The Texas state Textbook commission social studies changes

The Washington Post has an article about the Texas state social studies textbook changes. In the Texas textbook Commision mandates debate, there’s an interesting comment from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: One publisher said Tuesday that changes in technology, including the introduction of online components, make it easier and cheaper to tailor textbooks to specific states and… Continue reading The Texas state Textbook commission social studies changes

Museums Special Section – The New Generation of Museum Curators – NYTimes.com

Museums Special Section – The New Generation of Museum Curators – NYTimes.com An interesting piece in the special Museums section in the NYT on young curators: “Museums are safe harbors in this difficult economic time,” said Glenn D. Lowry, director of the MoMA, who said that Mr. Roy was one of a growing number of… Continue reading Museums Special Section – The New Generation of Museum Curators – NYTimes.com

Penguin’s The Future of Publishing

The Future of Publishing | Penguin Blog (USA) – Penguin Group (USA) Penguin Group’s blog featured a video (originally used in a meeting) which has gone viral on YouTube, “The End of Publishing.” It’s clever and the blog post at Penguin gives the source(s). (Essentially it’s a video script palindrome.) (h/t Andrew Sullivan)

Viacom-YouTube Secrets Exposed In Lawsuit

Viacom-YouTube Secrets Exposed In Lawsuit Pretty amazing (and damaging) report about Viacom (owner of Comedy Central, among other properties) and Google (owner of YouTube) on the Huffington Post. According to YouTube’s Zahavah Levine (quoted in the news story): For, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence… Continue reading Viacom-YouTube Secrets Exposed In Lawsuit

Robert Darnton on blogging

Robert Darnton at the New York Review of Books blog on blogging: “[blogs] conform to a formula derived from old-fashioned tabloid journalism: names make news.” Darnton compares some blogs to his area of expertise, underground writing of ancient regime France, and then gives succeeding examples of 18th C libels and such.  Darnton concludes (a bit… Continue reading Robert Darnton on blogging

Italy and Google to digitize pre-1868 books

The AP reports that Italy and Google have agreed to digitize pre-1868 books: Google will cover the costs of the scanning of the books, all of them out-of-copyright Italian works, including 19th-century literature and 18th-century scientific volumes. The Italian libraries already had embarked on their own project to put their collections online, and so far… Continue reading Italy and Google to digitize pre-1868 books

Google Translate and Google Voice: a mass experiment

Image via Wikipedia The New York Times has what strikes me as an important article on Google’s translation service, and while it emphasizes processing power and data, there’s more here. (The section on their original data is interesting too.) Using Computing Might, Google Improves Translation Tool – NYTimes.com Google’s quick rise to the top echelons… Continue reading Google Translate and Google Voice: a mass experiment

Amazon and trade book pricing

It looks like Macmillan and Amazon have finally agreed to publisher pricing. Links from a Library Journal article to blog notices about the agreement. “No more “windowing” of bestsellers; $9.99 prices, but not for bestsellers.” Macmillan CEO Explains “Agency Model” for Selling Ebooks – 3/3/2010 – Library Journal Related articles by Zemanta How Much Would… Continue reading Amazon and trade book pricing