And a link to the Warner Archive Instant site itself where you can sign up for a two-week trial if  you’d like to check out the service (you can also just browse through the titles currently in the Warner Archive catalog):

http://instant.warnerarchive.com/

Have a great day!

Linda R.

References

Lawler, Richard. (2013, April 2). Warner Archive Instant launches, offers subscription to stream classic movies and TV shows. Engadget. Online.

Raphael, J. R. (2103, March 13). 20 historic tech sounds you may have forgotten. Boy, does technology evolve fast. How many of these iconic sounds do you remember? IT World. Online.

WB Instant Archive. Warner Archive. Online. Accessed April 3, 2013.

 

Flexible, Bendable Mobile Screens & Why Internet Natives Expect Digital Content To Be Free

Linda Reimer

Flexible, Bendable Mobile Screens: Corning Inc. is one of the largest producers of display glass in the world. Their Gorilla glass is used in many smartphones and tablets because it is so tough – scratch and dirt resistant. And not being content to rest on its laurels Corning is now working on a new type of flexible display glass, called Willow glass, that will bend; thus in the future this glass should be incorporated into the design of Internet connecting displays that will be so thin you’ll be able to fold them up and take them you as if it they were scrolls of clear paper.   

I came across a brief Mobile Phones article on the subject of Corning’s flexible display glass titled Flexible Mobile Screens Coming Soon – here’s the link:

http://www.mobilephones.org.uk/flexible-mobile-screens-coming-soon/

And here, on the related subject of general Corning display glass, is a link to a short Today’s iPhone article that relays the tech rumor that Corning is going to supply the display glass for the rumored upcoming Apple TV:
http://www.todaysiphone.com/2013/03/apple-itv-display-panels-to-be-supplied-by-foxconn-covered-in-corning-glass/

Why Internet Natives Expect Digital Content To Be Free: There have been a number of articles in the news in the last six months or so on the subject of what is being described as “Cord Nevers” (instead of cord cutters). This new term refers to people in their twenties who have never paid for cable television, who like to watch Internet accessed television shows and movies on their smartphones, tablets and computers whenever they want to and are not inclined to pay to watch TV shows and movies because they’ve never had too. This group of people has so far in their lives gained access to their favorite movies and television shows from friends’ collections or family or friends cable subscriptions.

This is an interesting subject because it clearly illustrates a growing trend – increasingly television and movie fans want to watch the shows and movies they are interested in when they want to watch them and on whichever Internet connecting device they have at hand at the moment; whether that consists of their smartphone while they are standing in line at the grocery store, their tablets when they are on their lunch break at work or their laptop or large screen smart TVs when they are at home.

And as is frequently the case you can see the shift in society – in this case in how people access video content – starting in earnest with young adults. So this is an interesting trend to watch because it rather cuts all the debates and conversations about how expensive bundled cable bill are off at the knees! Those people who aren’t willing to pay for cable TV packages at all aren’t going to care how much money Time Warner or Comcast charges for their cable packages as they aren’t going to subscribe to any of them anyway thus losing the cable companies what has traditionally been a steady part of their business – new cable subscribers.

Here’s a link to a related story from the PaidContent site titled Generation Mooch Why 20 Somethings Have A Hard Time Paying For Content:

http://paidcontent.org/2013/03/29/generation-mooch-why-20-somethings-have-a-hard-time-paying-for-content/

And a second link to an article from the Atlantic on the growing number of young adult cord nevers:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/02/fear-cord-never-generation/62033/

Have a great day!

Linda R.

References

Bunton, Cam. (2013, March 28). Apple ‘iTV’ display panels to be supplies by Foxconn, covered in Corning glass? Today’s iPhone. Online.

Degivlle, Sean. (2013, March 31). Flexible Mobile Screens Coming Soon. Mobile Phones. Online.

Greenfield, Rebecca. (2013, February 12). Fear of a Cord-Never Generation. The Atlantic. Online.

Kern, Eliza. (2013, March 29). Generation Mooch? Why 20-somethings have a hard time paying for content. PaidContent. Online.

Aereo Streaming Television Service Wins Appeal & Expands Service

Linda Reimer

I’ve mentioned Aereo in blog postings before but just to refresh all our memories; Aereo is a New York City based company that offers broadcast television shows that go out over the airwaves and into Aereo’s office and then are sent to subscribers via the Internet. The idea is that you don’t have to be home in front of your television set to watch content that you could get for free via aerial antennae if you were at home.

And to give you an example, it used to be, and sometimes still is, that people lived far enough out of town that they couldn’t subscribe to a cable TV service via a cable service provider like Comcast or Time Warner Cable because the cable wires were not set up that far out of town – so no service was offered in their out-of-town region. So instead they hooked antennas to their roofs and/or television sets to receive a basic number of broadcast television channels for free. Now granted you couldn’t get all television channels that way – premium paid channels like HBO and Showtime weren’t available; however your local network stations and PBS were – so you could tune in to ABC, NBC, CBS or PBS if you were at home and watch whatever programs were being shown. And Aereo offers those free over-the-air (aerial) broadcast channels to customers in their service areas by actually having a small antenna for each customer in their service centers that receives the free broadcast programming and then sends it to customer’s accounts over the Internet.

And thus Aereo offers the free over-the-air broadcast television stations to their customers to access via an app on their smartphones and tablets. And Aereo further offers a certain amount of DVR storage for each customer so if you live in one of their service areas you can record that episode of Law & Order or Seinfeld that you missed the first time around and watch it later via your smartphone or tablet whenever you want to.

Aereo debut its service to consumers living in the New York City region last March. And as you can imagine this system is not one that the cable and media companies are pleased with! Comcast, CBS & Walt Disney have so far brought two law suits against Aereo claiming that Aereo is illegally broadcasting their content by essentially cutting cable service providers out of the picture altogether. They claim that Aereo is infringing on their copyright for the channel programming they sell to their customers even though it is perfectly legal for consumers to put a TV antenna on their own roofs and to access over-the-air television channels for free when they are at home; and Aereo is only broadcasting over-the-air channels to people who could obtain those channels for free, via rooftop antenna, in their area. So last March, just before the Aereo service debuted, Comcast, CBS & Walt Disney filed an initial law suit against Aereo claiming that their service was illegal – the court ruled against them and for Aereo stating that the Aereo service was in fact legal. And not surprisingly the plantiffs appealed the ruling. This morning a second court decision was also handed down upholding the first decision and yet again ruling that the Aero service is legal.

And so far this year Aereo has expanded its service to include 29 additional near-by counties in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut so the ability to access broadcast television networks and their shows via the Internet may become the new norm.  I’m sure most people, including myself, would be willing to pay the $8.00 per month subscription fee (or the $80 yearly fee) to watch broadcast television programs via our smartphones, tablets or streaming media players whenever we want to.

And in relation, I think that they cable companies, by tight fistedly trying to hang on to their outdated bundled channel business model, are missing the proverbial boat and the opportunity it presents to make money in this new high tech Internet streaming age of ours. I can’t of course speak for anyone but myself but I did that cord-cutting thing three years ago and I much prefer it! I stream video content at home via my Roku and Apple TV players via my Wi-Fi network, and on the go via my smartphone and iPad. And I pay Netflix $7.99 a month for their all-you-can-eat (okay all-you-can-view) subscription to their catalog of titles and $79 per year to Amazon for unlimited access to their Prime Library of video titles and I can then watch them anywhere I can access the Internet. I can also purchase or rent videos from Amazon and buy videos from Apple so if I want to watch the latest episode of Grimm or Mad Men I can buy it the day after it airs on television. TV episodes come in standard definition for $1.99 and HD for $2.99 and I don’t mind paying that for episodes of a series I really like but I did mind an ever increasing cable bill that had me subscribing to many channels I never watched just so I could watch the handful of channels that I did want to watch. And did I mention the price? Amazon Prime & a yearly subscription to Netflix totals $175.77 – and I was paying almost that for my monthly cable bill before I cut the cord.

So I am excited by the second court ruling in favor of Aereo because I see this as not just a win for Aereo but also a win for consumers who today increasingly like to be able to watch whatever video content they want to watch when and where they want to watch it and not be tied to a cable TV cord.

Here’s a link to a New York Times article on Aereo and the new court ruling in its favor:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/business/media/aereo-wins-in-appeals-court-setting-stage-for-trial-on-streaming-broadcast-tv.html?ref=technology&_r=0

A second link to a Tech Crunch article on the same subject:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/01/aereo-looks-to-tv-providers-isps-to-accelerate-growth/

A third link to a short USA Today article that sums up the basics of the subject:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/04/01/aereo-wins-appeals-court-ruling/2042527/

And a link to the Aereo website that offers you a look at the pricing of their service plans:

https://aereo.com/plans

Have a great day!

Linda R.

References

Compare Plans. Aereo. Online. Accessed April 1, 2013.

Crook, Jordan. (2013, April 1). Aereo Looks To TV Providers, ISPs To Accelerate Growth. Tech Crunch. Online.

Stelter, Brian. (2013, April 1). Aereo Wins Appeal: Trail Likely for Streaming TV.

Yu, Roger. (2013, April 1). Good news for cable cord-cutters in Aereo win. USA Today. Online.

 

Weekend Digital Catalog Suggested Reading, Viewing & Listening

Linda Reimer

Here is the list of suggested digital reading, viewing and listening titles for this weekend!

Suggested E-Books:

The Armageddon Rag by George R.R. Martin: Onetime underground journalist Sandy Blair has come a long way from his radical roots in the ’60s–until something unexpectedly draws him back: the bizarre and brutal murder of a rock promoter who made millions with a band called the Nazgûl. Now, as Sandy sets out to investigate the crime, he finds himself drawn back into his own past–a magical mystery tour of the pent-up passions of his generation. For a new messiah has resurrected the Nazgûl and the mad new rhythm may be more than anyone bargained for–a requiem of demonism, mind control, and death, whose apocalyptic tune only Sandy may be able to change in time . . . before everyone follows the beat.

Edwin of the Iron Shoes: Sharon McCone Mystery Series, Book 1 by Marcia Muller: The book that launched the massively popular series! It’s Sharon McCone’s first case as staff investigator for All Souls Legal Cooperative. She knows nothing about antiques, yet she has an affection for Salem Street with its charming mix of antique and curio shops. Now elderly dealer Joan Albritton has been found dead, stabbed with an antique dagger. Her neighbors are shocked. Recurring vandalism has them frightened. And McCone’s introduction to Lieutenant Gregory Marcus doesn’t help matters. Ferreting out the facts will take Sharon from the chaotic jumble of the junk dealer’s establishment to a museum where San Francisco’s most elegant socialites gather.

Silverlock: Silverlock Series, Book 1 by John Myers Myers: Clarence Shandon was just an MBA from Wisconsin before a shipwreck transported him to the shores of the fantastic Commonwealth of Letters. He journeys through history and myth, meeting unforgettable names from Circe to Robin Hood along the way. But the journey changes him from the studious, conceited academic to a legend in his own right: Silverlock.

Suggested Album:

Almanac Singers: Talking Union (1941-1942) by various artists including Millard Lampell, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, et. al. (Note: this is classic American folk music!)

Digital download includes the following songs:

1 The Strange Death of John Doe

2 Plow Under

3 Ballad of October 16th

4 Liza Jane

5 Billy Boy

6 C for Conscription: ‘C’ for Conscription

7 Washington Breakdown

8 Talking Union

9 Union Train

10 Which Side Are You On?

11 Get Thee Behind Me, Satan

12 Union Maid

13 All I Want

14 Song for Bridges

15 Babe O’ Mine

16 Dear Mr. President

17 Belt-Line Girl

18 Round and Round Hitler’s Grave

19 Side by Side

20 Deliver The Goods

21 The Sinking of the Reuben James

Suggested Audio Book:

Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History (unabridged) by Antonio Mendez, Matt Baglio, Dylan Baker: “The true account of the 1979 rescue of six American hostages from Iran

On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran and captured dozens of American hostages, sparking a 444-day ordeal and a quake in global politics still reverberating today. But there’s a little-known footnote to the crisis: six Americans escaped. And a midlevel agent named Antonio Mendez devised an ingenious yet incredibly risky plan to rescue them. Armed with foreign film visas, Mendez and an unlikely team of CIA agents and Hollywood insiders—directors, producers, and actors—traveled to Tehran under the guise of scouting locations for a fake film called Argo. While pretending to find the perfect scenery and backdrops, the team succeeded in contacting the escapees and smuggling them out of Iran without a single shot being fired.

Antonio Mendez finally details the mind-bogglingly complex and dangerous operation he led more than three decades ago. A true story of secret identities and international intrigue, Argo is the gripping account of this history-making collusion between Hollywood and high-stakes espionage.”

Suggested Video:

The Lost World (1925): A world wide sensation when it opened on February 15, 1925, “The Lost World” is a story of living dinosaurs from the Jurassic age written by the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and starring a cast of stegosaurus, allosaurus, brontosaurus, triceratops, and pterodactyl under the technical direction of Willis H. O’Brien (King Kong, Mighty Joe Young) and a cast of actors under the direction of Harry O. Hoyt.

The STLS Digital Catalog may be found on the library’s homepage of SSCLIBRARY.ORG

Or via the following link:

http://stls.lib.overdrive.com/FE5904CF-8A91-4688-A592-7A046C7988D3/10/536/en/Default.htm

And if you have an app device look for the OverDrive Media Console app in your app store – it is the app that will allow you to check out free library e-books and audio books.

Digital Catalog music and video titles must currently be downloaded to a Windows computer to enjoy.

Have a great weekend!

Linda R. 

New Flipboard App Update Allows You To Create Your Own Magazines & Penguin Decides To Allow Public Libraries To “Buy” Their E-Books Again – With A Catch

Linda Reimer

New Flipboard App Update Allows You To Create Your Own Magazines: Flipboard, which was already a really cool news app available for both Apple and Android devices, just got even cooler! If you’re not familiar with it Flipboard is an app that allows you to customize the news stories you see – you can select categories like sports, business, food and dining, books or technology or specific journals or news sites like Forbes Sports and Money, CNET or Bloomberg news. So in essence you select only the categories and or journals that you want to see stories from – so if you love to read business and sports articles but aren’t in the least interested in articles on interior design or cooking you can tailor the app so that  you’ll only see stories in categories that you like. For example, being a fan of technology, books and history I’ve got categories on my version of Flipboard for history, CNET, Mashable and NPR Books but since I’m not in the least interested sports (apologies to the incredulous sports fans out there!) you won’t find any sports stories in my version of Flipboard.

And customizing Flipboard to suit your taste and interests is already cool but Flipboard has just updated the app and made it cooler still because now you can create your own magazines based upon articles that you’ve read; basically you select articles that you like and place them in a magazine that you title whatever you wish and then you can read the magazine at your leisure and even share it with friends, family or other Flipboard users.

Here’s a link to a review of the new app by the Wall Street Journal personal tech columnist Walt Mossberg:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324105204578384512070576672.html?mod=WSJ_PersonalTechnology_LEADTop

Penguin Decides To Allow Public Libraries To “Buy” Their E-Books Again – With A Catch: As you may recall last year the Penguin, which is one of the largest publishers in the United States, discontinued offering their e-books for sale through the OverDrive platform. OverDrive is the largest e-book platform vendor for public libraries in the United States. Now it seems Penguin has reconsidered at least a little bit. As of April 2, 2013 Penguin will again start selling e-books to public libraries through two other content vendors 3M and Baker & Taylor but with a catch – these e-books really won’t be sold to public libraries that use those two content providers – they will be licensed at prices comparable to the hard cover list price of the same title – for a year. And after a year the public libraries will either have to pay Penguin again to license the books for another year or their patrons will lose access to those e-books.

Just of note in relation, the STLS Digital Catalog uses the OverDrive vendor to provide e-books and digital videos and audios for our patrons so at the present time we will not be able to purchase Penguin e-books for the Digital Catalog.

Here’s a link to a paidContent article on the subject titled Penguin will offer its new ebooks to libraries again as of April 2:

http://paidcontent.org/2013/03/28/penguin-will-offer-its-new-ebooks-to-libraries-again-as-of-april-2/

Have a great day!

Linda R.

P.S. just a quick reminder the library will be closed tomorrow, Friday, March 29 for a combination library cleaning and staff development day. We will also be closed on Sunday, March 31 in observance of Easter. However, we will be open our usual hours on Saturday, March 30 – 10 AM – 4 PM – so if you’re out and about on Saturday stop by the library for some spring break reading or viewing material.

References

Mossberg, Walt. (2013, March 27). New Flipboard: News and Posts Handpicked and Shared. Wall Street Journal. Online.

Owen, Laura Hazard. (2013, March 28). Penguin will offer its new ebooks to libraries again as of April 2. paidContent. Online.

How Cloud Computing Is Becoming Ubiquitous & Stream Past Mad Men Seasons Before Season Six Premiers

Linda Reimer

How Cloud Computing Is Becoming Ubiquitous: I came across a neat Gizmag article today that discusses how the cloud – defined as meaning accessing content that is stored online – is becoming ubiquitous. Basically the article chronicles the changes that have occurred over the last few years due to cloud computing and the fact that most people today own multiple devices that connect to the cloud and use those devices to access content on all their Internet connecting devices. The cloud  content  includes items like e-books, streaming music and videos they’ve purchase via their PCs, smartphones and tablets; this in contrast to the status quo even just five or six short years ago that found most people had a single desktop or laptop PC and then maybe a cell phone but did not own an iPad, a smart phone, a laptop and an iPod Touch that they used a various times to access the same online content.

And the fact that most people use multiple Internet connecting devices today where ever they are today, instead of owning just one desktop Internet connecting computer at home, has made the cloud more a part of our every-day lives than we could have imagined just five years ago.  

The Gizmag article is titled Revisiting cloud computing: how has it changed – and changed us? And offers a more in-depth look at the recent history of cloud computing. It can be accessed via the following link:

http://www.gizmag.com/revisiting-cloud-computing/26768/

Stream Past Mad Men Seasons Before Season Six Premiers: And for all the Mad Men fans out there who know that season six premiers on April 7 – just FYI in case you’d like to refresh your memory or previous plot points or story lines – you can stream all the previous seasons of Mad Men from Amazon, Netflix or iTunes with a few other more traditional (aka Cable Network) options available to watch them too – so you’ll be all caught up before the two-hour premier on April 7th!

And you haven’t watched any Mad Men episodes before – it deals with a cast of characters – and I do mean CHARACTERS that work at an Adverting Agency in New York during the nineteen sixties with clothing and music to match – you might want to check it out!

Here’s a link to an aptly titled Mashable article (How to Catch Up on ‘Mad Men’ Before Season 6) that relays even more ways you watch past seasons of Mad Men:

http://mashable.com/2013/03/26/watch-mad-men-season-5/

Have a great day!

Linda

References

Hernandez, Brian Anthony. (2013, March 26).  How to Catch Up on ‘Mad Men’ Before Season 6. Mashable. Online.

Shanklin, Will. (2013, March 26).  Revisiting cloud computing: how has it changed – and changed us?. Gizmag. Online.

 

T-Mobile Discontinues Cell Phone Contracts & Mainstream Media Discusses The Television Revolution

Linda Reimer

T-Mobile Discontinues Cell Phone Contracts: T-Mobile, the fourth largest cell phone carrier in the United States, just dropped all its contract plans and has moved to a pay-by-the-month becoming the first large carrier in the U.S. to do so. Cell phone users can now transfer their old phones to T-Mobile, or obtain a new phone from T-Mobile and pay a monthly fee for the phone for a certain period of time until the phone is paid off. However, cell phone users will also have the option to pay off their phones early, without penalty, and will be able to switch carriers or obtain new phones whenever they want to as of course there will no longer be a contract to adhere to. Monthly service plans are called “Simple Choice” plans and the entry level package costs $50 per month for unlimited texting and voice and 500 MB of data. Customers can also pay $70 per month for an unlimited texting, talking and data plan.

Here’s a link to a Ars Technica article titled After months of speculation, T-Mobile finally ditches cellphone contracts on the subject:

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/03/after-months-of-speculation-t-mobile-finally-ditches-cellphone-contracts/

And another link to a New York Times article on the subject titled T-Mobile Unveils Aggressive Phone Pricing With No Contracts:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/technology/t-mobile-unveils-aggressive-phone-pricing-with-no-contracts.html?_r=0

Mainstream Media Discusses The Television Revolution: I keep talking about the Television Revolution and how more and more people are streaming television shows and movies over the Internet and now mainstream television is beginning to cover this very cool story as it unfolds! More specifically NBC’s Night News offered a news story on Sunday regarding how the Netflix production of the hit Kevin Spacey series House of Cards is very popular. NBC also notes that when Netflix debut the first season of the series for its customers they offered the entire season all at once so eager viewers can have House of Cards marathons and watch the series in either one long weekend sitting or each night over the course of two weeks – basically they can watch all of the series whenever they want to. And that so called “binge” or marathon streaming of shows by television and movie fans is a large facet of the unfolding TV Revolution.

Here’s a link to the NBC video clip titled Netflix Changing TV

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/51312617#51312617

Have a great day!

Linda R.

References

Chen, Brian. (2013, March 26). T-Mobile Unveils Aggressive Phone Pricing With No Contracts. The New York Times. Online.

Farivar, Cyrus. (2013, March 25). After months of speculation, T-Mobile finally ditches cellphone contracts: Firm’s new plans start at $50/month for unlimited voice/texting and 500MB data. Ars Technica. Online.

Netflix Changing TV. (2013, March 24). Nightly News. NBC. Online. 

New E-Books, Albums, Videos & Audio Books Available In Digital Catalog Today!

Linda Reimer

Hi everyone, just a quick FYI our new order of titles for the Digital Catalog has been placed and processed! So you’ll find new e-books, album, music and videos available in the Digital Catalog this afternoon.

Check them out!

Here’s a direct link to the catalog, which you can browse on your PC as well as via your tablet or smartphone (via the OverDrive Media Console app):

http://stls.lib.overdrive.com/EAD73E20-5D6B-4230-8638-C1FE4AAF3812/10/50/en/Default.htm

If aren’t familiar with the Digital Catalog let me know!

If you’re interested in reading e-books in languages other than English – please let me know that too and I’ll check into what titles are available for the Digital Catalog.

Have a great day!

Linda R.