August 2009

Sometimes it is best to announce things in advance. Hopefully this is one of those times.

Coming up on LISTen #84 there is planned to be a discussion of regulatory limitations. The specific regulatory limitations to be discussed relate to why the wireless functions of the Kindles and the new Sony device are not usable outside the United States. We’ll be delving into some arcane history and talking about an intergovernmental organization that predates the United Nations through having been formed in 1885. While this may be more the territory of Hyperlinked History, sometimes such history can help explain tensions today.

We can forget things and overlook things. Compared to the mammoth news empires like Thomson Reuters, the Associated Press, AFP, and others we do not even equate to having a skeleton crew. Tips on stories and segment submission proposals are solicited. Callers in the United States who want to leave a message can use the Google Voice widget below to leave a message.

For those outside the United States, the Skype button below may be useful:

Segment submissions are potentially possible. Leave a heads-up through one of the two contact methods above and I will get back to you as soon as it is practical to do so. Be prepared to have an FTP space that I can access to download your file from.

With the Google Book Search Settlement’s September 4 deadline to object or file comments with the court fast approaching, libraries have ramped up efforts to have the deal altered. This week, the Urban Libraries Council (ULC), a member organization of medium and large public libraries called for changes in the settlement plan, as did New York State librarian Bernard Margolis, in a separate open letter to leaders in the library community.

GK Chesterton was once asked the typical question, “What book would you want to have with you if you were stranded on a desert island?” As many people know, his quick answer was, “Thomas’ Guide to Practical Shipbuilding.”

On that note there is a piece on NPR today called: Stranded? Three Books To Save Your Life

If you drive by Fourth Avenue and Spring Street on Wednesday, you might want to plug your nose: Seattle’s Central Public Library is getting trashed for science. And you can help says the Seattle PI blog.

“They absolutely love this building,” librarian Andra Addison said of the Boston researchers who will tag 50 pieces of trash with GPS transmitters there Wednesday.

The researchers, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology SENSEable City Lab, are inviting Seattle residents to bring a piece of something to throw away — be it in the trash or the recycling bin (“try to be original,” reads the invite) — from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Interesting question from Karen Coyle: The question surrounding the settlement is: are authors (as defined by the Author’s Guild) served by the Google/AAP settlement — yes or no? The bigger question, What is the future of the book in our civilization? is not on the table. Yet, in the end, that may be the question that is answered by this settlement, whether that outcome serves authors or not.

The Omidyar Network, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s philanthropic and investment organization, announced today that it will give the Wikimedia Foundation, parent organization of Wikipedia, a $2 million grant over the next two years.

Full story here.

I just love this title: Librarians On Loan To Kenya
Books are in short supply everywhere in Kenya, and that’s tough on a population of avid readers. But in its five years of existence, American Friends of Kenya has done more than donate 150,000 books. It has helped libraries organize and share them.

A team of librarians was deployed in an attempt to rescue hundreds of valuable documents and records damaged by a broken pipe at Louisiana State University at Alexandria.

Luckily for the librarians, the incident wasn’t real.

Only a few weeks ago Sony took the electronic book reader market by storm with its announcement of two new devices which undercut the popular Amazon Kindle by $100, but lacked the wireless connectivity of the Kindle. Sony’s latest announcement of a wireless-equipped ereader shows that the Kindle pricing is actually reasonable.

Sony unveiled the 3G ereader today. It will be available in December of this year at a retail price of $399- a price tag $100 higher than the equivalent Amazon Kindle. It seems that making a cheaper device than the Kindle is one thing, but that making a comparable device cheaper is a horse of a different color.

Full article here.

At a press conference in New York City this morning, Sony announced that it is cooperating with the American Booksellers Association, other retailers, and a variety of traditional and digital publishers to make available a universe of reading material in EPUB format compatible with Sony Readers. Among the sites offering EPUB content for sale to consumers will be more than 200 independent bookstores participating in the American Booksellers Association’s IndieCommerce site.

Beginning this Labor Day, ABA member stores on IndieCommerce’s new Drupal platform will have the ability to sell e-content in several formats, including the EPUB format protected by Adobe’s Content Server 4 (ACS4) digital rights management. In addition, Sony said that plans are underway to make its Reader devices available for purchase from all independent bookstores in time for this holiday season.