Here’s an excellent, lengthy story from CNET surveying the state of ebooks. The article addresses why ebooks have not yet taken off, indicting heavy-handed and non-compatible Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes. Security is another issue that keeps many publishers from offering ebooks, with John Grisham and JK Rowling being two authors who refuse to allow e-versions of their titles. The biggest roadblock however, might be due to slow reader adaptation.
Current book reading habits are the result of centuries of accumulation, notes Gary Frost, conservator of the libraries art the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
Reading text on a screen and in search-equipped formats represents a profound behavioral shift, equivalent to the transition millennia ago from scrolls to multipage codexes, Frost said. Even digital enthusiasts will need time to adjust, he said.
The article also talks about improvements in ebooks and what many publishers and distributors are doing right.
Cataloging e-books in HS and Public Libraries
Part of the problem with e-books is that local libraries don’t catalog ’em. For example, during last “Black History Month,” my local public library bought extra copies of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and other books, anticipating the increased demand. Unavailingly, I suggested they catalog the e-copies of these books from the university of Pennsylvania (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/) or other sites, such as http://www.blackmask.com.
If the students had a choice between downloading an e-copy onto their laptop or PDA, or of walking or driving to the library to check a copy out (of a limited number of copies), they may have opted for the electronic version. But since the library catalog did not give them the option with a hotlink, they didn’t have the choice.
And there lies the problem. The library community will only catalog physical items on the shelves, and will not catalog to the electronic ones. While I am aware of vapour URLs, I also know that many e-books, especially pre-1923 classics, _do_ have persistent URLs, and should be made available as a choice in high school and public library’s catalogs.
And yes, in the spirit of openess, I also have an e-book that pays me royalties on http://www.netLibrary.com.
R. Lee Hadden
Wouldn’t want those books to get out.
John Grisham and JK Rowling being two authors who refuse to allow e-versions of their titles.
A friend of mine gave me a CD full of electronic text. It contains all the Harry Potter books and most of the Grisham books. If these two authors don’t want e-books because of possible piracy problems it is to late.
Re:Wouldn’t want those books to get out.
How would you determine the quality or accuracy of the books? Are the pages scanned so that they look like a regular book ?