The Well and the Cathedral

Two really exciting projects promoting open information access:

The Internet Archive has just unveiled their ambitious project called BookServer, which will allow users to find, buy, or borrow digital books from sources all across the web. The system, built on an open architecture and using open book formats, promises that the books housed there will work on any device whether that’s a laptop, PC, smartphone, game console, or one of the myriad of e-Readers like Amazon’s Kindle.

The project’s lofty goal is to essentially create an open web of books where anyone can publish their books and make their content available via search. (via Read Write Web)

And-

Google will launch an e-book store called Google Editions with a “don’t be evil” twist. Unlike Google’s biggest competitors, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, which rely heavily on restrictive DRM, Google’s store will not be device-specific–allowing for e-books purchased through Google Editions to be read on the far greater number of e-book readers that will flood the market in 2010.

Google’s e-books will be accessible through any Web-enabled computer, e-reader, or mobile phone instead of a dedicated device. This will allow content to be unchained from expensive devices such as Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader. However, as democratizing as this sounds, it’s still unclear how many people are ready to curl up with a Google Editions title on their laptop or smartphone, instead of the traditional paper format. (via PC World)

In other news, I’ll be at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Boston. The seminar on consulting had the biggest appeal to me- I registered the day after finding out about it! Pretty exciting.

I’ve been working part time in libraries since 2002. The work nicely complements my freelance work. It offers stability, dependable income, coworkers and public service. It also sheds plenty (maybe too much?) light on how people use the internet. The library environment has a great appeal; my coworkers have always been outstanding and learning is integral. I’ve shelved materials, helped people find books, movies and music, but mostly I’ve worked with computers. This has led me to a great interest in the role technology plays in the library, so much so that I wrote an 80-page senior project about it. I’ve also taken a keen interest in open source solutions for libraries. A few months ago I discovered an open source integrated library system (ILS) developed by people around the world called Koha. That discovery led me to find other neat open source library solutions. They include a digital collection management system called Kete and a kiosk management system called Libki.

The past few months have been all about picking up a bunch of balls I dropped when I broke a bone last fall. I’ve handed off a big project and decided to drop a few clients. But since I’ve recovered I’ve been getting through several sites that have fallen by the wayside due to mutual “back burnering” on the part of both my clients and me. I’ve been learning SQL and Perl (and violin). So many options are opening up even as the economy is crumbling, so I’m pretty sure I’m doing the right thing.