The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is also the world’s largest library in terms of total number of items it houses, holding over 150 million items in all known languages The Library’s collections include around 14 million books and a substantial amount of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 300 BC. In 2005, the British Library received a grant of £1million to change two of its reading rooms into the Business & IP Centre. The Centre was opened in March 2006 and is probably the most extensive collection of business and intellectual property material in the UK.

The British Library also houses a state of the art conference centre, accommodating conferences, product launches, lectures. The conference room can accommodate up to 255 delegates, and has full onsite technical experts.  In addition there are 5 other meeting rooms available, which can accommodate anything from 8-80 delegates. All the rooms have natural daylight, electronic blackout blinds, climate control and sound proofing.

The Barnes & Noble Nook reader might just shake up the stale e-book reader image the Kindle has in-part created. The Nook really seems like the device to beat, with the two touchscreens, 10 day battery life, WiFi and AT&T 3G, native PDF support. At the same price as the Kindle at $260 this product is certainly causing quite the stir.  The Nook, being built on Android, should also run Android apps natively, turning the Nook into more of a computing device than a standalone reader.

No one has to lose in this race. However, when it comes to standards and potential sales Amazon may have to change its attiutude towards sharing in order to beat the Nook’s “lending” functionality which allows users to “give” their books to other Nook users outside of their immediate circle.

I’m just glad to see a little competition. Amazon will be the better for it and B&N seems to know what people like.

[ Article source : CrunchGear ]