library

Although public libraries, university libraries, and other large lending institutions typically have fairly sophisticated software to manage their collections, there are smaller entities like churches, nonprofits, and even individuals who could use an electronic hand when it comes to keeping track of their holdings. Granthaalok: The Book-Library Manager aims to provide a simple solution for the user who needs a way to keep track of what gets checked in and out and by whom. Unfortunately, the program's unattractive interface and generally unintuitive functioning make it hard to recommend.

Granthaalok's interface consists of a large gray rectangle with a … Read more

Can e-readers help independent writers and publishers? Amazon thinks so. The e-commerce giant announced today that not only did it top 100,000 titles in its Kindle Lending Library but also that more Amazon customers are reading independently published books.

"After a year of marketing 'Whispers from the Ashes' in book clubs, genealogical magazines, and local newspapers with steady, but slow results, I joined the KDP Select program," author Patricia Hester said in a statement. "The results have been absolutely amazing - I have now accomplished every author's dreams: worldwide interest, fan enthusiasm, and wonderful sales.&… Read more

If you're a fan of America's long and storied history of great engineering, the National Park Service has got something for you.

On Monday, the park service's Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) Autodesk and kubit will announce the technological process of documenting these structures, a process that resulted in a broad collection of 3D imagery of projects like the Space Shuttle Discovery, as well as NASA launching pads, famous bridges, and more. The imagery was used to generate what are known as "point clouds" of data that, together, show a 3D version of the object. … Read more

Beat Hazard Ultra is a unique dual-stick arcade shooter that uses music from your music library to create the pace of the game. Each song in your music library has a unique rhythm and flow and as the power builds in a song, Beat Hazard Ultra sends more enemies for you to blow away. Even if you have no music on your iOS device, the game lets you choose from several Internet radio stations to stream the musical backdrop of the game. The graphics are worthy of note, too; this game has so many blinking lights and colors that there'… Read more

Google Music launched with much fanfare and anticipation, but with one giant flaw for downloading your library: you could only download one track at a time.

With the latest release of Music Manager, you are now able to download either your entire library, or only purchased music from Google Music in just a few clicks.

To see the new download option, you will have to have previously uploaded some of your library to Google Music via the Music Manager tool, as well as be running the latest version of Music Manager. The current version number for both Mac and Windows … Read more

Some readers may remember the flickering, old-timey, surprisingly three-dimensional GIFs that made a splash on the Internet back in 2008. Writer and artist Joshua Heineman created them from images of 19th and early 20th century stereoscope cards he culled from a collection placed online by the New York Public Library.

Heineman took the two slightly offset images on a given card, separated them, dropped them into Photoshop, and created animated GIFs that quickly "flipped" from one image to the other, over and over (a technique known as "wiggle stereoscopy").

Then, as part of a personal project called "Reaching for the Out of Reach," he posted the GIFs on his Tumblr blog, where they were discovered by the blogosphere and spread far and wide.

Now--thanks to that online fame, and to the New York Public Library's push to reinvent itself in the Internet Age--you too can breathe new three-dimensional life into these stereoscopic artifacts.… Read more

Your tweets are about to become part of American history.

The Library of Congress plans to create an archive of every public tweet sent in Twitter's five-year history.

The library has an agreement with Twitter to move the billions and billions of public tweets from Twitter servers to its own servers, Bill Lefurgy, the digital initiatives program manager at the library's national digital information infrastructure and preservation program, said in an interview with Federal News Radio yesterday.

Twitter is full of uninteresting noise, no doubt. But its aggregate data will be a valuable tool for researchers who want … Read more

Penguin Group is the latest company to balk at allowing libraries to lend digital copies of its books to patrons.

The book publisher, whose imprints include Viking, Riverhead Books, and Dutton, among others, has suspended authorization for libraries to distribute its books electronically, citing security concerns.

"Due to new concerns about the security of our digital editions, we find it necessary to delay the availability of our new titles in the digital format while we resolve these concerns with our business partners," Penguin spokeswoman Erica Glass said in a statement.

Glass didn't disclose Penguin's specific security … Read more

Want free two-day shipping on Amazon but don't want to pay for it? Well, if you know the right person, you don't have to.

That's right, last year around the holidays I offered up a little Amazon Prime tip for folks planning to do a lot of last-minute online shopping on Amazon.com. Now, with the holidays approaching again and a lot of people interested in the Kindle Fire, I thought I should update the story with some additional info.

Here's the deal. If you own or are considering purchasing an Amazon Prime membership ($79 for … Read more