While doing my research writing course I came across an interesting concept Predatory Journals. And as a Librarian we need to educate the researchers on these low quality journals and how not to fall prey to them. 

Recently I had gone for an interview and I must admit it was for the first time I was tongue tied. The director of the institute left me speechless. His point of argue was he can appoint his receptionist for the post and train her in 5 days what is it you have as a librarian that I should entrust you with the library. I was angry with the way interview happened but it left me with an experience and made me think what is my worth as a librarian, what is it I have to do for the library that will make me stand out from other non professionals and its not just degree.

Gauthier Charrier, a student, stepped inside one of Paris's newest bookstores and wondered, “Where are all the books?“ “I saw this empty , open space -just a couple of stools -and I wondered, `Did someone mess up?'“ Charrier said.

None messed up.

The pronounced stock shortage inside the Librairie des Puf, run by the publisher University Press of France, or Les Puf for short, is not the result of an ordering mistake, but the heart of the shop's business model. There are books, but they are not delivered in advance from wholesalers. They are printed on request, before the customer's very eyes, on an Espresso Book Machine. On Demand Books, the company that manufactures the machine, chose the name as a nod to an activity you can complete in the five minutes it takes to print a book: Have a quick coffee.

Labelled, not so modestly , the “Gutenberg press of the 21st century“ by its creators, the machine sits in a back corner of the shop, humming as it turns PDFs into paperbacks. Customers use tablets to select the titles for print -adding, if they want to, their own handwritten inscriptions -while sipping coffee in the light and airy storefront in the Latin Quarter of Paris. “The customers are all surprised,“ said the shop's director, Alexandre Gaudefroy . “At first, they're a little uncomfortable with the tablets. After all, you come to a bookshop to look at books. But thanks to the machine and the tablets, the customer holds a digital library in their hands.“

Gaudefroy said, “I don't have to worry about space for the stock and I can offer readers as many titles as I want.“ And that is a lot of titles. All 5,000 books published by Les Puf are available, as well as an additional three million books compiled by On Demand Books, including titles from 10 large American publishers and the public domain.

Les Puf 's prestige in the industry has helped it secure even more titles. “What's really exciting is that, thanks to the on-demand model, we can revive old titles, which we previously hadn't bothered with because they'd only sell five or 10 copies in a year,“ Mr. Gaudefroy said.“On-demand, it's a new economy for us.“

Jun 14 2016 : The Times of India (Mumbai)

Ciara Nugent

Paris: NYT NEWS SERVICE

                                                       

Recently I received a call by a much harassed librarian friend. Her woes the company from whom she purchased library software for automation of her library has suddenly stopped software support. And as NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) were visiting her institute in few days and her software had stopped responding due to some technical glitch and it needed re-installation. Even after much persuasion the company didn't oblige as a result she had to take the help of her IT department people. Her problem must have got solved but it made me think that a Library after spending lakhs acquires a software and every year has to undergo maintenance contract from the company but if the company closes down or stops all support what will be the future of that software. 

As the quantity of data is increasing maintaining the data in one place becomes difficult. In order to manage the data of researchers many open source software are available to have all the data in one organised place. These are referred to as online reference or citation management software. By automating the data one can gather, manage, and cite online references and these reference tools facilitates a more efficient research process. There are many reference tools available which are open source. Of which i am discussing two reference tools Zotero and Mendeley.

It began in a little van two years ago. Today, Walking Book fairs has toured 20 States and reached thousands of people without access to books.

A truck full of books is one way to travel, and it’s not a bad way either. Satabdi Mishra and Akshaya Rautaray have been on the road for the past 70 days, and their India tour, covering 20 States and approximately 10,000 km in 90 days, is winding up. Soon, they’ll be back at home in Orissa, where they own a small bookstore, and where this story began.