Hyperink is demand driven publishing. This publishing startup analyzes search trends on Google and produces short (30-50 page) e-books written by experts in these mini-fields.

Pros:
It’s fast. Hyperink books generally take no more than a month to produce. They’re nimble enough to report on trending topics that may not have enduring book value (eg. Rebecca Black) and are gunning for the niche crowd. The topics are extremely diverse and some are very targeted.

Cons:
The site is a little busy for my tastes, but it is called Hyperink. The pickings are pretty scanty right now, but there are enough to get a sense of the types of books Hyperink wants to publish. Some of them, like strategies for getting specific jobs or internships, seem very revolutionary in publishing. They’re also a bit expensive for a >50 page e-book, most are $25. That’s more than I would be willing to pay, except in the case of a book that specifically addressed a subject I needed. That’s what Hyperink is banking on.

You may have seen today’s article about the awesome power of patron driven acquisitions in Inside Higher Ed. No sweat folks, we’re all over that! Our demand driven acquisitions program quietly went live at the beginning of the week. Peruse our wide e-aisles of bountiful e-book full text links! Purchasing is automatically triggered when you spend more than 10 minutes reading a book or do any printing from the text. We hope this will be an extension of our current policies and a more automated way to deliver electronic titles to our patrons.

The Hamilton Grange branch of the New York Public Library has recently opened a new tech-heavy teen floor. Teen outreach with technology in libraries is nothing new, but this Harlem branch offers community space in the form of a performance area and media viewing stations and plenty of computer access. Teen spaces have been a hot trend in libraries built or updated since the mid 2000’s and teen services have evolved in an interesting and often controversial way. The jury’s still out on the benefits of gaming and television in libraries for teens, but it’s a proven way to get ‘em in the door.

For the past month we’ve been toiling in chilly subbasements and mining increasingly opaque social archiving websites for the content that’ll put fire in the hearts of believers! It’s my honor and privilege to formally announce the debut of Archival Revival! Thanks so much for your contributions, comments, and props thus far. I have the ideas generated by our extremely helpful EdLab Development & Research meeting saved in my dubiously helpful get started guide. Your feedback is much appreciated!

Biblion: The Boundless Library is the New York Public Library’s archival site and app for their 1939-40 World’s Fair Collection.

Pros:
The site for the World’s Fair is well-curated, consisting of several topical nodes which each contain pages of photos, clippings, and documents as well as a running explanation of the historical value of the presented documents. The collection itself is vast and extremely interesting. Most of it is press photography and published news, but the background correspondence is quite fun. The app is very pretty, with nice photo piles and a good timeline feature. The color choices, which look a little strange on the web, make perfect sense on the app.

Cons:
The nodes are selected well, but arranged poorly for web viewing. The archival documents line the left side of the page and the thin explanation runs down the right. This gives a rather squished together effect that ruins the delightful mystery of the offerings. It’s a bit scrapbooky and over-explained for my archival tastes, but the care and knowledge with which it was selected is evident everywhere.

Google and Pearson are joining forces to birth the newest LMS on the block. Their website is just a shell at present, but expect it to be big and sleek (check out the fun slide-y signs and hilarious desert-chic vibe.) The site promises to be fully integrated with Google Apps for Education, free, open, and “ridiculously easy.” Perhaps the most significant shift in this new style of LMS versus something like Blackboard is the focus on social. Google has made a concentrated push towards online identity with Google + (even now that they allow pseudonyms) and this might just make online learning more meaningful. Our recent conversation (blog entries by Joanna, Kate, and Skanda) around personal connection and the importance of humanity in learning make me think that a learning system organized around class members might make a bigger impact than the current content-centric systems.

Check out this new Chrome experiment for Google Books. I’m happy that Google Books is thinking about their display. I love to judge books by their covers but I’m too spoiled now to read books that don’t light up. It’s not extremely pretty, but it’s a nice digression from the bookshelf view used by most e-book sites today.

Paperight aims to bring print on demand out of the warehouse and into homes and small businesses around the world. Specifically aimed at the small-scale consumer, Paperight allows users to purchase printing rights to backlist titles for a nominal fee for download and one time printing.

Pros:
Paperight’s license system is easy to understand and they seem to be devoted to customer (both publisher and home printer) support with a hearty blog, clean UI, and great advice for users who are new to POD. At the moment they are testing with a series of titles aimed at public health, but as their catalog grows so shall their usability. They seem to have built a good base site that has the potential to revolutionize the POD industry as we know it, traditionally an expensive and slow process for publishers.

PBS TeacherLine, an online professional development service for K-12 teachers, has partnered with the Library of Congress to produce Teaching With Primary Sources a course for integrating primary source research in to the classroom. The Library of Congress has a long history of partnering with educators in their initiatives. The American Memory Fellows project ran for several years in the late 90’s and focused on primary sources based out of the Library’s American Memory Project. Their more recent project, An Adventure of the American Mind had over 1,000 teachers identifying collections for classroom use and focusing on the creation of unique digital primary sources from classroom material.

While primary source content may not have changed greatly, access portals and organization of this content is increasingly important in education.

I find all news items about Overdrive’s new service, WIN inherently funny. So few of them are actually win. Consider this one: Overdrive is debuting discovery records for all publisher offered titles, whether or not your particular library can afford to purchase access. You’ll be able to see a title, read a snippet, and then...not have access! This might be a precursor to public library DDA, which would be a win, but for now it just seems frustrating. Overdrive has been busy lately and I look forward to seeing what they’ll debut this year, but their offerings for WIN at Frankfurt were underwhelming.