LISNews: Librarian News

You may have heard about Google's initiative to scan lots of university book collections and make them available through the Google Books service. Less well-known is an initiative by the Open Content Alliance (OCA) to also scan books, but to make them available to any search engine. The Triangle Research Libraries Network recently announced that they -- that is to say the libraries at Duke University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, and UNC -- will be joining the OCA initiative and making public domain books from university libraries available online.

Computer World Wonders E-readers offer heaper documents, faster updates -- so where are they? They say those few enterprises that have tried e-readers express enthusiasm. After all, e-readers can lower costs and provide previously unthinkable benefits such as putting easily updatable shelves of technical manuals in the hands of field workers.

"It's a win for us in terms of convenience, speed, saving paper and [lowering] mailing costs," said Adam Rothberg, a spokesman for publisher Simon & Schuster Inc., which not only sells e-books but also uses e-readers internally.

Ben Macintyre Says the printed book is the same object, in essence, that it always was. Music, film and television have all transferred rapidly to digital format; reading in short form - blogs, journalism, e-mail - has thrived on the web since its inception. But long-form literature has proved stubbornly resistant.

A reader who falls in love with a book, even if first read in electronic form, will still want to own it. Books do more than furnish a room: they are our intellectual companions.

Could the publishing industry get Napsterized? That was my first thought when I saw the marketing materials for the Atiz BookSnap, the first consumer device that enables you to 'release the content' of your books by transforming the printed words on the page into digital files that can be read on computers and handheld e-readers. Steven Levy from Newsweek discusses the prospects and implications of a new book scanning device for the retail market.