Competition for OverDrive? 3M Cloud Library in Beta with Kansas Libraries

Kansas State Librarian Can Transfer Thousands of Titles from OverDrive to 3M at No Charge:

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This is a fascinating story from Library Journal. The Kansas State Librarian, Jo Budler, is attempting to move the state's e-books platform from OverDrive to 3M's Cloud Library, which is currently in beta. This isn't a random or capricious choice; staying with OverDrive would mean a 700% increase in the platform licensing fee by 2013. (Any content licensed is in addition to the platform licensing fee.)

Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors, by Nicholas Wade (author), Alan Sklar (narrator)

Tantor Media, ISBN 9781400152322, May 2006

Nicholas Wade discusses how the growing science of genetics expands and deepens our understanding of human evolution, our relationship to our closest relatives, and how we became the species we are--and what we might become in the future.

There's a lot of ground to cover, and this is a survey, not a textbook. It's very well-referenced, but in some cases he's relying on cutting edge research that, inevitably, will not all hold up. He also ventures into some touchy areas that not all readers will be comfortable or happy with. Nevertheless, it's an excellent, informative, and thought-provoking book that is well worth reading.

No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller, by Harry Markopolos (author), Scott Brick (reader)

Brilliance Audio, 9781455819119, February 2011

In December 2008, Bernie Madoff, one of the most respected figures on Wall Street, co-founder and former president of NASDAQ, confessed to running the largest Ponzi scheme in history. On the heels of that revelation, we learned that this fraud had been going on for decades, and then that it was international in reach.

We also learned that there had been a whistleblower, who had warned the SEC a decade earlier, and when he was ignored had continued to investigate, and made additional filings, with additional and more complete information, including the growing size of the fraud.

That whistleblower was Harry Markopolos, and this is his story.

The Iron Knight: Book 4 in the Iron Fey Series, by Julie Kagawa

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HarlequinTEEN, ISBN 9780373210367, October 2011

Ash, prince of the UnSeelie Court, has a major problem on his hands. He has sworn an oath to find a way to return to Meghan Chase and stand by her side as her knight and protector. But Meghan is now Queen of the Iron Fey, and Ash, one of the older, more familiar fey, cannot touch or even bear the near presence of iron.

So he's off on a quest, in defiance of his mother Queen Mab, and all common sense and good judgment, to find the Testing Grounds and earn a soul. He'll be giving up his fey powers and his immortality, but he'll be able to return to Meghan. Since violating his vow will cause his very being to unravel and dissolve, he figures it's worth the risk.

The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution, by Sean B. Carroll (author), Patrick Lawlor (narrator)

Tantor Media, ISBN 9781400153152, January 2007

Carroll starts out by talking about forensic use of DNA evidence in criminal cases, where we rely on DNA evidence to determine guilt or innocence, often in cases where the death penalty or long imprisonment is at stake. He explains, in simple terms, how this works and why it matters.

And then he explains the contradiction between the wide popular acceptance of DNA evidence by the general public, and the widespread resistance to or rejection of evolution.

What's the Bigger Threat, Piracy, Distribution Monopolies--or Refusal to Give Customers What They Want?

Miramax CEO: our biggest threat is online distribution monopolies, not piracy – Boing Boing:

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Mike Lang, the Miramax CEO, says piracy isn't really any big deal, but distribution monopolies are, because they create chokepoints that limit the consumer's ability to get the product, thus limiting potential sales. He's got a valid point, but where it breaks down a bit is that he cites Apple's iTunes as an example. iTunes has too much control of the music market, so music companies can't influence pricing, packaging, merchandising.

But the reason iTunes has such control is because the music companies clung to their image of themselves as "record companies," drastically overpriced CDs, and bitterly resisted  digital distribution of music in forms consumers wanted and found useful and worth paying for. Had they been able to do so, they would have permanently blocked any digital distribution of music, allowing fear of piracy to override the far more central consideration of how to make money by selling their customers what they wanted to buy. They decided what they wanted to sell us, and tried to make us like it--and it didn't work. Apple controls the distribution of music because Apple created a way to give customers what they wanted and make a profit at it, while the music companies were still fighting digital distribution.

Between the Thames and the Tiber: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Ted Riccardi

Open Road Media/Pegasus Books, ISBN 9781453217856, April 2011

Holmes and Watson are back, in a new set of adventures that take the reader back and forth between London and Italy, where the two friends are now spending much of their time, with occasional excursions elsewhere. The stories vary in time from the 1890s to World War One, and they aren't presented in chronological order.

Watson inherited a sizable estate from an uncle his family had little contact with, and, in the guise of an anonymous benefactor wishing to support Holmes' work, has given half of his inheritance to Holmes. This gives them a freedom from any concern about whether a particular client can pay, as well as allowing them to spend a good part of the year living in Italy, and travel in Europe as freely as they like.

Banned Books Week Giveaway Hop--We have a winner!

Congratulations to Mammabunny13, winner of the Banned Books giveaway! I'll have Adventures of Huckleberry Finn out to you in the mail sometime this week.

Thank you to everyone who participated. I hope you all enjoyed my post and the other blogs participating in the Banned Books Giveaway Hop, and that you all learned more about banned books and the freedom to read.

Keep reading books, Banned or not!

Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire, by Ruth Downie, (author), Simon Vance (narrator)

Tantor Media, ISBN 9781400153633, March 2007

Gaius Petrius Ruso is doctor serving with a Roman legion in Britain. Not very long ago, he was married, a hero (he had saved the Emperor Trajan's life), and the elder son of a prosperous family in southern Gaul. Now he's divorced, his father has died leaving behind a mountain of debt, his brief notoriety is forgotten, and Trajan is dead. He's struggling to pay off his father's debts, with his brother at home in Gaul working to keep the real state of their finances quiet so that their efforts have time to work.

In the meantime, he's sharing a mouse-infested with another army doctor and the previous owner's former dog, who has produced a litter of puppies. They have no servant to clean and cook for them, and their lodgings show it. Ruso has spent an unpleasant night examining the body of a dead woman fished out of the harbor, and then a long day on medical rounds. He doesn't need to buy an injured slave girl to rescue her from her sadistic owner, especially when she's too injured to work, won't talk, and will cost more to feed than she's worth.

So of course he does.

The Big Handout: How Government Subsidies and Corporate Welfare Corrupt the World We Live In and Wreak Havoc on Our Food Bills, by Thomas Kostigen

Rodale Books, ISBN 9781609611132, October 2011

This book makes an interesting counterpoint to Clean Energy Nation, by Congressman Jerry McNerney, which I reviewed in August. McNerney is a Democrat, has a high regard for the sustainable energy policies pursued by President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s while regretting the micromanagement and lack of higher-level political skills that helped to doom those policies, thinks well of Clinton and Obama, and is not so fond of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Kostigen is  libertarian-leaning, considers the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation good and respectable sources, and admires Ronald Reagan as one of our great presidents. These two men are not coming from the same place, in their political worldviews.

Yet the underlying central message of the two books is the same: Our economic, energy, and agricultural policies are unsustainable, doing damage to our planet, endangering our national security, and making us poorer. McNerney attacked the problem from the perspective of energy policy; Kostigen comes at it primarily through agricultural and other corporate subsidies.