UN Publications launches mobile apps

Announced today, United Nations Publications launched their first application for the iphone. The first publications available are UN flagship titles such as ‘The Charter of the United Nations’, ‘The United Nations Today’, and ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’.

UN Publications is the main source for over 5,300 titles produced by the United Nations and its key agencies.

The apps — which can also be downloaded for the iPad — are available for a fee. For more information, see https://unp.un.org/MobileApps.aspx

The future of libraries? Mobile content-focused libraries in Finland

Aaron Schmidt  — referred to in Library Journal as a hard-core librarian “by friends because he is an avid mountain biker, rock climber, and extreme sports kind of guy”  — recently made an interesting post on the future of libraries in Finland from the Gates Foundation’s 2010 Global Libraries Peer Learning Meeting:

The libraries I saw have overcome their addiction to circulating content. Now they’re all about doing, making, publishing, working, and experiences revolving around content.

Instead of books people check out guitars. Or record music and edit music videos.

Another observation of Finnish libraries from Ari Katz at IREX from the same meeting.

Cool new international librarianship blogs

Some recent blogs I just discovered:

• International Archives – archivist/records manager Gustavo Castañer from Barcelona, Spain blogs on his knowledge about job opportunities for international organizations. Library and archives centric and something of what he calls  “a personal obsession”. Looks like he has a sense of humor too since calls himself “in short, your Dream Nerd” in his twitter bio.
• International baccalaureate librarians – a blog for school media librarians working in IB schools around the world. Centers on issues in school libraries, job search and career advice, and conference discussion.
• Save Libraries – “When one library is in trouble, ALL libraries are in trouble.” This blog is the brainchild of Lori Reed and Heather Braum in response to library closures throughout the United States. You might recognize their branding: they developed the social “Save Libraries” sticker for twitter and facebook profiles. (Get yours here.)
• Bilingual Librarian – This blog has been out there for a while, but it deserves special mention for its continually timely information on trends in the library world (especially Latin America).  Stephanie Rocío Miles has some interesting things to say about the profession, which is why she is mentioned on all these.

Book burning in Ukraine

Anti-Ukrainian book burning in Crimea (unian.net & kyivscoop.blogspot.com)

Kyiv Scoop blogger Steve Bandera published an interesting story last week about Anti-Ukrainian book burning in Crimea. The protests are in response to what Russian nationalists say are “distortions of the past by the administration of former President Viktor Yushchenko.” (VOANews)  Many of the books were Ukrainian history textbooks.

More Links:

Book Burning in Ukraine Stokes Controversy About History: http://bit.ly/cq3mm7

Crimea book burning: http://unian.net/ukr/news/news-367439.html (Ukrainian)

Google to digitize Italy’s ancient books

Galileo Galileis observation of Jupiter's moons, 1610

Taking a cue from countries worldwide (see France), the Italian government has made an agreement to digitize about one million ancient manuscripts from two national libraries of Rome and Florence. This will give scholars world-wide access to the writings of such scholars as Machiavelli, Dante, and Galileo. Hopefully this will patch things up from last year’s controversy when Google mistakenly attributed the wrong date for the Galileo telescope creation.

Also, opinion pieces from the Global Network Initiative on Reflecting on Google in Italy (and beyond) and the Christian Science Monitor on Why Google’s deal with Italy is a good thing for readers.

See more:
Google “alleato” del Ministero per i beni culturali: nuove opere italiane per le biblioteche virtuali (NewNotizie)
Google to digitise ancient Italian books (LIBER)
Google to digitise ancient Italian books (BBC)
Google to scan books in Italy’s libraries (CBC News)