Postertext offers posters made of scenes from popular books. Images are displayed in the midst of actual text from the book. Below are Peter Pan and Moby Dick.  Prices seem fairly reasonable: Peter Pan is $31.99 CAD (about $30.44 USD) for a 24″x30″ poster. Pretty cool

The American Library Association has updated it’s national highway library symbol from the image of a person reading a book to a person using a laptop:

     

From the ALA Library Fact Sheet 30 :

The purpose of a national library symbol is to increase public awareness of libraries through widespread use of a standardized symbol on library directional signs and promotional materials…

The symbol triggers instant recognition of a library through a graphic representation that people instantly associate with libraries–the book and reader. It does not attempt to capture the essence of the modern library or represent the range of its resources.

Please note that this 2009 laptop version is not a replacement of the National Library Symbol. Any and all references to a National Library Symbol do still mean the 1982 logo with the book. The laptop image is meant to reflect the use of technology in libraries…

I’m all for technology in libraries and making technology available for library users, however I don’t agree with updating the library symbol to a person using a laptop. In my opinion, the new symbol is confusing without text: is it depicting a Wi-Fi zone? Or the location of an Internet cafe? Because if I saw that symbol those would be my first assumptions. I would not connect the new symbol with libraries.

Libraries are still associated with books (even though most also offer free computer and wireless access) and the symbol should reflect what the people viewing the symbol would interpret the symbol to mean. Libraries are obscure enough without beginning to remove the only references people associate with them. We should be promoting libraries more, making them more visible to people, and importantly arming people with the knowledge that books (and librarians!) are wealthy resources of information and not everything can be found on a computer.

Just my opinion. Feel free to leave yours.

With the Literature Map you can find authors similar to your favorite writers. Just enter an author’s name in the search box and receive a cloud of results.

WorldCat has released a new Twitter-based service that returns WorldCat search results when you send a tweet with the tag #Ask4Stuff. A bit from the original OCLC blog post :

So if you send the following tweet:

#Ask4Stuff lake erie shipwreck

You’ll get a tweet back that says something like:

@YOURNAME A few things about lake erie shipwreck in #Ask4Stuff, check out http://is.gd/cY7gi Where the link then takes you to the WorldCat.org search result for “lake erie shipwreck.”

You can also search by author:
#ask4stuff au:hemingway, ernest
and receive a link to a search result list of works by Hemingway.

and title: #ask4stuff ti:where the wild things are

Fun and cool? Sure. Practical? I don’t know. First, I probably would not want my searches appearing to my followers (and it may become rather annoying for them as well). And second, why not just go to the WorldCat site and perform the search there since you would have to go to the site to view the results anyway? If I really wanted my followers to see my results, I could always Tweet the search results after performing the search. Also, search results aren’t immediate, at least not when I tested, so if you need a result ASAP, don’t rely on this service.

Entireweb  is a new search engine which allows you to search the “international web,” Wiki’s, and real time Tweets simultaneously. Like Microsoft’s Bing , you can also choose from “skins” to change the look of the search page.

Click the images below for larger screenshots, or just try it for yourself .

I found this image posted on LISNEWS . Other than being humorous, I’m not sure it would be a practical thing to display in a library. Why would anyone taunt a book? Or eat it? And I’m rather disturbed by the “maybe” for drawing a mustache on the book?!  

How about: DO NOT write in this book, get this book wet, dog-ear the pages, return this book late, and DO take care of this book (and maybe LEARN from this book).

I stumbled upon this site at work earlier today while reading various library blogs.

At LibWorm you can search library blogs’ RSS feeds!

The state of Maine has created a Library Use Value Calculator which calculates the value of library services. Enter the number of times you use each service per month and it calculates the cost of those services.

For me, the cost would be about $509.00 per month and I work in a library! If you use the calculator, feel free to add a comment with your calculated cost.