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Nice Job: MSN Goes Live with a Preview Version of Completely Redesigned Home Page

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Direct to MSN Home Page Preview

Overall, a much improved clean look to the page and after only a few minutes on the site we found it easy to navigate.

If you want to compare the old design with the new one, here are the links:

Old Design ||| New Design

Fast Facts (via the MSN Blog)

Most significant redesign in 10 years

Cut clutter and reduced links on home page by 50%

Neighborhood news and video is part of the home page

Cool! Easy access from the homepage to Facebook, Twitter, and Windows Live services

One of the options in the settings (top right on page) allows you to change the font size

Other Notes

A Bing search box is at the top of every page.

Other tabs on the home page include:

+ Movies
+ Maps
+ Jobs
+ Popular Searches
+ Shopping

News Content is divided into categories:
News, Entertainment Sports, Money, Lifestyle
Cursor over any of them and you’ll see more options (aka things to do)

Selecting “More” offers numerous additional features including video, real estate, and shopping

Access to the “Local Edition” is located above the green bar (right side of page).You’ll find news, a clickable map, a local directory, video (if available) and lottery numbers.

Greg Sterling from SEL offers more facts analysis.

45% of Bing’s traffic comes via the MSN portal

The new MSN will roll out globally over the next several months. Interestingly the look of the MSN portal may be slightly different country to country, depending on variables unique to each local market. Microsoft also says that it will bring the new MSN experience to mobile devices as well.

Source: MSN Blog, Search Engine Land

Direct to MSN Home Page Preview

Posted in Information Industry | No Comments »

Review: What Bing Does Best

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Access the Complete Review: What Bing Does Best

It’s difficult, if not impossible to run a few or more searches and say a search database (especially a general purpose one is the best) in all situations. Not only does each search engine have its own algorithm but there are numerous variables that can come into play like experience of the searcher, number of search terms used, advanced sytax, etc.

Last night we ran several web searches (we were trying to find an article) and received better results from Bing than we did from Google. However, more searching will undoubtedly take place and it’s very possible that Google will provide better results than Bing. This is why it’s not a bad idea to use more than one search engine making sure each one has a unique database. In other words, while AltaVista and AllTheWeb are still on the web they utilize the same database that Yahoo uses. This is also why learning about and using specialty search tools is worth some of you’re already busy time. Knowing that they exist before running a search on a general engine (to find them) can save you lots of time and add plenty of value. In other words, building your own virtual reference shelf.

When reading the conclusion of an otherwise positive Bing overview, Leslie Meredith, the author of the review, says to use Google for “research” and Bing for, “images, videos, shopping, travel and gossip.” Overall, that’s good stuff for Bing. However, it’s the use Google for “research” that gets to us. How about if you’re looking for images, videos, etc. Isn’t that research too? In your opinion, what’s wrong with Bing, we will call it “research search.”

OK, enough of that. Here’s quick look at what the review has to say about Bing.

+ Positive about the new image found each day on the home page and placing your cursor at different places on the image provides background.

+ Image searching: Positive comments about the continuous scroll and the tools to focus your search.

+ Video Search: Also positive mentions how you can place your cursor on a static video image and immediately a 30 second sample is played (with audio) without having to depart the search results page.

+ Finally positive comments about shopping search (cashback program) and travel search (fare predictor).

Unfortunately, there is no mention of Bing Maps and of it’s useful imagery. The the “Bird’s Eye” view will let someone giving a speech receive and ooh and ahh from the audience. (-: We mentioned it and shared a few examples in this post from yesterday.

Access the Complete Review: What Bing Does Best

Source: Live Science

Posted in Search News, Web Search | No Comments »

Social Networking Meets Ambient Intelligence

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

From the Story/Announcement:

Sharing small snippets of information about your daily life is a key feature of the online social networking revolution. Soon status updates and other social information could be generated automatically.

A team of European researchers are working on merging the instant sharing of social information, popularised by networking and messaging platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, with emerging ambient intelligence systems that use sensors and smart objects to create awareness of users’ whereabouts and activities. Combined, the two technologies promise to provide pervasive awareness, a powerful new way to stay in touch with friends and relatives, whether they live down the street or on the other side of the globe.

“The theory we developed as the basis for our work is that social connections between people are enhanced by both the number and the quality of the interactions between them. Pervasive awareness systems can support and improve this social communication,” explains Achilles Kameas, a senior researcher at the Research Academic Computer Technology Institute (raCTI) of Patras, Greece.

Kameas coordinated the EU-funded ASTRA project, which brought together researchers from multiple disciplines, including psychology, interaction design, knowledge engineering and computer science, to take social networking to the next level.

Users of a social networking platform based on the ASTRA approach, for example, would rarely have to post status updates manually to let their family know what they are doing or where they are. Surrounded by smart objects and sensors in their home or office, the system continually updates their status information, automatically telling friends that they are unavailable to receive a phone call while they are busy cooking or that they do not want to be disturbed during a business meeting.

Much More in the Complete Article Including a 6:50 second video titled, “A Connected Day”

Source: ICT Results

Posted in Social Media, Technology and Internet | No Comments »

Bibliotheca Alexandrina: A Digital Revival

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is one busy place. If you want to learn more read on through our highlights but make sure to read the complete article. Our highlights is just a sample of what’s going on.

From the Article:

The International School of Information Science (ISIS) a research institute affiliated with the BA [Bibliotheca Alexandrina], aims at furthering the BA’s goals of being a leading institution in knowledge dissemination and, specifically, promoting research and development related to the digital libraries. Toward that goal, ISIS has embarked on an array of ambitious projects, in partnership with world-class institutions. These include hosting a mirror site for the Internet Archive, participating in the Million Book Project, organizing the digital archive of the Gamal Abdel Nasser collection, digitizing 113 years of Al-Hilal magazine, presenting the first-ever complete digital version of Description de l’Egypte, conducting advanced research such as the Arabic component of the UN-sponsored Universal Networking Language computerized multi-language translation program, and offering the most advanced 3D virtual imaging techniques in a virtual immersive environment for science and technology applications. Thus, despite being barely seven years in existence, the BA already has a substantial record of achievements.

Among the other projects you’ll read about are:

+ The Digital Assets Repository (DAR)

+ Memory of Modern Egypt Digital Repository

+ Archive documenting the history of the Suez Canal

+ SuperCourse

To empower science educators worldwide, the BA is working with a team of specialists, in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh, to launch the first science SuperCourse, comprising thousands of PowerPoint lectures made available for free to teachers and lecturers, who can use the lectures as they see fit in their teaching of science. The SuperCourse has been effectively implemented in the area of Public Health and Epidemiology, with a network of 65,000 scientists in 174 countries, providing more than 3,500 lectures in 31 languages. The BA maintains a mirror site of SuperCourse, which receives an average of one million hits per month, and is working on setting up a similar course in all fields of science.

Much More in the Complete Article

Source: EDUCAUSE Review
Hat Tip: OAN

Posted in Digital Preservation, Digital Repositories, Digitization Projects, Info Management and Retrieval, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »

How to access newsgroups when your ISP dumps Usenet

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

How to access newsgroups when your ISP dumps Usenet

Verizon recently joined the likes of Comcast and Time Warner, becoming the latest Internet service provider to stop giving its customers access to newsgroups on Usenet, a decades-old collection of thousands of message boards worldwide.

In announcing its decision, Verizon mentioned a Web site that lists third-party commercial “news servers” that provide Usenet access for around $10 a month. Some offer free or low-cost trials.

What Verizon didn’t tell customers is that they can get free access to Usenet and other types of message boards through Google Groups. A Web-based service like Google isn’t as convenient as using news reader software, such as Windows Outlook Express or Windows Mail. But unlike with software, you can use Google to search the so-called Usenet archive, a database of more than 800 millions posts going back to 1981.

You also may find free news servers by searching the Web. We found a couple of sites that list them, including Newsparrot and the DMOZ open directory project. Some of the information we saw was out of date. But on Monday, we were able to post messages through one free server, news.gmane.org. For information about adding a news account, check your newsreader’s help files.

Source: Consumer Reports Money & Shopping Blog

Posted in Access to Information, Resources, Search News, Source File, Technology and Internet, Web 2.0, Web Search | No Comments »

Transitions in Scholarly Communications

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

From the Announcement

The scholarly communications landscape has been transformed over the past few years, in the UK and across the world. Technological change has brought – and continues to bring – profound changes in the roles that researchers, funders, research institutions, publishers, aggregators, libraries and other intermediaries play in disseminating and providing access to quality-assured research outputs, in their goals and expectations, and in the services they provide and use. There are shared ambitions for significantly enhanced access, but no consensus on how best to achieve it.

Understanding the nature and implications of these changes, and the interrelationships between them, is thus of critical importance if we are to exploit the potential of new technologies and services to the full. The Research Information Network (RIN), the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), the Publishers Association (PA), the British Library (BL), Research Libraries UK (RLUK), the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL), SPARC Europe, Research Councils UK (RCUK), Universities UK (UUK), the Wellcome Trust and others have been working to this end. They are now seeking to establish a joint portfolio of work to underpin and facilitate transitions over the next few years.

The joint portfolio will focus initially on four projects, though more may follow (details about each in the announcement):

+ Transitions to e-only publication

+ Gaps in access

+ Dynamics of improving access to research papers

+ Futures for scholarly communications

Again, details about each of these projects available here.

Source: British Library

Posted in Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

Report Preview: CIBER Completes Global Survey of Library Concerns, Challenges Trends, and Best Practices in Tough Economic Times

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

CIBER research group at University College London today announced the completion of its global library survey that concerns challenges, trends, and best practices in tough economic times.

To register for a free copy of the complete report visit this page. It’s scheduled to be released on Thursday at The Charleston Conference during a presentation by executives from CIBER, YPB, and ebrary.

What Follows are a Few Key Findings From the Study:

+ The current financial year is a tough one for academic libraries, with 34.7% of institutions receiving a total library budget that is at least 5% smaller than the previous year (excluding inflation).

+ The outlook in two years’ time is mixed, with 31.4% expecting their total library budget to be smaller than in the current financial year, 40.1% about the same, and 28.4%
expecting an increase.

+ Overall, resource budgets are more vulnerable than personnel, services or infrastructure, with monographs and print journals being the most vulnerable to cutbacks.

+ When trimming their resources budget, libraries were least likely to cut e-books, followed by electronic-only serials and database subscriptions.

+ 52.5% of libraries view the acceleration of print to digital as the most effective option for balancing their budgets, with subscription as the most popular method.

A total of 800 libraries (academic, government, public, and others) from around the world participated in the study.

Summary ||| Register for Full Text (Free)

Source: ebrary

Posted in E-books, Information Industry, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »

Google Adds Page Previews Feature

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Over on Search Engine Land, Barry Schwartz points out that Google has added a “page preview” feature that allows the searcher to see what a page looks like before clicking on the link.

Barry’s post includes screenshots. However, Google previews are easy to access (assuming they’re available). Run any Google Search expand the “Show Options” link right below the search box. At the very bottom of list you should spot “page previews.” Click the link and now, if available (at this point, page previews are not available for every page), a static image of the page should appear to the right of the title, snippet, and link.

The Search Engine Land post mentions that page previews are far from a new phenomenon.

Ask.com used to offer them and Clusty continues to provide previews. In fact, they were available even before Vivisimo’s meta search tool was rebranded as Clusty. We still think they are a very powerful tool. run a Clusty search, next to each result title notice the magnifying glass, click it and a live version (you can actually click the links) of the result is embedded directly into the results set. Click it again, and it’s gone.

Exalead continues to offer to page previews. It’s something they have been doing for years. First, you can add “previews” of your favorite pages on Exalead home page and each result also contains a preview image. Here’s an example.

Last Friday, we mentioned a new beta of a metasearch tool from the National Institutes of Health Library. This database from Web4Lib also provides the embedded page preview option.

As Barry Schwartz points there have been and continue to be several add-on tools that offer page previews/thumbnails. Two add-ons for Firefox that are still available Better Search and SearchPreview (works for Bing, Yahoo, and Google).

Finally, one tool we use all of the time is CoolPreviews. With it you can simply cursor over any link on any page and see the view the page in browser window. Since the page is live, all of the hyperlinks are active. CoolPreviews is free and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. We think if you try it, you’ll like it. (-:

UPDATE: We failed to mention that Bing offers video previews. Yes, video. Run a video search and place your cursor of a result. Approximately 30 seconds of the video will play (from various points within the clip) with audio. Clicking the speaker icon will mute the sound. Cool!

Hat Tip: Dan Giancaterino

Posted in Search News, Search Tools | No Comments »

More Digitization Underway: This Time Footnote.com is Digitizing the U.S. Census from 1790-1930

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Footnote.com is once again partnering the National Records and Administration Agency (NARA) to digitize massive amounts of content and then make that material available, often for a fee, available online. Footnote is becoming–and for some has already become–and important resource for historians, genealogists, students, and others.

This time around, Footnote.com, is digitizing all publicly available Census materials from 1790-1930. These dates represent the period when all materials (including names) from a given census have been made publicly available. Through its partnership with NARA, Footnote.com will add more than 9.5 million pages of content when the census database project is complete. We’ve learned that Footnote.com is digitizing all of this material on their own.

From a Footnote.com Blog Post:

With over 60 million historical records already online, Footnote.com will use the U.S. Census records to tie content together, creating a pathway to discover additional records that previously have been difficult to find.

The Interactive Census Project Home Page offers much more detail and examples. You can also create email alerts when new states are added to the census database. On the lower-left side of the page you can track the progress of each census has been digitized. As you’ll see, the 1860 census is complete and the 1930 census is just about done.

Searching is free, Footnote provides numerous options to refine your search (here’s an example). Accessing the complete record is fee-based either subscribing to the database for a annually or monthly. You can also by individual documents for $2.95. Btw, Footnote.com also sells institutional access to libraries through EBSCO.

Footnote looks at the census project as a “highway” to assist the researcher in finding more information in other databases.

If you’ve been reading ResourceShelf for a while you’ve seen an increasing number of mention their services. Here’s a list of a few of them,

+ In August of 2009. we posted on the release of a joint project with the National Archives (NARA) to digitize holocaust material.

+ In December of 2008, in a partnership with NARA, Footnote released the largest interactive World War II collection online.

+ In March, 2008 we posted about Footnote.com offering an interactive version of the Vietnam Wall.

Our first post about Footnote dates back to January, 2007.

If you run this search using the ResourceShelf database, you’ll be able to see and read all of our Footnote.com posts.

But wait, there’s more. A quick review of the Footnote “press room” offers up even more projects. You can learn about them here.

Posted in Digitization Projects, Genealogy, Geographic, History, Information Industry, Resources, Search News | No Comments »

Effective FOIA Requesting for Everyone: A National Security Archive Guide

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

From the Home Page

Government records are fundamental to understanding official policies and the decision-making processes of our leaders. They can be vital resources for a journalist following a breaking news story about government misconduct, a military veteran’s family seeking information about benefits, or a student writing a history paper. Government documents provide first-hand, real-time accounts of events as they unfolded, generally without the editorial filter that characterizes secondary sources like books and news articles.

This guide, Effective FOIA Requesting for Everyone: A National Security Archive Guide, provides a comprehensive overview of how to obtain documents from federal executive branch agencies. It focuses primarily on the Freedom of Information Act process. But it also briefly treats other means of accessing government records, including through publicly available sources and through the Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) process for obtaining previously classified records.

Access the Guide By Chapters (PDF) or Download the Complete Guide at One Time (122 pages; PDF)

Source: National Security Archive
Hat Tip: David D. and Net-Gold

Posted in Access to Information, Legal | No Comments »

Browser Wars: Chrome and Others Nibble Away IE Usage

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

From the Article:

Google’s Chrome is still the fourth-place browser in terms of usage, but it gained more than others in October when it comes to stealing usage away from the dominant Internet Explorer.

According to Net Applications’ browser usage share statistics, Chrome gained from 3.2 percent to 3.6 percent from September 2009 to October. The company bases its statistics on visits to a global network of 40,000 Web sites, dusted with some statistical processing.

Next was Mozilla’s Firefox, which rose from 23.8 percent to 24.1 percent. Apple’s Safari rose from 4.2 percent to 4.4 percent. Opera was essentially flat at 2.2 percent.

The big loser was IE, which dropped from 65.7 percent to 64.6 percent, according to the statistics.

Much More in the Complete Article

Source: CNET

Posted in Technology and Internet | No Comments »

U.K.: Illegal Downloaders of Music Also Pay for Content

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

From the Post

Those who claimed not to use peer-to-peer filesharing sites such as The Pirate Bay spent a yearly average of just £44 [$72/U.S.].

Almost one in 10 of those questioned aged between 16 and 50 said they downloaded music illegally.

However, eight out of 10 of that group also bought CDs, vinyl and as MP3s.

A total of 1008 people in the UK took part in the online poll commissioned by researchers Demos.

Much More in the Complete Article

Source: BBC

Access the Complete Report (via this Demos Slide Deck)

Source: Demos

Posted in Information Industry, Technology and Internet | No Comments »

Elsevier Announces Free Webinar Series for Librarians

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

From the Announcement:

Elsevier [has] announced it is partnering with several universities from around the globe to launch Scholarly Perspectives 2009, a webinar series for librarians and researchers. Senior researchers and librarians from the University of Aberdeen, Princeton University and HKU (The University of Hong Kong) will discuss best practices and share case studies on a range of topics including the strategies and tools needed to support multidisciplinary research as well as the role of Ebooks, among others.

Each live, 65-minute webcast in the Scholarly Perspectives 2009 series will focus on a key issue impacting today’s academic libraries and feature both a senior librarian and researcher from the hosting university as well as an Elsevier representative. A brief question and answer session will close each event.

Webinar #1: Research Without Borders: Interdisciplinary Research” – Hosted by the University of Aberdeen, took place today. We will try to find out if an archive is available.

Webinar #2: “A Life Science Lens: Connecting to Relevant Sources” – Hosted by Princeton University November 20th, 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. EST.

Topics scheduled:

+ Researcher case study: Framing the information retrieval challenge for the life scientist

+ “How can library services and expertise help address the Life scientist’s information retrieval challenge?”

+ “Using smart technology to accelerate life science research”

Webinar #3: “Enriching Research and Teaching Through Ebook Content” – Hosted by Hong Kong University, November 30th, 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. GMT

Topics scheduled:

+ Understanding the role of Ebooks in the research workflow”

+ Hong Kong University: Lessons learned from building the world’s largest Ebook collection”

+ “Course case study: A primer on building Ebooks into a course reading list”

Registration

If you are interested in registering for any one of webinars in the Scholarly Perspectives 2009 series or for more information, please contact Jessica Disch at jdisch@psbpr.com or +1-212-752-8338.

Source: Elsevier

Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Scholarly Publishing, Webcasts and Podcasts | No Comments »

Survey of Higher Education Faculty: Use of Print & Electronic Library Collections of Scholarly Journals

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

This new report was released today by Primary Research. The full text is fee-based but a few highlights from the report are available online.

The report is based on a representative survey of more than 550 higher education faculty in the United States and Canada. Faculty present their opinions on preferences for print or paper journal formats, degree of problems with archival access, use of url-catalog links to journals, extent to which their college library journal collection satisfies their scholarly needs, and frequency of database access and library visits. Data is broken out by 12 criteria including age, academic field or specialty, type of college, size of college, frequency of library use, and many other factors.

Here are Just a Few Findings From the Report:

+ Canadian faculty were more likely than American faculty to think of the paper copies as a waste of time – nearly 45% thought so.

+ In general, age was highly inversely correlated with the tendency to think of paper copies as wasteful and redundant when online versions were available.

+ Only 13.86% of faculty at research universities prefer paper to online journal formats.

+ Only a third of community college faculty express support for increased spending on academic journals while about 64.3% of faculty in MA/Ph.D. granting colleges expressed such support.

See Also: The Survey of Academic & Research Library Journal Purchasing Practices

Here’s another related fee-based report from a related Primary Research report.

Some Findings:

+ The libraries in the sample acquired a mean of more than 46% of their journal subscriptions in bundles of more then 50 titles.

+ The libraries in sample canceled a mean of 53 journal titles in the past year.

+ Mean spending on print edition only subscriptions was $130,721, less than a sixth of total spending.

+ About a quarter of the libraries in the sample believe that open access has already slowed the increase in journal prices.

+ 15.56% of the libraries in the sample have paid a publication fee on behalf of an author from their institution.

+ For 42.22% of the libraries in the sample, all new subscriptions to journals include electronic access.

+ More than 64% of the libraries in the sample keep track of their various journal subscriptions through use of a commercial software product.

+ In general, subscription agents seem to enjoy a relatively high level of customer satisfaction. On the issue of timeliness of service, none of the libraries in the sample said that they were highly dissatisfied with their subscription agent and only 2.22% said that they were dissatisfied.

+ Non-academic research libraries have done more than their academic counterparts to make sure that contracts renew at the same time. Smaller institutions, those with journal budgets of less than $100,000 per year, were less likely to make such efforts than libraries with higher budgets.

Source: Primary Research

Posted in Info Management and Retrieval, Information Industry, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

Semantic Search: The European Research Project Named MESH (Part 1)

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

From the Report:

But while there is a phenomenal amount of content, most of it is not that easy to find. Sure, text content can be skimmed or glanced, but audiovisual content has to be viewed in linear time. We cannot easily search inside a film or audio recording for relevant information.

That is changing, and one European project has created the first integrated platform for semantic search that can return results based on the content and context of film and audio files, as well as text.

But European researchers in the MESH project have developed an integrated platform which they say, for the first time, can combine semantic search – or search by the meaning of the words – and a host of associated tools to deliver more relevant information, from a wide variety of sources that can be accessed from an individual user.

[Snip]

These technologies are becoming common in particular knowledge domains, and more are emerging every day, but most relate to the concepts behind text-based documents. The MESH platform sought to use semantic search for every type of media.

On the way, it created some cutting-edge technology. “Our automatic annotation for video, for example, is state of the art,” explains Pedro Concejero, coordinator of the MESH project.

“The annotation system is capable of identifying the general scene setting, such as whether a video is a studio shot or a shot recorded on location. With adequate training, it can also detect (within some error margins) the general topic of the video, such as a scene about an earthquake or a flood. It can also find a number of salient objects within the scene, such as persons or fire, but cannot yet identify consistently objects with great variations in shape or aspect.”

One of the major challenges of the project was a product of its own success: It annotated too much information!

Much More fiin the Complete Report.

We will post Part II as soon as it become available.

See Also: MESH Project Home Page
Several videos are available.

Source: ICT Results

Posted in Info Management and Retrieval, Multimedia Search, Search News, Semantic Search, Technology and Internet | No Comments »

Lists: Amazon.com Unveils Best Books of 2009, Including Editors’ Top 100 Books of the Year

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Well, it really is starting to be year-end list season. Just one post below this entry is the is the Publisher’s Week year-end list.

Now, it Amazon.com’s turn with numerous list, some from editors others from customers based on sales.

From the Web Home Page

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced its picks for Best Books of 2009. This annual feature includes the Editors’ Picks for the Top 100 Books of the Year, Top 100 Customer Favorites, Top 10 lists for both editors and customers in nearly two dozen categories, including Literature & Fiction and Cooking, Food & Wine, as well as videos of the year.

It’s worth noting that twice near the top of the document Amazon.com points out that a “majority” of the titles on their Top 100 Books of the Year list are also available for the Kindle. It will be interesting to see next year at this time how many 2010 books are available for both the nook [coming soon from Barnes & Noble] and Kindle and which titles (if any) will be exclusive to one reader or another. Of course, there are other (with more coming) eReaders out there so we will have to watch closely to see what content is available for each device.

“Our editorial team spends the whole year reading new releases with our Best Books of the Year lists in mind, and every year it proves to be our most popular feature among our customers,” said Tom Nissley, senior editor of Amazon.com Books. “Deciding on our Top 100 Books can often get a little contentious, but [our emphasis] this year our choice for the Best Book of the Year, Colum McCann’s ‘Let the Great World Spin,’ was the closest we’ve ever come to a unanimous pick across the entire Amazon.com Books team. Many readers have already fallen in love with this moving story of New York City in the mid-‘70s, centered around Philippe Petit’s audaciously graceful tightrope walk between the Twin Towers, and we’re looking forward to sharing it with many more.”

Access the Complete List

Categories Include:

+ Top 100 Editors’ Picks

+ Top 100 Customer Favorites

Our top 100 customer favorites are ranked according to customer orders on Amazon.com through October. (Only books published for the first time in 2009 are eligible.)

+ Editors’ Top 10: Literature & Fiction

+ Editors’ Picks: Children’s Books (Picture Books, Middle Readers, Teens)

+ Customers’ Top 10: Mystery & Thrillers

+ Best Books of 2009 on Your Kindle
Editors Picks ||| Customer Favorites

MANY more categories (both “Editors Picks” and “Customer Favorites”) can be found in the left margin of the 2009 list home page. In that same location you’ll find links to lists from 2000-2008.

Source: Amazon.com

Posted in E-books, Information Industry, Lists and Rankings, Print Publications, Year End Wrap-Ups | No Comments »