OverDrive to Preview Digital Audio Books at National Library Conference

"At The Public Library Association Tenth National Conference this week in Seattle, OverDrive, Inc. will be demonstrating in Booth #2718 how digital audio books will be made available for download by patrons in Windows Media® format as part of its growing Digital Library Reserve service. OverDrive® already supplies technology and content for thousands of popular eBook titles for online lending services at Cleveland Public Library, King County Library System (WA), San Jose Public Library, suburban Detroit libraries, and in dozens of other communities in the US and abroad.

'OverDrive is dedicated to providing librarians with growing sources to develop premium digital collections,' stated Pamela Turner, Director of Content for OverDrive. 'Working with the Microsoft Windows Media format means we will enable libraries to obtain rights to provide patrons access to premium audio book titles on a tremendous range of devices including PCs, PDAs, portable audio players, Smartphones, and the new Portable Media Center,' stated Ms. Turner.At The Public Library Association Tenth National Conference this week in Seattle, OverDrive, Inc. will be demonstrating in Booth #2718 how digital audio books will be made available for download by patrons in Windows Media® format as part of its growing Digital Library Reserve service. OverDrive® already supplies technology and content for thousands of popular eBook titles for online lending services at Cleveland Public Library, King County Library System (WA), San Jose Public Library, suburban Detroit libraries, and in dozens of other communities in the US and abroad.

'OverDrive is dedicated to providing librarians with growing sources to develop premium digital collections,' stated Pamela Turner, Director of Content for OverDrive. 'Working with the Microsoft Windows Media format means we will enable libraries to obtain rights to provide patrons access to premium audio book titles on a tremendous range of devices including PCs, PDAs, portable audio players, Smartphones, and the new Portable Media Center,' stated Ms. Turner."

Interesting - I'd love to see this in action. If you're going to PLA, I hope you'll drop by the OverDrive booth, put this product through its paces, and provide a write-up online about the experience. Let me live vicariously through you!

Which, I guess I'd pretty much have to do no matter what because WMA files don't work on my Treo 600 or my Archos Jukebox. That's the problem with proprietary formats and current Digital Rights Management (DRM) products....

"A new feature on the Share Your OPML site, an Andrew-Dave collaboration, it lists people whose subscription lists are most like yours. Think of it as your personal echo chamber. It might be an interesting way to discover new feeds you aren't subscribed to." [Scripting News]

A request: can we let users self-identify a primary focus of interest? I'd like all of the librarians participating in Share Your OPML to be able to identify themselves as such. Then I want to see the Top 100 Feeds Subscribed to By Librarians, as well as the Bottom 100 Feeds Subscribed to By Librarians.

Web Passes Cable

"Wake-up call to advertisers: more US households now have access to the internet...than have access to cable TV...." [Lost Remote]

Wake-up call to advertisers libraries: more US households now have access to the internet...than have access to cable TV....

This is too cool! The Laughing Librarian works at my home library, and tonight he sent the following message to the library's director:

"It’s 4:25 p.m. on the day that residents got the newsletter, and we’ve just had our first patron ask to get on the Internet with his laptop."

I wonder how many people in your community would use Wi-Fi if you offered it?...

Reality check: TechnoBiblio highlights Wi-Fi options at this week's Public Library Association (PLA) Conference (which, unfortunately, I am not attending).

"And, in case you were wondering Seattle Public Library has their temporary central library directly across the street from the WSCTC, but do not offer any wireless access according to their representative that i spoke with this afternoon."

So to put this in perspective, how many librarians in Seattle this week would use Wi-Fi if SPL's temporary central library directly across the street from the WSCTC offered it?...

Last night, eight-year old Brent was singing a song he had stuck in his head. He wanted to hear the song, so he went up to the computer and asked, "How do I get to the music thingy?" I was busy doing something, so I asked nine-year old Kailee to show him. She did, and they spent some time looking for the song. Eventually, I finished what I was doing, went over there, and showed them that the song just wasn't available. Brent was upset.

Out of nowhere, he said, "I want to burn a CD." I stared at him for a second and repeated what he said. He confirmed it - "I want to burn a CD." I asked if he had other songs he wanted to get, and he said no. We spent some time trying to find songs he knew that he wanted, but so far we're only up to two.

I just couldn't believe he was using that phrase. Even when I told him the song wasn't available, he never asked if we could go to a store to buy the song. I suddenly realized he's never bought a music CD and he probably never will. To him, music is a commodity that you slice and dice from home.

I've also been having fun taking movies of the kids that I shot with my Sony Cybershot digital camera and using Kinoma Producer to convert them for playback on my Treo 600. This is waaaaaay too much fun, and I had everyone cracking up in the car watching my first attempt because it was a video of Brent in classic form. I took the next step and converted an episode of The Simpsons (the classic Behind the Laughter episode), and while it took a long time to convert, it actually works better on my Treo than it did on my Archos Jukebox. Of course, it doesn't have the output options the Archos does, but video on the go this way will definitely come in handy!