Streamlining (both downloading and ordering)
Explosion (we have gone from two reading devices to 85 and more are coming)
Premium (the library catalog as the most premium, value-added site on the Web)
Traffic (enormous growth coming by year's end)

Amazon has generally been slow to allow lending on the Kindle, and they've also been cautious about the branding. But Potash's hint seems to indicate that library lending for Kindle has almost arrived, and none too soon for the e-book release of Harry Potter.

The two organizations will make the historical books, pamphlets and other periodicals available both on the library's site and on Google Books.

The project will take several years to complete and Google is to foot the bill for digitizing them, according to the BBC.

The pamphlets are particularly intriguing. They were the pre-electronic age's equivalent of blogs: getting the word out, stirring up people, introducing radical ideas, arguing political stances and more. They give the reader a window into the time as it moved for those living there, as opposed to the more measured and mythopoeic vision of books.

In the first batch to be digitized, a pamphlet on Marie Antoinette, the 18th century queen of France who was executed in the French Revolution.

The amount accessible via this partnership is a mere drop in the library's collection, which features 14 million books, almost a million periodicals and pamphlets, 58 million patents and three million sound recordings.

Chief Executive Dame Lynne Brindley, of the British Library, told the BBC that "the scheme was an extension of the ambition of the library's predecessors in the 19th Century to provide access to knowledge to everyone," making the Internet the modern "reading room."

If you want to see the Sarajevo haggadah or a manuscript of Wilfred Owen's 'Anthem for Doomed Youth,' annotated by Siegfried Sassoon, however, you'll still have to make the trip to Euston Road.

British Library photo by Steve Cadman | other sources: ResourceBlog

One example of this "future of the library" that is indeed here now: the newly released New York Public Library app, available today via iTunes: Biblion: The Boundless Library. The app is a re-launch of the library's Biblion journal, but in a format specifically designed for the tablet.

The app was designed in conjunction with Potion and it's a joy to scroll through. While it does tout the ability to "explore the stacks," the app certainly recognizes the library mission here isn't about "dead books." Rather the information is accessible and beautifully presented, taking full advantage of the touchscreen technology and the rotation of the tablet - the horizontal view lets you explore the collection visually, while the vertical view lets you read essays and thumb through imagery.

The New York Public Library plans other editions of Biblion that will open up other collections and programs. It is also planning a number of other apps as well, including one that'll let patrons manage their accounts and access catalog information. Also on the docket, an app in conjunction with the Find the Future game, an overnight scavenger hunt facilitated by game theorist Jane McGonigal.

It's all in celebration of the New York Public Library's centennial, and certainly all a demonstration that it's not just the future of the library that'll look very different - it's the present.

The stakes are incredibly high for public libraries right now. Federal, state, and local budgets are tight. Libraries are closing or cutting back on services. Alongside these fiscal trends are digital trends: the explosive growth in e-books, something that is radically changing the face of book publishing, book distribution, and yes, book lending.

Clearly consumers are interested in reading e-books, as the latest sales figures from the Association of American Publishers demonstrate. But what isn't clear is how this interest in e-books will translate into libraries' ability to meet their patrons' demands. There are questions about licensing, DRM, fees, and formats, for example.

Good News for Libraries and Library Patrons

There is good news here, of course. The Kindle is an incredibly popular e-reader, and Amazon says that the library option will work with both the device and with Kindle apps. That greatly opens accessibility to library patrons who might not own Sony e-readers or Nooks, the two devices that, until now, were common in libraries that had e-book lending programs.

More good news: Amazon will let you annotate your library books - forbidden in print, but amazing in e-books. These notes will be uniquely yours; the next library patron won't see them. But you'll be able to access them again if you check the book out again or purchase it.

Questions Remain for Librarians

But as we noted yesterday, Amazon's announcement was light on specifics, leading many librarians to ask questions about exactly how this new lending program would work. Some of these were answered when Karen Estrovich, the collection specialist for OverDrive, a company that handles many libraries' digital content and that is partnered with Amazon to roll out this new lending library, wrote a post clarifying some issues, including one of the most important to libraries:

Will libraries have to buy new e-book copies in order to have files available in a Kindle-compatible format?

According to Estrovich, no. "Your existing collection of downloadable eBooks will be available to Kindle customers. As you add new eBooks to your collection, those titles will also be available in Kindle format for lending to Kindle and Kindle reading apps. Your library will not need to purchase any additional units to have Kindle compatibility. This will work for your existing copies and units."

But there are still other questions, including those asked by librarians Sarah Houghton-Jan and by Bobbi Newman:

• Will this represent a change in pricing and licensing models for titles?
• Will self-published authors on Amazon's platform have a chance of being on library "shelves" now?
• Can library patrons opt out of linking their Amazon accounts to their library account?
• How much check out information will Amazon have access to? How will that change if someone purchases a title they've borrowed?

And another big question: which publishers are participating? Simon & Schuster and Macmillan have opted to never license e-books to libraries. And HarperCollins has decreed that its books will "self-destruct" after 26 check-outs, forcing libraries to buy them again.

Finally, as GigaOm's Mathew Ingram asks, "Who owns the books?" What happens when publishers change their terms of use? When you actualy own a book on the bookshelf, that's not an issue. When it's a digital book, licensed to you, it's something else entirely.

What About ePUB?

The announcement may have other implications as well, as libraries will now have access to Amazon's (proprietary) Kindle file format in addition to the open format ePUB. ePUB, available as both DRM and DRM-free, has been the primary format in which libraries have distributed their e-books. While ePUB files work on other e-readers and e-reader apps (on the Nook, on Kobo, on Stanza, and on Sony's e-reader, for example), Amazon has not supported ePUB on the Kindle (as a delivery format).

Will Amazon now support ePUB? That seems unlikely. Will Amazon use Adobe Digital Edition's DRM services on ePUB? Again, unlikely. Amazon already has DRM "baked in" to its e-book format.

What will happen, then, to ePUB now that Amazon brings its own format and DRM into the library market? According to Mike Cane, in a rather provocative statement, "ePUB is dead."

That's certainly a better headline than "the library is dead."

Of course, declarations of "this changes everything!" and "X killed Y!" are often overblown. But it's hard to argue that the move of Amazon into the book lending space is likely to have major ramifications for libraries. Librarians hope it's for the better, but their early reactions to the news may be more cautious than optimistic.

Photo credits: Austria National Library

Miami University's Augmented Reality Research Group (MU ARRG! - that exclamation point, I confess, is my addition), led by Professor Bo Brinkman, has developed an Android app that could save librarians a lot of time and hassle. Using the Android's camera, the app "reads" a bookshelf, and with an AR overlay, quickly flags those books that are misplaced. It will also point to the correct place on the bookshelf so the book can easily be re-shelved correctly.

The app can also aid with inventory, generating a report of what a library really has on its shelves.

There are a few drawbacks. Thin books, such as those found in the children's section, would be difficult to tag. Also, this prototype only uses 16 bits on the tag, but Brinkman says the group is working on a version that would allow them to put around 72 bits on a tag, allowing the system to scale up to work with any library collection.

The app was developed by undergraduate research assistant Matt Hodges, and it will be demoed next month at the Association of College and Research Libraries 2011 conference.

via Reddit; photo credits: Flickr user Stewart Butterfield

But imagine, if you will, a publishing company - oh, let's say HarperCollins - telling libraries that after checking out a book a certain number of times - oh, let's say 26 - that they've reached the cap on loans. The book can no longer be shared, and libraries need to return the copy or buy the book again.

Sound crazy? Well, that actually is the new policy for HarperCollins, reports Library Journal, detailing the new terms for its e-book loans via OverDrive, the main e-book distributor for libraries.

"To provide you with the best options, we have been required to accept and accommodate new terms for eBook lending as established by certain publishers. Next week, OverDrive will communicate a licensing change from a publisher that, while still operating under the one-copy/one-user model, will include a checkout limit for each eBook licensed. Under this publisher's requirement, for every new eBook licensed, the library (and the OverDrive platform) will make the eBook available to one customer at a time until the total number of permitted checkouts is reached. This eBook lending condition will be required of all eBook vendors or distributors offering this publisher's titles for library lending (not just OverDrive)."

Potash's letter doesn't specify HarperCollins by name, but the publishing company has confirmed to Library Journal that these are, indeed, its new terms for lending e-books. The new cap for the number of times an e-book can be loaned will be 26.

The publishing company has issued a statement, saying that it "is committed to the library channel. We believe this change balances the value libraries get from our titles with the need to protect our authors and ensure a presence in public libraries and the communities they serve for years to come."

Librarians are, not surprisingly, up in arms over the announcement. (You can follow the hashtag #hcod hashtag on Twitter.)

We've written several times here at ReadWriteWeb about the future of libraries and e-books. It's an important issue - as more and more library patrons are keen to borrow digital books - but a complicated one - as the publishing industry has, in many cases, been reluctant to make the move to e-book lending. It's worth noting that two of the largest publishers, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster, still do not make their e-books available for libraries to loan.

As frustrating as e-book lending policies are for consumers' personal copies, the stakes are significantly higher for libraries. Already facing budget cuts and crises, many libraries are struggling to keep their patrons happy with e-readers and e-books. The answer, according to HarperCollins it seems: just buy more printed books.

The "Rylands Koran of Kansuh al-Ghuri," with pages that measure three feet by two feet, is believe to have originated in Cairo from the library of Kansuh al-Ghuri, one of the last Mamluk Sultans of Egypt.

The digital artifact will be freely available on a dedicated website using Turning the Pages, a book viewing technology pioneered by the British Library.

What does the study of a specific book, especially an iteration of one of the world's great religious texts (not exactly in short supply) teach us? Among other things, the study of a lush example can give us access to attitudes toward art, calligraphy and ornamentation. Those in turn can give us a window into attitudes toward life in general and religion in specific.

Two leaves that were missing from the Koran were later found at Ireland's Chester Beatty Library. The scanning program will allow those leaves to digitally relaid into the book.

The entire project is being chronicled on the blog Gateway to the Koran of Kansuh Al-Ghuri.

Scanning photo from Gateway | other sources: Daily Mail, ResourceBlog

Yes, if your library uses Adobe Digital Editions for its e-books and if you have the Bluefire Reader app. The app, available for free for iPhone and iPad, allows you to access the digital version of the books you check out from your (participating) local library.

As we've noted before, the DRM restrictions on e-books can complicate the ability for libraries to make them accessible to patrons. But the Adobe Digital Editions and the Bluefire Reader app address this issue.

By using the Adobe Digital Edition, the Bluefire Reader app will also allow you to transfer books that you've purchased from many different booksellers between your various reading devices and personal computers.

In response to one of the questions posed on the homepage, project partner R. David Lankes explained the difference between this and an online directory like DMOZ.org. Instead of building out a directory of sites, the Reference Extract project will instead focus on answering "real questions around the world." By answering a lot of questions, the service scales up and generates a lot of "semantic richness" with which a search engine and other services can be built, says Lankes.

He also notes that the engine isn't really trying to compete directly with Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo as an everyday search tool. Although some people might begin searches directly from the Reference Extract homepage, the other search engines will end up returning results from the project and thus leading new users to click through for the answers they need.

That last bit sounds a lot like the model Wikipedia uses. Sure, you can search Wikipedia from its homepage, but you're more likely to Google something and end up on a Wikipedia page that appeared at the top of the search results.

However, unlike Wikipedia, Reference Extract won't simply focus on basic facts about people, places, or things, but will answer questions on a wide range of topics, just as librarians do today. In the end, the project may not out-Google Google, but it will lend something to search results that we've never had before: credibility.

Talis is a bit different than most web 2.0 startups we hear about. It is a 40 year-old technology company with a significant presence in the UK - nearly a quarter of British academic and public libraries make use of its software. Although the Web is a prominent feature of the organization, their primary focus is on data management.

Following web 2.0 trends, Talis has made an open technology platform that encourages collaboration and the use of large stores of Semantic data. They espouse the principle of the perpetual Beta, stating that: "Notions such as 'finished' or 'complete' have little meaning in this context." They even have a glassy, 2.0-style logo.

But, there is something different about the Talis ethos. From its faintly philosophical blog and an academic approach to 'evangelism', you get the sense that the folks behind Talis really understand the semantics they preach. Talis' idea of marketing is to promote the semantic web itself, rather than just trumping its own brand. They host podcasts with eminent figures in the blogosphere, and discuss with confidence the bleeding edge of Semantic Web technology.

The Talis Platform

Did I mention platform? Although there are many applications on the Talis website, its main focus is on the semantic platform it has built. The Talis platform is a field from which its various applications (and developers using the Talis Community Licence) can work their semantic magic. The Platform allows unstructured data to be quickly sorted and stored, making it especially useful to libraries and companies. Its Semantic elements are used in conjunction with data mining and fast search technology, meaning that after data is sorted and stored, it can be quickly and efficiently retrieved. In an interesting twist, the Talis Platform is not intended to disrupt the WWW, but to work with the nodal structure of the web - allowing systems already in use to access new forms of semantic data through their APIs and applications.

Basically, data in the Platform is stored in aptly-named structures called 'stores', which allow data to be accessed using metadata (machine readable descriptors utilizing RDF). This data can then be accessed and linked from the Web, allowing easy access to self-managed data stores, while still enabling the RDF Semantic components to sort and examine the data. Linked in with the semantic filtering and data-management is a strong control of data and their interrelations. Any element of the data can be matched and controlled, allowing access to relevant data rather than just returning simple search results. An example Talis gives for this is in a retail context: a product can be found in multiple stores; but using relevant retrieval, data can be returned for a specific store.

The upshot of the platform in combination with the Talis Community License is that semantic mashups can be created. One such, a Firefox plugin (image right) allows you to see which libraries across the UK hold a copy of the book you happen to be looking for on Amazon.

Alongside the semantic parsing and data management of the stores, Talis is constantly working on new ways to analyze the data. The Platform is constantly learning new techniques and can make inferences from user behavior and automatically discover relationships, thus bringing ever-richer results for data applications.

Talis Applications

Talis' own applications are wrapped up in the LMS (Library Management Suite) and some complementary products designed for academic, public, and specialist libraries. A quick Google search for "Talis Library" will return prominent British institutions making use of various elements of the Talis LMS or using Talis Platform technology alongside their pre-existing management software. Although there are many products listed on the Talis site (full list here), to an outsider it is difficult to distinguish them all.

Each Talis application seems to offer a particular perspective on library management. "Alto" is the integrated library management system which seems to support everything a library could need, including the management of business data and cataloguing. Talis also offers "Prism", which is an OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) that allows online access to a library's stock. They also have a messaging and a mobile product (called Talis Message and Talis Mobile respectively) which make library information easy to access. Many of the applications on the Talis platform are either Mashups or bespoke creations for a specified library's needs. A good example is Project Cenote (image below), which is an aesthetically pleasing interface for catalogues of books in stores, libraries and any other holdings.

Not being a librarian, I found it hard to make distinctions between some of the systems. For example: the main application, the LMS (Library Management Suite) includes Alto, which seems like a library management system in itself. It is very clear however that to Talis, libraries have multiple needs and so the company is determined to supply a product for every eventuality. Many of Talis' apps allow a library to put their content online in a user-friendly and easily-accessed format.

One interesting example of this is the  @ Your Library Wales interface. This is a portal being built by a third party developer using the Talis Platform and Web Services. It allows Welsh libraries to share their content while also providing other rich internet experiences, like travel information and library finders. Their landing page (see below) hosts content and links to the BBC, as well as links to other service-oriented applications.

Talis Evangelism

As mentioned above, the Talis evangelism team seems to promote the  Semantic Web as a notion; and it supports SW ideas and furthering of related technology. The company holds hour-long talks with figures from the vanguard of semantic development, and host several blogs as a discussion platform. Although obviously Talis-focused, these 'Talks with Talis' and the blogs don't simply spout marketing-speak. They are asking and answering questions about the furthering of Semantic Web - and they explore other unrelated tech to find possible relationships.

For me, the most interesting facet of Talis as an organization can be found in their Nodalities blog. Here, aspects of the Semantic web are presented, analyzed, and opened up for discussion regardless of where they are based. The lead article on 14th December was an announcement and discussion of the Amazon.com product S3 (Simple Storage Service). The quality of discussion on these blogs is phenomenal, and it is very refreshing to see a take on marketing which works this way. Dr Miller, who also hosts the "Talks with Talis", offers an academic perspective on the Semantic web, and tends to approach his posts in an almost lecture-like style. Topics within the library sector are covered under a separate blog - Panlibus - which also includes interviews with representatives in information architecture and data management.

One distinct downside to this approach, despite the benefits of being professional and evoking a sense of confidence in their field, is that the casual reader will find nothing which says exactly what Talis does. The discussions are in-depth and appear to be thorough, but it is not easy to find overview material - and if it does exist it often raises more questions than answers.

Conclusion: So, What is Talis?

Talis seems to be exactly what they say: an innovation company. They promote collaboration and work from a perspective of facilitation. Their main products are focused on library management, and this stems from their semantic technologies and data mining software. Their long heritage is blended with a leading energy and an understanding of the most current technologies across their sector. They even cover other companies innovations in their news.

Will you see the Talis name everywhere like you might a Semantic Web startup? I don't think so. But, if you've visited your local library, or logged into a campus ISS catalogue (at least in the UK), the chances are that you've come across Talis' innovations quietly enabling your search and research.