essays & ephemera

Introducing Scene: Urban Burrough, a New Theme from TypePad

via everything.typepad.com

[this is good]

Congrats to the TypePad team for getting the new themes project up and running with Scene: Urban Burrough.

Here's to you, Matt Stairs

Instead of wallowing in the Sox late-season collapse I choose to celebrate the one and only Matt Stairs.

Stairs's career numbers are essentially the same as Reggie Jackson's (.262, .356, .490). All of his numbers trump those of Roger Maris. Other players with comparable numbers include Bobby Bonds, Frank Howard, Dwight Evans, Dale Murphy and Greg Luzinski. Nobody confuses those ballplayers with the ordinary.

quote via fingerfood.typepad.com; image via SOSH

Fingerfood supposes that Matt Stairs coulda been a contender had he only come up as right fielder. I find that a bit shocking... yet I'd vote in Dewey and Dale. Matt Stairs? Whoulda thunk.

Renting books from SFPL using Kindle

via bulknews.typepad.com

Just following up on yesterday's post about Amazon's push into library eBook rentals... Turns out SFPL uses Overdrive (who powers at least part of the platform) so SF residents can check out a book with Kindle. Hizzah! This is so cool.

Amazon launches Kindle book-lending service with 11,000 US libraries

With the launch of its library book-lending scheme, Kindle users can visit their local library’s website, look up the book they wish to borrow and then choose a “Send To Kindle” link, which will deliver the book to their reading device.

via thenextweb.com

This is so awesome and has my imagination running. The American public library is one of the great global institutions, spreading knowledge and community far and wide. As the internet and ebooks encroach ever more on the bound book libraries obviously must evolve. This feels like a seminal moment.

I wonder who will be the first community to provide free (or discounted) Kindles to its citizens... And if this move could fundamentally change how we look at public libraries in the future. Is the public library of tomorrow an open, well-lit civic space with wifi, ebook lending licenses and research librarians? But no stacks?

Does this move by Amazon mean that "library" will eventually become a concept rather than a place? Would it cost less for a community to outfit every family with a Kindle or maintain its physical inventory and buildings?