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FAST FACTS
C&RL News, April 2008
Vol. 69, No. 4
by Gary Pattillo
On-demand publishing
Print-on-demand publishing continues to rise in popularity. Lulu.com has published more than 320,000 titles, created by people in more than 80 countries, with more than 5,000 new titles added each week. Amazon.com offers a similar service via its CreateSpace, which also produces film and audio on DVDs and CDs. Blurb.com makes available 11,000 self-published titles. The interfaces on these Web sites now make it easier than ever to publish and make changes to books without cost to the author. Candice Choi, Associated Press Writer, “Got a manuscript? Publishing now a snap,” The Boston Globe, January 1, 2008. www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/01/01/got_a_manuscript_publishing_now_a_snap/ and lulu.com. Accessed January 10, 2008.
Book sales up
Bookstore sales of new books were $16.768 billion in 2007, up 1.1 percent from $16.589 billion in 2006. Publisher sales by members of the Association of American Publishers rose 7.4% to $10,814.8 billion for all of 2007. Shelf Awareness, February 14, 2008, Volume 1, Issue 613, www.news.shelf-awareness.com/nview.jsp?appid=411&j=400747. Accessed March 3, 2008.
Expert sources
In an Internet world saturated with misinformation, Web sites with free professionally edited content are on the rise. Some examples are: Big Think, an interactive site with hundreds of hours of video interviews with experts from various fields; Edge, a blog/repository promoting discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues; and TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), a “a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers.” Big Think, www.bigthink.com; Edge Foundation, www.edge.org; TED, www.ted.com. Accessed March 11, 2008.
Video search becoming more sophisticated
Online video search tools are becoming more powerful. In May 2007, Google released Universal Search, which integrates results from different Google sites, such as books, news, images, videos, and computer code. Another company, Blinkx, which claims to have the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine, has an index of more than 14 million hours of searchable video, aggregated from about 250 media sources. Blinkx technology allows searches of the words spoken within videos. Scott H. Kessler and Karen Kawaguchi, Computers: Consumer Services and the Internet, Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys, September 20, 2007, www.netadvantage.standardandpoors.com/NASApp/NetAdvantage/showIndustrySurvey.do?code=csi. Accessed February 11, 2008.
Emerging technologies
During the next one to five years, there are six primary emerging technologies likely to be adopted for mainstream use in teaching, learning, and creative expression. These are: grassroots video, collaboration Webs, mobile broadband, data mashups, collective intelligence, social operating systems. These technologies will affect the choices made by learning-focused organizations. 2008 Horizon Report, The New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, January 30, 2008, www.nmc.org/publications/2008-horizon-report. Accessed February 1, 2008.
Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email.unc.edu
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