This week I’ve moved into my new office. I am trying to design my working space so that it may evoke the right vibes. I recently received some fairy lights from my family for my birthday. I haven’t decided if these are going to be for home or work, yet.
§1 MIT Press opens full list of 2022 monographs via Direct to Open
Thanks to the support of libraries participating in Direct to Open (D2O), the MIT Press will publish its full list of 2022 scholarly monographs and edited collections open access on the MIT Press Direct platform. Thirty-seven of the eighty works are already openly available to readers around the world, and a full list of titles included in the model this calendar year may be found at the end of this announcement.
Eighty scholarly monographs and edited collections partially funded by libraries participating in MIT Press’s Direct to Open model will publish openly this year, Wednesday, 13 July, 2022
§2 OPDS is not quite dead and still quite needed
This week I had a conversation with a colleague in which we discussed how we handled our personal ebook collections. Both of us use Calibre.
The conversation then moved to ebook readers for the small cell-phone screen and I told my colleague that it is possible to use OPDS-compatible ebook readers to access Calibre collections on computers on local networks.
“One of the least understood and thus least appreciated functions of calibre is that it uses the Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS) standard (opds-spec.org) to allow one to easily share e-books (at least those without Digital Rights Management software installed) to e-readers on the same local network. For example, on my iPod Touch, I have the e-reader program Stanza (itunes.apple.com/us/app/stanza/id284956128) installed and from it, I can access the calibre library catalogue on my laptop from within my house, since both are on the same local WiFi network. And so can anyone else in my family from their own mobile device. It’s worth noting that Stanza was bought by Amazon in 2011 and according to those who follow the digital e-reader market, it appears that Amazon may have done so solely for the purpose of stunting its development and sunsetting the software (Hoffelder, 2013).”
Sloniowski, L., Williams, M., & Ryan, P. (2013). Grinding the Gears: Academic Librarians and Civic Responsibility. Urban Library Journal, 19 (1). Retrieved from https://academicworks.cuny.edu/ulj/vol19/iss1/14
Think of OPDS as an RSS feed for ebooks. There are still ebook readers that take advantage of this feature.
I wish eCampusOntario’s Pressbooks Directory produced an OPDS feed.
I wish our ALMA/Primo instance would be able to harvest OER books from a OPDS feed.
§3 The most gloriously irresponsible ebook reader feature I have ever seen
While researching ebook readers, I found this:
§4 The Access 2022 Program is Available and Registration is Open!
Not much more to say, really. You can find the conference schedule here: https://accessconference.ca/program/schedule/ and registration information is here: https://accessconference.ca/register-for-access-2022/.
The Metagame: The Librarianship Expansion: the only way to lose is not to play
Mita Williams (University of Windsor)
Let’s play a game of The Metagame: The Librarianship Expansion. No, it’s not Cards Against Humanity. This deck variation is based on The Metagame, a game designed to spark winning conversation. In this talk I’ll tell you how I made this game: with nanDeck, the Noun Project, and love.
§5 Duly Noted
Libraries as Dysfunctional Organizations and Workplaces
Edited By Spencer Acadia
ISBN 9780367747107
November 30, 2022 Forthcoming by Routledge
384 Pages