When you’re attempting to write a novel, an involved short story or a non-fiction book, you need some way to organize your ideas. None of us write very effectively by starting with the opening sentence of page one and proceeding in a perfectly linear fashion. As with any creative process there’s no one “right” way […]
Blog | Information Literacy, Research, Dayton History
Is Amazon Poised for World Domination? Is It Even Profitable?
Amazon is often portrayed in the media as an unstoppable behemoth indiscriminately crushing everything from indie bookstores to big box stores on its way to world domination. But recently more have started to question that narrative. Amazon’s July attempt at entering the smartphone market was a highly-publicized disaster, but critics are pointing to far more […]
Is Staring at Screens Too Long Harmful to My Health?
These days, not many of us earn our paychecks by laboring out in the fields or at a factory. The transition to a knowledge economy has resulted in some great advantages, but it also means that more and more jobs now consist of sitting at a desk all day starting at a computer. New research […]
Is Amazon’s eBook Subscription Service a Big Deal?
Last week Amazon launched a subscription service called Kindle Unlimited, immediately dubbed the “Netflix for ebooks” by just about everyone. It costs $9.99 per month to subscribe, which works out to be $120 per year. For that reasonable price you get unlimited access to a library of over 600,000 books as well as around 2,000 audiobooks. That […]
Can Smartphones Better Connect Us To, Not Distract Us From, the Real World?
Recently I wrote about location-based mobile apps and their ability to allow us to interact with our surrounding environment. Examples of this trend include “checking in” to a business, finding other people nearby or redeeming a special deal. Beyond possible issues with surveillance and ad targeting, this business of walking around using our smartphones raises another crucial […]
Taking a Virtual Field Trip: What’s the Appeal of Location-Based Apps?
Location-based mobile apps are a hot trend these days. These services allow people to use a smartphone to interact somehow with their surrounding environment, such as earning rewards and discounts for “checking-in” somewhere using the popular platform Foursquare. Other big-name apps that incorporate some location-aware features include OpenTable, Fandango and Yelp. And still others allow […]