(crossposted at Scriblio.net)

Using the newly released book viewability API in Google Book Search, Plymouth State University’s Lamson Library and Learning Commons is one of the first libraries to move beyond simply listing their books online and open them up to reading and searching via the web.

Take a look at how this works with books by Plymouth authors Bruce Heald and Joseph Monninger. The “Browse on Google” link in the New Features section leads to extended previews of their works where you can browse excerpts of the books and search the full text.

Matthew Batchelder wrote the JavaScript that makes it work, and all the features are incorporated in the current version of Scriblio. To implement it in an existing Scriblio installation, take a look at Matt’s script how it’s included in the theme’s header.php. You’ll also need to make sure your site’s catalog records include ISBNs to link with (I’ll be adding support for LCCNs and OCLCNs soon). If you’re using the standard MARC or III importers and your source records contain ISBNs, you should be all set.

Hat tip to Tim for giving me the hookup.

Stephen King writes at Entertainment Weekly.com that he doesn’t hate the Kindle:

Will Kindles replace books? No. And not just because books furnish a room, either. There’s a permanence to books that underlines the importance of the ideas and the stories we find inside them; books solidify an otherwise fragile medium.

But can a Kindle enrich any reader’s life? My own experience — so far limited to 1.5 books, I’ll admit — suggests that it can. For a while I was very aware that I was looking at a screen and bopping a button instead of turning pages. Then the story simply swallowed me, as the good ones always do. I wasn’t thinking about my Kindle anymore; I was rooting for someone to stop the evil Lady Powerstock. It became about the message instead of the medium, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Via Ryan: Brian Dettmer: Book Autopsies at Centripetal Notion.

awesome, book, books, art, sculpture

Not LMAO, certainly not ROFLcopter-ingly funny, but funny enough to want to snap a picture, and good enough for casual Friday here.

The boat in the parking lot, UPS vs. FedEx, and Hoe For Hire are all easy enough to understand (though they leave me open to easy criticism). The fourth photo is of some books on an anonymous shelf: look closely at “Library Trends, 1985” and others.

boat, hoe, books, library trends, UPS, FedEx, photos, funny

The problem with working on Scriblio is that I end up running into so many interesting looking books. Just this morning I discovered a number of recent acquisitions in the 19th Century and 20th Century subject feeds in my development instance (also available via RSS).

All of this is under active development, so those links may or may not work, and the site is definitely changing URLs soon. Still, I had to bookmark these books somehow so I could come back to them.

books, scriblio, joy of discovery

Will pressed Joe, asking him to name his top ten favorite books. Joe pressed back, saying such lists were ridiculous, but still, sometime later he emailed with the following:

Okay, here are the books that got to me at certain points in my life. Not sure I would view them all the same now, but this is a list of sorts.

I found this an interesting challenge, and of course impossible…I have more lists but I stuck to novels…

Top ten novels by female authors

• The Golden Notebook
• Cross Creek
• We Took to the Woods
• Pride and Prejudice
• Member of the Wedding
• Secret History
• Middlemarch
• Song of the Lark
• The Fountainhead
• The Good Earth

Top ten novels by male authors

• War and Peace
• A River Runs Through It
• Crime and Punishment
• As I Lay Dying
• Rabbit is Rich, Rabbit at Rest
• The Magus
• The Deptford Triology
• Lonesome Dove
• A Fan’s Notes
• Light Years

Joe Monninger, Joseph Monninger, best, books, top ten

It seems common among contemporary artists that a web search might turn up a few pictures of their works, but not much about them or their works. In this case it’s Nina Katchadourian and the work I’m interested in is her Sorted Books Project.

A video interview from the University of Colorado and ResearchChannel.org does offer some insight into Katchadourian’s art, but why are such glimpses so rare?

Anyway, I was happy to find her compact, graphic poetry. And I’d be happier still if I could find more of it online. Instead, all I have is a smattering of images from gallery shows of her various works. Eh, take a peak at Crossdressing.

Crossdressing, Nina Katchadourian, Sorted books, art, artist, artists, books, poetry

I read enough of this to get a good laugh, but not enough to understand if it was serious or not. Some of it reads like satire, but other parts as are dry as, well, they’re dry (who really needs a simile anyway, they’re just dry, okay?).

alcohol, book, books, drink, drinking, libraries, library, notes from a library supervisor, punch, supervision, the vodka in the punch, vodka

Most people may recognize Zhang Huan from his “My New York” work that had him dressed in a beefy muscle suit. Above is “My Boston,” but I have a feeling it might get repurposed elsewhere during finals this spring to represent the agony of study.

Ups to Ryan for the pointer.

art, book, books, boston, fine art, head in books, my boston, photography, zhang huan

library, libraries, book, books, page, pages, book leaf, open book, flower, art, photo, library mistress, black and white, b and w

Daniela Turudich knows vintage fashion. Her books include not only hair, but how to recreate a vintage wedding, vintage recipes and candy making, and Beauty Secrets of History’s Most Notorious Courtesans.

Here’s the description from Art Deco Hair:

Art deco has long been associated with uncompromising style and sophistication, and this guide to recreating the sassy, controversial styles of the ’20s and ’30s offers a glimpse back at the hairstyles of this era. The instructions needed to replicate these fashions on the modern woman-from the controversial bob of the Roaring Twenties flapper to the luxurious finger waves of Hollywood’s early screen stars-are provided, and the techniques behind Marcel and water waves, the simple bob, and Eton and shingle cuts are also included. Hundreds of vintage illustrations, photographs, step-by-step instructions, and diagrams take readers through the history of the hairstyles that laid the groundwork of style for the modern American woman.

Update: Here’s some great hair from 1927 in the LeastWanted gallery.

tags: 1920s, 1930s, art deco, book, books, daniela turudich, design, fashion, hair, hairstyle, hairstyles, retro, retro fashion, vintage, vintage fashion

“I want all the books that I’m interested in on one shelf.”

tags: book, books, libraries, library, read, reading

I love libraries, and I love books, but there the needs of our students and limitations of our budgets have no room for misplaced romantic attachments. That’s why I’ve found myself paraphrasing something from Ibiblio’s Paul Jones (via Teleread):

That smell of an old book, that smell of old libraries? That’s the smell of the books rotting.

We must remember that libraries catalog and share information and knowledge, not books. Our students and faculty have already voted with their feet and demonstrated that our paper (and microform) collections of periodicals are useless compared to the online, fully searchable versions. How long before the same happens for books as well?

Connections: some people don’t get this, but there are a number who do (too many to list, actually). This issue is bigger than ebooks alone, but OpenReader deserves a plug here too.

Technorati Tags: book, books, budgets, education, ibiblio, information, libraries, library, paul jones, romantic attachments, rot, rotting, smell