library

British Library drags iPad into the 1800s

Retro is cool when it comes to the iPad. You can turn it into a tabletop arcade console. You can disguise it as an old book. You can even run a DOS emulator on it.

The British Library gets on the bandwagon with the 19th Century Books iPad app. It goes retro. Way retro. All the way back to the 1800s retro.

The free app features a collection of 1,000 books ranging from historical adventures to travelogues to poetry and fiction. All are from the public domain. Plans are for a paid collection, with more than 60,000 titles to be made available later in the year.

The app includes such little-known works as "A Wild Sheep Chase" from 1894 and "Fables for the Female Sex," as well as established classics such as "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and "The Invisible Man."

The British Library didn't go the usual e-book route for this app. The books are captured as scanned images that show all the colorful covers, aged pages, and nuanced illustrations. It really is the next best thing to having an actual book in your hand.

There is plenty here for bibliophiles, historians, and Thomas Hardy fans to get excited about. More casual readers can marvel at the illustrations and use of the word "alas."

You can search titles, but you can't search through the actual texts. You'll have to pretend like you're in a real library and take the time to browse the books. Alas, this is still a pretty sweet app for book lovers.… Read more

Movie management made easy

Movie collections--either digital or DVD--can get a little unwieldy if you don't have a way to manage them. My Movie Library is an easy-to-use program that makes keeping track of your films quite simple. It doesn't have as many features as some similar programs we've seen, but its simplicity more than makes up for it.

The program's interface is sleek and attractive, with a set of icons across the top that give access to the program's major features. Using the Add Movie dialog, you can simply enter the title of a film and have the … Read more

Add titles to your Google Books bookshelf in a snap with your Android phone

Google Books has great tools for keeping track of things you've read, are reading, or want to read. However, it can be a cumbersome task to add each book to the virtual bookshelf individually. So instead of spending countless minutes keying in numbers, follow these steps so you can easily scan and add all your books at once:

1. Install Barcode2File from the Android Market.

2. Open the app and press the Scan barcode button to start collecting a list of ISBNs from the books (one list at a time).

3. Once you're finished scanning, press … Read more

Robots hoard the books at mechanized library

If books are dying a slow death, libraries are also living on borrowed time. But that didn't stop the University of Chicago from sinking $81 million into the new Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, which ironically doesn't have any books on display.

The entire book collection is stored underground in a five-story chamber that can hold some 35,000 metal bins. If you want to actually crack open a dead tree and read its paper pages, you'll have to ask a robot to fetch it for you from the vault.

The five underground robot cranes, apparently made by Dematic, retrieve the storage bins in minutes. As the vid below explains, a human librarian opens the bin and gets your bar-coded book. Then you're free to read the tome in the light-filled egg-shaped Grand Reading Room, which is otherwise devoid of books. Welcome to the automated library.

The robotized storage system makes lots of sense in terms of book preservation and efficiency; since books are packed by size instead of subject the vault apparently is seven times more efficient than conventional shelf storage.

The library, named after donor Morningstar CEO Joe Mansueto and his wife, is also meant to reflect how most research is done today--looking up text online, using Google Books, as well as consulting physical books. … Read more

Night at the New York Public Library

NEW YORK--The New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue turns 100 years old on Monday. As part of the centennial celebration, 500 people spent the night in the library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Friday finding clues as part of a scavenger hunt designed by game developer Jane McGonigal and collectively writing a 600-page book in a single night.

And even though no inanimate objects came to life when the doors were locked at 8 p.m., a lot was accomplished in a single night.

"We did it," McGonigal shouted as the sun rose over Manhattan … Read more

The 404 820: Where we stop using cliches for show titles (podcast)

It's Friday the 13th, but nothing is creepier than this morning's news about Ashton Kutcher replacing Charlie Sheen on 'Two and a Half Men.' On today's episode of The 404 Podcast, we're talking about the list of other potential castings for the slot, the Library of Congress launching a National Jukebox, a pricey out of court settlement from Lime Wire, and a user-submitted picture of Natali Morris that's too wrong not to show.

The 404 Digest for Episode 820

Ashton Kutcher will replace Sheen on "Two and a Half Men." Library of Congress quietly announces The National Jukebox. Lime Wire settles for $105 million. Lady Gaga presents her own version of Farmville on Facebook. Oh what the hell, here's Ahmad's picture of a beautiful woman... with a beard.

Episode 820 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

How to sync music over Wi-Fi with Winamp for Android

Why bother with data cables and constantly reconnecting your phone to your computer to transfer new music? With Winamp for Android, music can be synced over Wi-Fi after a one-time pairing between phone and PC. Follow these five steps so you can spend less time tethered to the PC and more time enjoying your music on the go.

Note: You must have both Winamp for PC (5.9 beta or later) and Winamp for Android (in this example) for wireless sync to work.

1. Open the Settings menu in Winamp for Android and check the box to enable wireless sync.… Read more

Free books for your Kindle

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Amazon.com launches a library lending program for its Kindle e-reader

Toshiba's tablet will come out in June in Japan and shortly thereafter abroad

eBay purchases geolocation service Where

Google launches Earth Builder for cloud storage of geographic and geospacial data

Gamefly wins its case against the U.S. Postal Service

Amazon unveils overdue Kindle Library Lending

Amazon's Kindle will finally support library lending, the company announced today.

Later this year, Kindle owners and those who run Amazon's Kindle apps will be able to borrow books from over 11,000 local libraries. In addition, Amazon says, users will be able to make annotations and highlight text. All of that content is saved and will be included in the e-book if the user opts to check it out again.

"We're doing a little something extra here," Jay Marine, Amazon's Kindle director said in a statement. "Normally, making margin notes in library … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer e-mailed questions from our readers. This week there were questions about the location and duplication of iTunes music folders, USB flash drives not mounting in the Finder, and how to read ClarisWorks and AppleWorks documents. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present a few answers here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: iTunes music duplicated in two locations

MacFixIt reader Ali asks:

My macbook is telling me lately that i have to free up space … Read more