LISNews: Librarian News

Read Herring.comhas a Story on MSFT\'s move into the E Publishing market, this could really change the publishing world.

\"With help from Michael Crichton and Star Trek, the Redmond, Washington, company plans this summer to distribute, via free downloads, new software that lets standard PCs display electronic books as crisp text and pictures. The technology may finally give the big publishers, such as Bertelsmann\'s Random House and Viacom (NYSE: VIA)\'s Simon & Schuster, reason to abandon paper in favor of bytes, at least for some types of work.\" -- Read More

This Story from Reuters will
give you a good idea of how the book publishing world
is acting and reacting to the E-Book market. Big
changes are coming in publishing, and books.

\"``We are experiencing a revolution in publishing
and bookselling and we still don\'t know how the dust
will settle, who will be the winners, or who will be the
losers,\'\' said Mark Dressler, president of the Crystal
River Publishing Group.\" -- Read More

After all the e-book news this week, ZDnet offers its perspective on the issue.
\"
One big publishing house entered the electronic book market Tuesday and two more joined with tech giant Microsoft Inc. to offer popular titles in a burgeoning market they say will revolutionize the way people read in the 21st century.\" -- Read More

Project Abstract: The publishing industry is at the doorstep of the biggest change since the invention of the printing press - the advent of the electronic book. Though the shift to a non-print environment has been occurring steadily, advances in electronic reading devices promise to accelerate this trend. Electronic readers now feature paper-thin screens that can be turned like pages and can hold several volumes. Print size is adjustable to suit the reader and books can be downloaded directly from the web at a cost lower than the print version. Though libraries represent a major portion of the customer base of publishers, no efforts have been made to establish products and pricing mechanisms to meet the unique needs of libraries.

Check it out at rrlc.org -- Read More