NPR aired this story about how long CDs last on “All Tech Considered” on August 18, 2014.
If some of your most treasured music and other information is on CD, you may want to consider another way to store it, although permanence can be hard to find.
As the article concludes, “These days, the Library of Congress is starting to archive material on servers, which … could pose an entirely different set of still-unknown problems in the future.”
Check this out! NPR Books (from National Public Radio) “has released a new web app designed to help readers discover what they might like to read among NPR’s best 200 books of the year.”
The Book Concierge lets you mix and match from 21 different categories of reading.
Driving home last night, I heard a wonderful story about Self-publishing on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” It featured comments from Mark Coker, founder of the self-publishing firm Smashwords, and from Michael Pietsch of Little, Brown and Company, a well-known publishing house.
A couple of comments resonated with me.
In answer to this question, “… just because everyone can produce a book, should everyone produce a book?,” Coker said: “Well, I think if you’re a writer, and you want to reach readers, and you want to publish, then you have a right to publish. And I know this is blasphemy to the traditional publishing industry when I say this, but this is what I believe. I believe every writer is great and wonderful and has something to share with the world. Readers will decide if what they’re sharing is worth reading.”
Pietsch said, “Smashwords is an amazing opportunity for people who want to publish themselves. I love the diversity of publication that is possible now. But I object strenuously to the notion that publishers are irrelevant, because publishers are doing things now that are extraordinarily complex, exciting that the ways that publishers can work to connect readers with writers now are the kinds of things that publishers have dreamt of doing since Gutenberg first put down a line of type.”
When all is said and done, it’s a good time to be a reader.
— Marlene Anderson, Director of Library Services
I heard this story on “All Things Considered” on NPR a couple of days ago.
“Two Wisconsin men are on a mission to break Andrew Carnegie’s record of creating over 2,500 libraries. They’re enlisting the help of book lovers and artists in neighborhoods across the country to help reach that goal, one “Little Free Library” at a time. “
Listen for yourself and maybe you will be inspired to start your very own Little Free Library. North Dakota has one Little Free Library (so far) and it’s in Fargo. Could yours be the first in Bismarck-Mandan?
I first heard this story 
on NPR this morning … here’s the full story from The New York Times:
The Happiest States of America: North Dakota on the Rise
Enjoy!
Listening to this story on NPR‘s All Things Considered struck a nerve. It’s why I believe in libraries and the work we do as librarians. Listen for yourself:
Escaping the Summer Heat in a Bookmobile by W. Ralph Eubanks
Bookless libraries? Can you imagine?
Yes! In the digital age, more and more bookless libraries will appear. At the BSC Library, we still purchase traditional printed books, but we are also investing in eBooks and other eResources more than ever before.
Want to know more? Listen to (or read!) this story about Stanford’s Bookless Engineering Library from NPR.
Read it! Read it! 