LISNews: Librarian News

I just finished reading this comprehensive and insightful article written by Stephanie Ardito for Searcher Magazine.

A full overview of e-books is presented, from its history dating back to the late 1960\'s to its current and future trends.
Links to e-books products and directories are included in the link to the article. -- Read More

Publishers Weekly reports that The Association of American Publishers\' has developed an \"action plan\" with regard to e-books that could be implemented by an association task force. The memberships goal in backing the study was to help the publishing industry \"seize the initiative\" in dealing with the fledgling e-book market, thereby preventing an outside entity from imposing its own standards on publishers.

Has the ALA started something like this? DO we as librarians need something like this? Are libraries ready for this future? -- Read More

The Chicago Tribune
has a nice report on E-Books, past, present and future.

\"
When Jim Sachs took a few magazines for a 12-hour airplane ride back from Hong Kong in the fall of 1995, he had no idea that his folly would spawn an entire industry. After reading through the magazines, he faced a long flight with nothing to do but stare at the seatback in front of him.

Sachs, then general manager of the technology group at Hasbro Inc., said he would have needed to fill an entire carry-on bag with books to have enough reading material for the flight. If all the books were digitized and stored on his laptop computer, he thought, how much easier would that be than hauling around a small library?

Too bad reading on a laptop wasn\'t easier.

-- Read More

Riding the Bullet\" Stephen King\'s new E-Book has been released for free on the Internet. The book widely available for a download-only (the file’s encryption disabled printing) fee of $2.50 through many online booksellers, or free from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.com, was a huge success, overloading many of the servers it was on when it was released. Unknown parties cracked the file’s copyright protections and released PDF versions that were available on many Web sites. Currents.net has more on this story

-- Read More