Digitization 101

I decided to take a moment and compile some of the resource lists on racism and becoming anti-racist that have been developed. These might be resources that interest you, that you want for your library, or that you want to share with a colleague (or love one). Yes, there is some duplication between lists, but there are also items that are not duplicative, so if you have the energy, look at several lists (or all of them!).  And if you find this useful, please share it with others.

•  National Museum of African American History & Culture. (n.d.) Talking About Race. This is more than just a resource list, which may make it a good place to start.


• Charis Books & More. (n.d.) Understanding and Dismantling Racism: A Booklist for White Readers.


• J. Allen. (2020) The Privilege of Learning About Racism: Anti-Racism Resources. Denver Public Library.


• Brea Baker. (2020) The Anti-Racist Starter Pack: 40 TV Series, Documentaries, Movies, TED Talks, and Books to Add to Your List. Parade Magazine.


• Ibram X. Kendi. (2019) An Antiracist Reading List. New York Times.


• Onondaga County Public Library. (2020) How to learn about racism? Onondaga libraries staff offers a reading list for all ages. Post-Standard.


• PBS. (2020) What to read, listen to and watch to learn about institutional racism.


• Isabella Rosario. (2020) This List Of Books, Films And Podcasts About Racism Is A Start, Not A Panacea. NPR. 


• Syracuse University Libraries. (2020) Resources for Racial Justice. 


• Marguerite Ward. (2020) 18 books on race and white privilege that will show you what's really happening in America right now.  Business Insider.


• Meilan Solly. (2020) 158 Resources to Understand Racism in America. Smithsonian Magazine. (Added June 18, 2020)


• NYPL. Schomburg Center's Black Liberation Reading List for Adult. (Added June 20, 2020)

Are there more lists than this? Yes! Please leave a comment if you know of one that should be added.

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The fourth edition of Copyright Law for Librarians and Educators: Creative Strategies and Practical Solutions by Kenneth Crews is now available from ALA.  This has been several years in the making, with the delay allowing Crews to include information on the two changes to copyright law which occurred in 2018. (Sometimes a delay is a good thing!) Crews reported that he made updates throughout the book.  The geek in me is looking to reading it! 

Note that the ALA website does have a sample of the book which can be downloaded.

The table of contents is:

Part I: The Reach of Copyright
Chapter 1: The Copyright Map: Changing Needs and Copyright Solutions
Chapter 2: Sources of Copyright Law: Constitution, Statutes, and Courts
Chapter 3: Sources of Copyright Law: International Treaties, Trade, and Harmonization
Chapter 4: The Scope of Protectable Works
Chapter 5: Works without Copyright Protection

Part II: Rights of Ownership
Chapter 6: Duration and Formalities: How Long Do Copyrights Last?
Chapter 7: Who Owns the Copyright?
Chapter 8: The Rights of Copyright Owners
Chapter 9: Exceptions to the Rights of Owners

Part III: Fair Use
Chapter 10: Fair Use: Getting Started
Chapter 11: Fair Use: Understanding the Four Factors
Chapter 12: Getting Comfortable with Fair Use: Applying the Four Factors
Chapter 13: The Meaning of Fair Use Guidelines
Chapter 14: Education, Fair Use, and the Georgia State Case

Part IV: Focus on Education and Libraries
Chapter 15: Distance Education and the Principles of Copyright
Chapter 16: Distance Education and the TEACH Act
Chapter 17: Libraries, Archives, and the Special Provisions of Section 108
Chapter 18: Responsibility, Liability, and Doing the Right Thing

Part V: Special Features
Chapter 19: Music and Copyright
Chapter 20: The Peculiar Law of Pre-1972 Sound Recordings
Chapter 21: Copyright, Archives, and Unpublished Materials
Chapter 22: Anticircumvention and Digital Rights Management
Chapter 23: Copyright and the World: Foreign Law and Foreign Works
Chapter 24: Permission, Licensing, and Open Access

Appendixes

• Appendix A    Selected Provisions from the U.S. Copyright Act
• Appendix B    Copyright Checklist: Fair Use
• Appendix C     Copyright Checklist: The TEACH Act and Distance Education
• Appendix D    Copyright Checklist for Libraries: Copies for Preservation or Replacement
• Appendix E    Copyright Checklist for Libraries: Copies for Private Study
• Appendix F    Model Letter for Permission Requests

This edition is not yet available through Amazon, but I expect that it will be.

This year, Rebekkah Smith Aldrich published her book Sustainable Thinking: Ensuring Your Library's Future in an Uncertain World.  Sustainable Thinking is part textbook, part workbook, and totally an appeal for libraries to engage their communities as a way to ensure the library's future.

Smith Aldrich draws from her education in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) to develop ideas on how a library can become more sustainable through developing relationships and engaging in more interactions. Rather than giving vague directions, she provides short worksheets at the end of each chapter, which allow library staff and trustees to put the text into meaningful actions in their communities.  This is not a book which a staff member or library trustee should just read; it is a book that should lead to specific actions that will develop resiliency.

Smith Aldrich really grabbed my attention on page 18, when she discussed Maslow's hierarchy of needs in comparison with what libraries normally do.  That section - and you'll have to read the book to understand it - is particularly important to me because I know of public libraries that are struggling with providing safe space, and at the same time defending what else they are doing.  (Intrigued?)

Sustainable Thinking is a book which I hope is widely read by library leaders, including trustees.  Even if it doesn't lead immediately to actions, I can imagine the useful conversations it might spark.  Personally, I'm looking forward to giving my copy of the book to the president of the local library board of trustees, and then talking with him about it.

Smith Aldrich holds an MLS degree and the  Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Accreditation for Professionals.  She is also a certified Sustainable Building Advisor (cSBA),  Smith Aldrich is well-known in New York State library circles and is having a huge impact on library-thinking across the U.S.

Rebekkah Smith Aldrich also published Resilience this year.  According to Amazon, "Resilience is the second volume in a new series which focuses on emerging trends in the profession, provoking discussion on how to shape the future by sharing ideas and exploring joint solutions to the challenges facing libraries and society."

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In libraries, collection development is vitally important and increasingly complicated.  As someone who is teaching a graduate course on the topic, I can tell you that there is much that should be covered in an introductory course and not enough time for it all. Among the topics is licensing.  Most people have not thought about licenses, even though they have agreed to many licenses in their online world. We generally do not actively seek to license something in our everyday life, so even beginning to think about the topic can raise anxiety levels.  It is into this space that books such as this provide both needed education and guidance.

In 2017, Lesley Ellen Harris, JD, published the third edition of Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians.Quoting the publisher, ALA:

Giving library professionals and students the understanding and the tools needed to negotiate and organize license agreements, Harris uses a plain-language approach that demystifies the process. Her guide explains licensing terminology and discusses changes in technology, including developments such as text and data mining; points out opportunities for cost savings; features many useful tools such as a comprehensive digital license checklist; provides sources of additional information on the global aspects of licensing; and walks readers through educating organizations that have signed license agreements.

If you are responsible for licensing digital content, or will be in the future, resources like Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians are ones that you consider reading and referring to.

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As I continue to highlight relevant books, I want to highlight another one by Rebecca P. Butler.

Copyright for Academic Librarians and Professionals was published in 2014.  According to the publisher:

This practical handbook will show students training to become college and university librarians how to make informed decisions regarding the use and availability of print, non-print, and online resources. Based on Butler's 17 years of experience conducting copyright workshops and courses, her book matches real-world scenarios with interpretations of the law from copyright experts in the field to provide a thorough understanding of current, everyday applications of copyright law in higher education.

This book is available only a paperback edition.     

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I want to continue to highlight relevant books and hope to do so more regularly.  This book, Copyright for Teachers and Librarians in the 21st Century, was written by Rebecca P. Butler and published in 2011.  According to the publisher:

Here is a practical copyright handbook designed to help librarians, media specialists, technology coordinators and specialists, and teachers stay within copyright law while making copyrighted print, non-print, and Web sources available to students and others.  Library educator Rebecca Butler explains fair use, public domain, documentation and licenses, permissions, violations and penalties, policies and ethics codes, citations, creation and ownership, how to register copyrights, and gives tips for staying out of trouble.

In addition, Butler covers copyright considerations for different types of media, She also:

covers how to deal with those who would have you break the law; orphan works; file sharing; distance education; digital rights management; the law: classroom exemption, handicap exemption, library exemption, other important federal exemptions in the K-12 schools, parodies, and state laws; copyright lawsuits; relationship of plagiarism to copyright; and copyright and privacy.

This book is available in soft cover format only. 

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Continuing with highlighting books from Rowman & Littlefield, an exhibitor at the ALISE 2018 conference, next up...

Originally published in 2014, Managing Copyright in Higher Education: A Guidebook by Donna Ferullo (Purdue University) was released in 2017 in a paperback version. According to the publisher:

As more and more colleges and universities establish copyright offices and/or assign the responsibilities of copyright education and advisory services to specific individuals within the institution, many times librarians, there is a paucity of resources available on how to manage that responsibility. Most works on copyright discuss the law and court cases interpreting the law but few address the situational application of it and the management and coordination of copyright efforts on a campus.

This book is available in both hard and soft covers, as well as in an ebook edition.

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Continuing with highlighting books from Rowman & Littlefield, an exhibitor at the ALISE 2018 conference, next up...

In 2016, Joy Perrin (Texas Tech University) released the book Digitizing Flat Media: Principles and Practices. According to the publisher:

Here is a concise guide to the nuts and bolts of converting flat media (books, papers, maps, posters, slides, micro formats, etc) into digital files. It provides librarians and archivists with the practical knowledge to understand the process and decision making in the digitization of flat media. Instead of having to learn by trial and error, they will get a well-rounded education of the practical aspects of digitization and have a better understanding of their options. This is the stuff they don’t teach you in school.

This book is available in both hard and soft covers, as well as in an ebook edition.

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Continuing with highlighting books from Rowman & Littlefield, an exhibitor at the ALISE 2018 conference, next up...

In 2017, Edward M. Corrado (University of Alabama) and Heather Moulaison Sandy (University of Missouri) released the second edition of Digital Preservation for Libraries, Archives, and Museums.  According to the publisher:

For administrators and practitioners alike, the information in this book is presented readably, focusing on management issues and best practices. Although this book addresses technology, it is not solely focused on technology. After all, technology changes and digital preservation is aimed for the long term. This is not a how-to book giving step-by-step processes for certain materials in a given kind of system. Instead, it addresses a broad group of resources that could be housed in any number of digital preservation systems. Finally, this book is about “things (not technology; not how-to; not theory) I wish I knew before I got started.”

Digital preservation is concerned with the life cycle of the digital object in a robust and all-inclusive way. Many Europeans and some North Americans may refer to digital curation to mean the same thing, taking digital preservation to be the very limited steps and processes needed to insure access over the long term. The authors take digital preservation in the broadest sense of the term: looking at all aspects of curating and preserving digital content for long term access.

This book is available in both hard and soft covers, as well as in an ebook edition.

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FTC Disclaimer: Digitization 101 is an Amazon affiliate and receives a small commission if you purchase a product or service from an Digitization 101 Amazon link.

This week, I'm going to highlight four books from Rowman & Littlefield, an exhibitor at the ALISE 2018 conference.  First up...

This month (March 2018), the third edition of the book Preserving Digital Materials by Dr. Ross Harvey  (RMIT University) and Jaye Weatherburn (University of Melbourne) will be released.  According to the publisher:

This is a concise handbook and reference for a wide range of stakeholders who need to understand how preservation works in the digital world. It notes the increasing importance of the role of new stakeholders and the general public in digital preservation. It can be used as both a textbook for teaching digital preservation and as a guide for the many stakeholders who engage in digital preservation. Its synthesis of current information, research, and perspectives about digital preservation from a wide range of sources across many areas of practice makes it of interest to all who are concerned with digital preservation. It will be of use to preservation administrators and managers, who want a professional reference text, information professionals, who wish to reflect on the issues that digital preservation raises in their professional practice, and students in the field of digital preservation.

This book is available in both hard and soft covers, as well as in an ebook edition.

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I am catching up on reading and Internet surfing, which means I'm finding things I should have read months ago.  This blog post wonders if award winning book covers are on books with highly rated content.  I've copied the post's graphic below and you're welcome to go read the original post.  However, this got me thinking about web site design and specifically library web sites.

Most libraries have a web site.  Those sites are created in a number of different ways, using free and fee-based tools.  Some provide basic information about the library, while others are more in-depth.  I suspect that most do not provide all of the information that their users want, such as information about the staff or board of trustees, or details about borrowing privileges.  Indeed many libraries only provide what the staff is interested in sharing, and that could be very little.

Most libraries do not have someone on staff who can create a professional design of the web site.  Sites which we might consider "award winning" are likely owned by large, well-funded libraries, where a tech-savvy person internally or externally is charged with maintaining the site.  As our computing devices have changed (e.g., the move to mobile devices), our site designers have had to create sites that will look good and function on any type of device. This is called responsive design.  My own site is an example of one that uses responsive design so that it functions well on any type of device.

The problem with web sites (and books) is that a great looking site may have very little useful content.  In some cases, a great looking site may actually contain fake content, while a site that is not designed by a professional may have extemely useful content.  Yes, judging a book (or web site) by its design can be problematic.

So what are you to do? 

• Whether your site is for a digitization program, a specific department, or the entire library, make sure that it gives users the information that they desire about you (program, department, library).  If you are waiting until it is designed perfectly, don't.  Place the information online, then schedule time to make it better.
• State your assumptions.  You actually have no idea who will use your web site, so don't assume that they will know specific details about you (e.g., location).  
• Work towards a design that is compliant with American with Disabilities Act rules/guidelines.  If you don't know what that means, ask someone.  Yes, there are free tools, like this one, which you can use to assess accessibility.  I know you might get frustrated with the errors, but try to work on fixing them.
• Work towards functional and informative, then towards beautiful.  People will endure a less than beautiful web site, if it delivers worthwhile information.
• When possible hire someone - even a knowledgeable intern - who can help you with your web site.  Remember that you can contract with someone to provide this service on-demand.

By the way, I did run my own web site through the WAVE tool and I can see that I have some changes to make!  I guess I better do that before I look at any of the books below.



Created by Syracuse University's School of Information Studies master of information management program.

My Sunday paper contained a short article on using works that are in the public domain.  The article included information on two relevant books, which might also be of interest to you.  These are available through a variety of different booksellers, including Amazon (which is where the links will take you).

• Stephen Fishman. The Public Domain: How to Find & Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More Seventh Edition Edition
• Robert E. Spoo.  Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain (Modernist Literature and Culture) 1st Edition

     
The article also pointed readers to the local library for more information on copyright. Yes, librarians, our communities do believe that we are knowledgeable about copyright! Let's ensure that is so.

Question - What is the difference between an amateur and a professional? Hold onto your answer for a few moments, while I tell you a story.

In May, I had lunch with Steve Borek, who is a friend and coach, and who works with entrepreneurs.  Steve and I had a lot of catching up to do, including talking about what was fueling our drives to succeed.  It was during this conversation that Steve mentioned the book Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield.  Pressfield has had a career as a successful fiction writer and has added to his success with a couple of non-fiction books.  Turning Pro is a follow-up to his book The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. While I hadn't read The War of Art, Steve Borek's description of Turning Pro had me intrigued and I decided to read the book, while traveling to and attending the SLA Annual Conference.

The word "amateur" comes from the Latin word "to love".  An amateur is doing what she loves.  The fact that the person loves it is a good thing, because that passion can create drive and ambition.  However, just because the person loves the activity does not mean that the person does it well.  In fact, we generally do consider that the difference between an amateur and a professional.

One definition of the word professional is "a person who is expert at his or her work." In order to be an expert, a professional has received training to ensure that her work is done well.  That training could have been through workshops, courses, or even on the job.  Generally a professional is well paid because it is believed that the person indeed knows how to do the work better than someone who is an amateur. It is believed that the professional will bring special knowledge and abilities to whatever the work is.  It is also believed that the professional will persevere, even when the work get tough. 

By the way, what did you think the difference between an amateur and a professional were?  More importantly, which one are you?  

When someone moves from being an amateur to a professional, that person turns pro.  It is a phrase that I associate more readily with athletes, like those basketball players who were recently selected in the NBA draft.  They have left their amateur lives behind and are now heading into the pros.  But really, what does turning pro mean?

Pressfield describes both amateurs and professionals - and the act of moving from one to another - by telling stories about himself and others.  For him, an amateur is stuck.  Fear of what lies ahead may be inhibiting the person.  The person may also be stuck because she is comfortable with the way things are, and turning pro would mean real work and could be uncomfortable.  And everything distracts the amateur.

When a person turns pro, the work becomes a true practice.  The work has focus.  It is done with intention.  It is a habit.  And by doing the work, the professional continues to improve how the work will be done.  For Pressfield, this act of turning pro is a difference of mindset.  The mind of a professional is resolute.

Reading the book, people came to mind, who struggle in their work.  Yes, they are employed.  Yes, the are doing what they love. Yet they haven't quite risen to the level of expected proficiency.  Look around...do you know someone like this?  The person has the best of intention, but is still an amateur.  The mindset of being a pro - and the resolve to be a pro - is not there.

If you think a pro is someone with a desk job, then you would be wrong.  There are mechanics, factory workers, and migrant workers that are all professionals.  (One of Pressfield's best stories is about a migrant worker.)  There are many waitresses and bartenders that are professionals.  Conversely, there are consultants, office workers, and the like who are amateurs.  They have plans that would lead them to the life of a professional, and they will implement those plans tomorrow (a day that never comes).

Every once in a while, I read a book that I want to recommend to the world.  The E-Myth Revisited, Six Thinking Hats, and How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day are books like that...and so is Turning Pro.  Pressfield has written  Turning Pro using very short chapters and lots of stories.  He doesn't come right out and say "do this".  Instead he teaches through his stories, which I find much more thought provoking.  It is a book that could be a very quick read, yet reading it slowly allows you to think about it all and how to apply it to your own life.

If I've inspired you to read Turning Pro, it is available in hardcopy and as an ebook.  And remember that your library might even have a copy that you can borrow!

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Yes, the links above for the books will take to Amazon.  If you follow the link, then happen to purchase something, I'll get a very small commission.  The commissions allow me to occasionally purchase a book or some music.

Often at conferences there is that "what are you reading?" moment, when people talk about what they are reading for work or for pleasure. (Beth Tribe is a good one for starting that conversation.) Since that conversation didn't happen at my conferences so far this year, I thought I'd start the conversation here.  This is what's on my table or device this summer...

First, Dave Lankes has created a MOOC (massive open online course) on new librarianship that opened on July 8 and I'm one of the instructors. (Details) The book being used for the MOOC is Expect More: Demanding Better Libraries For Today's Complex World, which is available in digital and paper formats.  This is a very readable book geared primarily for library supporters and the communities that libraries serve.  Library staff, who read it, should recognize the challenge that they are being given.  That challenge?  Meet the expectations of your communities, because they expect more than what you are likely offering.

To go along with  Expect More, I've also got Dave's The Atlas of New Librarianship  in front of me.  I'm not reading it from cover to cover, but doing as many others have...referring to it as we talk about "new librarianship."  [BTW Ruth Kneale and I wrote the agreement on special libraries that is in the book.]

The avid gardener is me is reading - slowly -  Mike McGrath's Book of Compost.  This is actually a quick, short read, but I'm stretching it out and thinking about the sections as I deal with my own compost.

On the audio front, I've been listening to podcasts by RN Future Tense as I walk from my car to campus, which is much further distance than you can imagine. Future Tense covers a wide range of topics and I find the format engaging.  I often refer people to specific podcasts because of their excellent content.

I'm also got Testimony queued up on my iPhone.  This is the first album that I've purchased purely in digital format, which is a huge move for me.  (Remember when we would intently read album covers, and marvel at their cover and label art?)  Mayo - composer, arranger, singer, saxophonist - has produced a nice companion for those long walks back to my car after a full day at work.

So...your turn!  What content - books, podcasts, etc. - are you consuming?

Each year, I now teach a graduate course in copyright for library and information science students. The classes uses several resources for its readings, including Kenny Crews' Copyright Law for Librarians and Educators. Last year, Crews updated the book, which is now in its third edition.  I have found the previous editions - which I've mentioned here before - to be very useful in the classroom because of their clear explanations.  They are also good reference works to be used after class has ended.  This fall, I'll be using the new edition, when I teach the copyright class again (IST 735: Copyright for Information Professionals). I'm sure that my students will enjoy this editions as much as students have enjoyed the previous edition. 

If Kenny Crews is not a person that you are familiar with, here are two Digitization 101 blog posts that will help you get to know him better.

• Interview with Kenneth Crews (audio, 17 min.) 
• Kenneth D. Crews Wins American Library Association's L. Ray Patterson Award

Crews blogs occasionally for the Columbia University Libraries Copyright Advisory office.  This post - Fresh Look at the Fair Use Checklist - will be of interest to anyone who is dealing with Fair Use (Title 17, Section 107).

I received a brief email announcement that a new book entitled Preserver Son Patrimoine Numérique has been published.  The 325-page book (available only in French) focuses on digital preservation for individuals and families.  The book is also available in a digital version (16,90€).  The book was written by Claude Huc, a former engineer at the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales. He was also the founded and leader of Pérennisation des Informations Numériques (PIN), the French national digital preservation group.

I am continuing to read and think about digital libraries. As I peeked around the Internet for additional resources, this 2008 book -
Building Digital Libraries: A How-to-do-it Manual - by Terry Reese and Kyle Banerjee came to my attention. Chapters include:

• Planning a Digital Repository
• Acquiring, Processing, Classifying, and Describing Digital Content
• Choosing a Repository Architecture
• General Purpose Technologies Useful for Digital Repositories
• Metadata Formats
• Sharing Data: Metadata Harvesting and Distribution
• Federated Searching of Repositories
• Access Management
• Planning for the Future

In the preface, they provide this reason for the book:

A digital library exists within a very different framework. A single resource (e.g., a portal) may consist of objects in many formats (full-text articles, databases, etc.), yet each of these objects is a resource in its own right. These objects may be updated frequently, and their original formats may become obsolete as technological developments lead to new types of information resources. Due to these differences, creating a digital library requires a new set of skills. Building Digital Libraries: A How-to-do-it Manual® is a tool kit for the new world of digital libraries. It demystifies the challenges of designing, constructing, and maintaining a digital repository.

While we may all us different terms to describe what a digital library is, I like this:

It is not just the information itself, but the organization, structure, and presentation of that information, that give a repository its value.

Those three things - organization, structure and presentation - are concepts that every digital library (and digitization program) should keep in mind. This book seems like a good complement to the Lesk book.

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Technorati tags: Book Recommendation, Digital Libraries

Chris Anderson, who gave us The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, has released his latest book entitled Free. While we'll have opportunities to purchase the book, he is also giving it away for free in a variety of formats. Not all formats will be free forever, so watch his blog for announcements.

The online format below is so easy to read that I immediately started reading it! (Embedded with permission.) This paragraph on page 4 provides a peek into what the book is about:

Thus this book, an exploration of a concept that is in the midst of radical evolution. As I came to learn, Free is both a familiar concept and a deeply mysterious one. It is as powerful as it is misunderstood. The Free that emerged over the past decade is different from the Free that came before, but how and why are rarely explored. What's more, today's Free is full of apparent contradictions: You can make money giving things way. There really is a free lunch. Sometimes you get more than you pay for.

FREE (full book) by Chris Anderson

BTW I'll be looking for discussions that might spring up around the book. I think just the way he is releasing it will be worthy of conversation.

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Technorati tags: Book Recommendation, Marketing

Every digitization program and digital libraries wants followers. As Seth Godin would say, they want a tribe. In his book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, Godin explains that:

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.

In the book, Godin talks about leadership and the creation of tribes. Tribes do not happen accidentally and they do not sustain themselves automatically. Communication is important among tribe members. Without communication, a tribe is just a crowd.

When we mount new services, we often are charged with creating a following for that service. Often we don't know how to do that. We do advertisements and some promotions, and then are thankfully for whatever user-base we achieve. This book will make you think about building a following -- a tribe -- differently.

Godin includes some principles in his book for leading a tribe. One of his principles will make people stop and think. It is "Exclude outsiders." In other words, knowing who isn't a part of your movement (your tribe) is as important as knowing who is. If you are trying to lead a group, who do you want to be part of that group? And who is the group not for? That clarity can be very important, because you cannot be all thing for all people.

It is very cool that Seth Godin practices what he preaches. Before Tribes was released, he began to gather a tribe. Once the book was published, he did something incredible. Everyone in his tribe had already ordered a copy of the book, but Godin sent them a second copy and ask that they share it with a friend. His tribe instantly doubled.

Let's look at this again. Godin created a message. Found people who were interested in the message and got them to join his tribe. Then he got them to influence others to read the message. And yes, he did this all online without any ads.

This is a very readable book (151 pages). I enjoyed reading it and being inspired by it, and I know others have found it inspiring as well. Is it a hardcore marketing book? No, and if it was, you wouldn't read it. Instead this is a book that you'll read and then pass along to your colleagues.

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Technorati tags: Book Recommendation, Marketing

Michael Lesk, a professor at Rutgers University, has written a book that is widely used entitled Understanding Digital Libraries (Second Edition). Lesk has had a long career including stints at the National Science Foundation and Bell Labs. He is a computer scientist who has built retrieval systems. Lesk brings that perspective to the topic.

Understanding Digital Libraries is divided into two parts. The first part of the book addresses what (chapters 1 - 7) and the second half discusses how (chapters 8 - 14), or in other words, what digital libraries contain and how they operate. At 400+ pages including figures, tables, references and index, this is a book chocked full of information.

I'll be using this book during the fall when I teach Digital Libraries at Syracuse University (IST 676). I see this book as laying groundwork for an interesting conversation that will include the questions: "So what is a digital library?" and "So what?" Given what are named digital libraries on the Internet, I think the "what" will be a lively conversation. And then thinking about the benefits of these entities...what rewards are we reaping from these things?

By the way, Dr. Lesk spoke at Syracuse University this past April and the video is available online (1 hr. 40 min.) Lesk talks about book scanning and gives his opinion of some of the machines, etc., in use today. Likely worth watching more than once.

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Technorati tags: Book Recommendation, Digital Libraries, Book, Digitization