Electronic Publications

Three years ago today we posted Ebook reading in libraries, by Millard F. Johnson, who wrote on the future of ebooks in libraries.

He proposed a national consortia of libraries start an Ebook reading club, and this idea:

My library (the Hussey-Mayfield library, Zionsville, Indiana) sends me 5 minutes of reading every day - but they only give two chapters. If I like the book, I can reserve it from the library.

So, it\'s been three years, what\'s become of eBooks in libraries? Have we made any progress?

Gary Deane reads in The Globe Investor that e-books may not be as down and out as we might think. While the mainstream public is blasé about "traditional" dedicated e-book readers, adoption of downloadable electronic texts is growing steadily among PDA users.

I know that I post a lot of stories here that I've heard on National Public Radio. Usually, I'm linking to audio on their website, because NPR only provides transcripts for a fee. According to the NPR Ombudsman's web page, though, this is about to change, at least for news on the Middle East conflict:

Due to the intense interest of NPR listeners in events in the Middle East, NPR will make available -- at no charge -- the transcripts and audio of reports about the Mideast produced by NPR in its newsmagazines and talk shows. As a service to listeners, NPR transcribes Morning Edition®, All Things Considered®, Weekend Edition Saturday, Weekend Edition Sunday, Talk of the Nation and Fresh Air. We do not transcribe other programs or hourly newscasts because it is cost prohibitive.


This portal at npr.org will evolve as we add material and expand the portal's archive. At present, transcripts and audio date from May 6, 2002.

I know at least one of our patrons who will be excited to hear about this!

This Slashdot Thread points the way to This Announcement from the Gemstar eBook Group. They say effective immediately, they will no longer be selling eBook devices and are scaling back the eBook operations and that they will ultimately be winding them down.

During this period, they will reduce the price of most books (including Hillary Clinton\'s popular new memoirs) to 40% off the publisher\'s suggested list price in appreciation continuing support and in recognition of the limited period.

Steve Fesenmaier writes "Check out Gilgamesh:
"A completely interactive digital library book" of ancient
Mesopotamia's most important literary product, which
combines browsable text with a recording of it being read,
animated pictures, and music. A "testbed product" for
multimedia software developed by the Poznan (Poland)
Supercomputing and Networking Center. Bandwidth intensive."

Troy Johnson writes "There is an article at CNet about some research on different technologies that HP is working on. One of the technologies is an always on camera that would capture everything you see and then you would select out the photos you want later. The other is some attempts make ebook reading equal to reading a paper book. "

SomeOne writes "Another Story on ePaper. Nature says the new stuff is less than 0.3 millimetres thick, flexible enough to be rolled into a tube just 4 mm across and can be viewed from almost any angle.

Wired Says it's not quite the dream of single-sheet, electronic newspapers or books that can display hundreds of pages of text, its creators said it's the first flexible computer screen of its kind.

"

The future of print books is in for an overhaul. The person who realizes this perhaps more than anyone is Edwardsville resident Bill Harroff, who will speak in Cairns, Australia, this weekend on (r)Evolutionary (e)Books."

"Titled "Book: from Creator to Consumer in the Digital Age," the conference will unite some of the world's leading innovators in publishing, editing, art, librarianship, printing, authoring, and information technologies to address the past present and future of the book."

"Harroff, McKendree College Reference and Information Technologies Librarian, and fiance Charlotte Johnson, director of user services at SIUE, will present a workshop on (r)Evolutionary (e)Books to their peers exhibiting the fast-paced turn of the book form." (from Edwardsville Intelligencer via Ebook Ad)

"Driven by her personal and professional passion, a Scottsdale special education teacher is the force behind a bill that would allow children with disabilities to get textbooks on electronic computer files."

"Mary Platner persevered until she finally got legislators to back a textbook accessibility bill. It's an amendment to Arizona's 1997 Braille Bill, which says that publishers who sell textbooks in Arizona must supply a computer disc from which Braille books can be produced."

"An estimated 40,000 students with learning disabilities, including autism, mental retardation, and orthopedic and visual impairments, would benefit from the amended legislation." (from The Arizona Republic via Electronic Book Web)

Wired has This One on writer Glenn Fleishman offered his book, Real World Adobe GoLive 6, as a free download.

Instead of the few hundred downloads Fleishman expected, the book was downloaded about 10,000 times in just 36 hours. And because he's charged incrementally for bandwidth, Fleishman estimates he could be billed $15,000 at the end of the month -- possibly a lot more.

This is a response to Peter Suber's article "Removing the Barriers to Research: An Introduction to Open Access for Librarians".

The author says that while the minimal cost of distribution, ensuring open access, can be met by institutions and archives, a strong commercial opportunity would exist for publishers (or rather, aggregators) to carry out all the other additional-value services.

Facts should be freely available, but commentary and selection are the added value of a subscription.

\"The information world is a very different place in 2003 than it was a few years ago. It is possible, for example, to find information more quickly and easily than ever before, using new tools, and drawing on sources of information unavailable or even nonexistent not so very long ago. People seeking answers or providing them now have many more options for \"question negotiation\", in the broadest Tayloresque sense. Consulting an information professional continues to be one of those options. In fact, such professionals can now be much more accessible via these new tools and technologies.\"

\"There has been a great deal of discussion in the professional literature about the reference interview and question negotiation. Among the most important are Taylor\'s notions of question negotiation (encompassing self-help and a variety of other modes of satisfying information needs). As yet, however, no universally accepted and satisfying definition exists for the term \"question negotiation\". (from D-Lib Magazine)

\"Most eBook authors are well acquainted with the frustrations of promoting electronic books. Anyone over the age of twenty-five grew up enjoying a love affair with paper, and electronic literature is viewed as a threat to the status quo. After all, the last real shake up to the publishing industry was the development of the printing press in the 1450s.\"

\"Read an eBook Week is registered with Chase\'s Calendar of Events, a day by day directory of special days, weeks and months used by event planners or anyone looking for a reason to celebrate. By having the week recognized in an official publication, eBook promoters acquire a legitimacy they didn\'t have before\" (from Ebookweb)

pv_sapl writes \"Snooping around on Slashdot today and found this. The Orginal article is here.
Are ther eany good books published for Microsoft Reader? \"

They say the prorgram removes the security from Microsoft Reader ebooks. Once the security is removed, it then allows the book to be converted to html, text or any other format. You can learn more Here.

Ender points us to This MSNBC Column by Michael Rogers, who takes a look into the future at some interesting new technologies that may impact libraries in the years to come.

He talks about a company called ePac who makes books, on demand, in a matter of seconds. They say they could use this on-demand print technology for all titles with small print runs; bookstores would just order one or a few copies printed at a time. The result: a major reduction in transportation, warehousing and inventory costs for publishers.

Ender sent over This MSNBC Story that says E-books bombed a few years ago, but they’re back, and now e-periodicals may be the next big thing.

Major publishers like AOL Time Warner, Random House and McGraw-Hill all reported that their electronic editions—across a polyglot set of devices from PDAs to laptops to Gemstar’s dedicated e-Book—were showing sales growth in double digit percentages. there are more than 40,000 titles available in various e-book formats, from over 400 publishers. And in the past few months, several companies have introduced library-lending systems for e-books—for the first time making it possible for a public library to circulate e-books with expiration dates (instead of due dates, as with physical books) so that the same title can be lent over and over.

Indystar.com Has This Story on The Johnson County Public Library and the new electronic book club memberships.

After you sign up, beginning Mondays and running through the work week, the library will e-mail members about five minutes of reading a day, starting with the beginning of the book.

If, by the end of the week, you get interested in the book and want to read more, the library has copies of the entire book available for checkout. The following Monday, the pattern starts again with another book. The library offers members opportunities to discuss the excerpts online.

E-content provider OverDrive has announced that they are releasing a new product, Digital Library Reserve, to help libraries provide easy access to their electronic media collections.

From Publisher\'s Lunch: \"Overdrive has announced a new secure, turnkey service for libraries that allows the lending of ebooks (as well as electronic magazines and newspapers) to patrons over the Internet. The program draws on the over 35,000 ebooks and materials already in their Content Reserve, as well as allowing libraries to \'integrate digital media into their existing collection from a variety of sources.\'\"

A Story From Business 2.0 on the new tablet PC's.

It turns out some well-known media outlets, both online (Slate) and off (the New Yorker), are working with MSFT to make their publications available via the new platform. They say the arrangements currently being discussed all but guarantee failure for Microsoft, its hardware manufacturers , and its publishing partners.

Naomi writes:

\"The Distributed Proofreaders Project is working to expand the number of public domain books
available for Project Gutenberg.

Individuals can sign up to proofread a single page at a time (after someone else scans it in). Then the pages are put together to create a whole book which has been proofread twice.

It\'s got a pretty good interface, and is remarkably easy.
\"