Using the Naxos Music Library Apps

First, you must have a Naxos account with a username and password created through the CSP library's Naxos Link: http://csp.naxosmusiclibrary.com.ezproxy.csp.edu/student/login.asp

How to get the app set up

Link to Apple App - Only an iPhone app is available, but it can be downloaded to your iPad. It will just be the size of an iPhone screen.

Link to Android App

Why have e-book sales slowed?

Nicholas Carr writes about technology and culture.  In 2011, he won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction with his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.  I've always appreciated that Carr makes much of his insightful writing available through his blog Rough Type, and he has recently written some interesting articles dealing with e-books, "Will Gutenberg laugh last?" and "Used e-book, slightly foxed"

In that second article, Carr talks about the dizzying long-term tactical measures he thinks Amazon is taking to control the e-book market.  The article talks about Amazon setting up a system whereby the "rights" of used e-books can traded for a limited number of times (this might sound familiar to librarians who deal with the publishers of e-books!).  Earlier in the article however, he comments that there are "continuing signs that the e-book market is cooling" as the "rate of expansion" appears to be on a downward trajectory.  

In "Will Gutenberg laugh last?", he deals with this issue in more detail, noting that during the courses of 2012, "(a) the growth in e-book sales has slowed substantially and (b) print sales are holding up pretty well.".  Illustrating (a), he notes that, "annual growth in adult e-book sales dropped to 34 percent during the first half of 2012, a sharp falloff from the triple digit gains of the previous few years".  Illustrating (b) he points out data indicating "hardcover sales appear to be holding steady, increasing at about a 2 percent annual rate."

In short, the conventional narrative is being disrupted.  The growth rate of e-book sales is dropping much more abruptly than expected and print book sales, surprisingly, continue to rise. 

Carr shares more statistics in that first article, but what is perhaps most interesting are his proposed reasons for this:

1. We may be discovering that e-books are well suited to some types of books (like genre fiction)  but not well suited to other types (like nonfiction and literary fiction) and are well suited to certain reading situations (plane trips) but less well suited to others (lying on the couch at home). The e-book may turn out to be more a complement to the printed book, as audiobooks have long been, rather than an outright substitute.

2. The early adopters, who tend also to be the enthusiastic adopters, have already made their move to e-books. Further converts will be harder to come by, particularly given the fact that 59 percent of American book readers say they have “no interest” in e-books, according to the Bowker report.

3. The advantages of printed books have been underrated, while the advantages of e-books have been overrated.

4. The early buyers of e-readers quickly filled them with lots of books, most of which have not been read. The motivation to buy more e-books may be dissipating as a result. Novelty fades.

5. The shift from e-readers to tablets is putting a damper on e-book sales. With dedicated readers, pretty much the only thing you can do is buy and read books. With tablets, you have a whole lot of other options. (To put it another way: On an e-reader, the e-reading app is always running. On a tablet, it isn’t.)

6. E-book prices have not fallen the way many expected. There’s not a big price difference between an e-book and a paperback. (It’s possible, suggests one industry analyst, that Amazon is seeing a plateau in e-book sales and so is less motivated to take a loss on them for strategic reasons.)

He ends saying this

"None of this means that, in the end, e-books won’t come to dominate book sales. My own sense is that they probably will. But, as we enter 2013, I’m considerably less confident in that prediction than I was a few years back, when, in the wake of the initial Kindle surge, e-book sales were growing at 200 or 300 percent annually. At the very least, it seems like the transition from print to electronic will take a lot longer than people expected. Don’t close that Gutenberg parenthesis just yet."

Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_G._Carr

New Trial: PsycTHERAPY Clinical Videos

PsycTHERAPY is a database containing more than 300 videos featuring therapy demonstrations showing clinicians working with individuals, couples, and families. It is provided directly by the American Psychological Association. 

YOU MUST ACCEPT THE SECURITY EXCEPTION TO ENTER. IT IS A SAFE CONNECTION.

Access URL: http://ezproxy.csp.edu/login?url=http://psyctherapy.apa.org/
Trial ends: February 14, 2013

Introducing ILLiad for InterLibrary Loan

The library is implementing new software called ILLiad to manage InterLibrary Loan requests. You will login to ILLiad using your CSP Connect username and password, and you will use it to request journal articles, books not found in the CLICnet Catalog, and other materials. ILLiad allows you to submit requests, monitor the status of your requests, receive full text electronic documents, and view a history of your previous requests. Interlibrary Loan and ILLiad frequently asked questions can be found on this page: http://concordia.csp.edu/Library/policies/inter_lib_loan.html

Please contact the library with any questions at ill@csp.edu or 651-641-8770.

Streaming Music Database Available Through February

From now through the end of February, Concordia Library users will have access to the streaming music database Naxos Music Library. Naxos is the world´s largest online classical music library and offers streaming access to more than 79,660 CDs with more than 1,143,200 songs - both standard and rare repertoire - covering classical, jazz, and world music.

Professors can create and edit playlists that will be available to the general subscription populace. If you are a professor and are interested in this functionality, email Music Liaison Jennifer Carlson (jcarlson@csp.edu) or Electronic Resources Librarian Greg Argo (argo@csp.edu) for details and access instructions.

The number of simultaneous users is limited to 10 and the trial ends on February 28th, 2013.

Direct URL: https://ezproxy.csp.edu/login?url=http://CSP.NaxosMusicLibrary.com

New Database! Literature Resource Center

The CSP Library is pleased to announce a new database subscription that will serve as the go-to resource for literary criticism and information about authors and literary movements: Literature Resource Center from Gale. You will be able to find this database under the title Literature Resource Center in the Databases A-Z and Databases by Subject lists, as well as in various Subject Guides.

"Full-text articles from scholarly journals and literary magazines are combined with critical essays, work and topic overviews, full-text works, biographies, and more to provide a wealth of information on authors, their works, and literary movements"

Databases Trials: Criminal Justice Abstracts With Full Text and SocIndex with Full Text

Currently on trial are these two databases from EBSCO, Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text and SocIndex with Full Text.

About Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text:

Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text™ is the full-text counterpart of Criminal Justice Abstracts™, formerly a SAGE database. This resource includes bibliographic records and full text covering essential areas related to criminal justice and criminology. The increasing globalization of criminology is reflected in Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text’s coverage of hundreds of journals from around the world.

About SocIndex with Full Text:

SocINDEX™ with Full Text is the world's most comprehensive and highest-quality sociology research database. Its extensive scope and content provide users with a wealth of extremely useful information encompassing the broad spectrum of sociological study. The database features more than 2.1 million records with subject headings from a 20,000+ term sociological thesaurus designed by subject experts and expert lexicographers.

 SocINDEX with Full Text contains full text for 890 journals dating back to 1908. This database also includes full text for more than 850 books and monographs, and full text for over 16,800 conference papers.

Both trials end December 31st. Send feedback to Subject Liaison Karen Brunner: brunner@csp.edu or to the Reference Staff: reference@csp.edu