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Collection Development: Want a Non-Stop Stream of Recently Digitized eBooks to Choose From? Check This Out!

Friday, November 20th, 2009

A Never Ending “Virtual Stream” of Digitized Text
by Gary Price, Senior Editior

When Chris Sherman and I were writing and then giving book talks and presentations about The Invisible Web, we said John Mark Ockerbloom’s Online Books Page was an essential resource for anyone interested in digitized, full text books. Now referred by most as eBooks. More than eight years later I feel the same way about this awesome and well organized collection.

Where do you begin with a site so full of content? For me, that’s easy. Monitoring the latest additions to the catalog/page. I am always blown away by the amount of new listings (when does Ockerbloom sleep?) and the number of organizations digitizing books. If you think it’s only Google digitizing books (of course they are a major player) but not they’re far from the only one doing this type of work. Just look for yourself. The page even has an RSS feed.

So, the Online Books Page is not only a “must have” searchable directory of ebooks but it can also be a great collection development resource to find and add digitized content to your local collection/OPAC.

But wait, we’ve got more.

The Online Books Page new listings only includes some of the digitized text output from the Internet Archive (IA).

If you want to be able to review (at your leisure) all of the new digitized content text content that the IA produces, it’s possible by subscribing to this RSS feed. Even if you’re not going to review the titles, just let it run for a few days to see the AMOUNT of text material that’s digitized in variety of formats. It’s an understatement to say that the scanners at the IA are cranking it out on all cylinders. So, collection development types, subscribe to both RSS feeds and have a large virtual bookshelf to choose from each day. If you don’t do the collection development thing both feeds are useful to illustrate the amount of material being digitized each day, week, month.

UPDATE: Not an RSS user? No problem. Just visit this Internet Archive page and refresh it a few times a day. The most recent addition is at the top.

Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, Digitization Projects, E-books, Resources | No Comments »

Reading E-Books on Your Smartphone

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

From the Article:

Many people who want to read electronic books are discovering that they can do so on the smartphones that are already in their pockets — bringing a whole new meaning to “phone book.” And they like that they can save the $250 to $350 that they would otherwise spend on yet another gadget.

[Snip]

All of that activity raises a question: Does the future of book reading lie in dedicated devices like the Kindle, or in more versatile gadgets like mobile phones? So far, e-book software for phones does not appear to have cut into demand for single-function e-readers. According to the Codex Group, a consultant to the publishing industry, about 1.7 million people now own one, and that number could rise to four million by the end of the holiday season.

Source: New York Times

Note from Gary: I have a Kindle (first generation) but do most of my eBook reading using the Kindle for iPhone app. Yes, the screen is smaller but I want to be able to read in low light (before bedtime) and the Kindle doesn’t cut it. Attaching a booklight cover to the Kindle cover is possible. I’ve tried it and Amazon suggests it. But, IMHO it doesn’t solve the problem. For me, the light causes a glare that makes reading not very enjoyable. The Kindle for iPhone app lets you move around the eBook very quickly, offers the same note and highlighting features as the Kindle device does, turning pages is a breeze, and allows you to change the background color and the color of the text.

Posted in E-books, Wireless Web and Search | No Comments »

Two New Lists: 100 Free Audio Books and 100 Useful eBook Resources

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

+ 100 Useful Links for eBook Lovers

+ Free Audio Books You Should Have Read By Now

Source: OnlineCourses.org; OnlineDegrees.org

Posted in E-books, Resources | No Comments »

Book Review: The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future by Robert Darnton + Two Essays by Darnton on Libraries and on Google

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

Access the Complete Review (The Observer, November 15, 2009)

This review was written by Dinah Birch, professor of English literature at Liverpool University and editor of the latest edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature.

Here are a Few Snippets:

In this motley collection of essays on the history and future of the book, Robert Darnton points out that they have many practical advantages. Portable and accessible, they require no power supply. They have proved their durbility, while today’s advanced tools for storing data will be tomorrow’s dinosaurs. A new technology does not always replace an older one. The internet has not yet obliterated newspapers. The printed page is not about to disappear.

[Snip]

“Whatever the future may be, it will be digital” — Robert Darnton

[Snip]

He worries about Google’s “monopolistic tendencies” and the risk that greed for private gain will block any aspiration to public good. How are the interests of authors and publishers to be protected? Should Google be seen as a publisher? How might research libraries fit into the operations of Google Book Search? Will we lose irreplaceable details in the rush to transform volumes into bytes?

[Snip]

He identifies more questions than he is able to answer. But he is eloquent on the dangers of digitisation – for instance, that the dizzying expense of subscribing to electronic versions of leading science journals (often more than $20,000 a year) has had such an effect on accession budgets that university libraries now find it hard to buy books in other fields

The challenges are huge and demand a coherent response. Darnton’s thoughts are provocative, but his assemblage of essays, reviews and scholarly articles, many previously published in the New York Review of Books, doesn’t quite measure up to the task.

[Snip]

Darnton is not clear about who should read this book and why. The result is a muddle.

Source: The Observer

Robert Darnton has been the Director of the University Library at Harvard since 2007.

See Also: Full Text The Case for Books via Amazon.com
Here you can search the full text of the book and view a limited number of pages (as determined by the publisher) using Amazon’s “Look Inside” Feature. Free.

See Also: The Case for Books via Google Book Search
Info only. No Preview is Available.

Posted in E-books, Print Publications, Technology and Internet | No Comments »

Amazon.com the Publisher: AmazonEncore Will Publish Three Books in February, 2010

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Yes, Amazon.com or a division of Amazon.com is publishing books. The first release from AmazonEncore occurred in August, 2009. Amazon has just started their PR machine for three new titles to be published in February, 2010.

What is AmazonEncore in the first place? What are they publishing?

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced that AmazonEncore, the program that identifies exceptional yet overlooked books and works with the authors to re-introduce their books to readers, will be introducing three new books in February 2010: “Perfect on Paper: The (Mis)Adventures of Waverly Bryson” by first-time novelist Maria Murnane; “A Wish After Midnight” by Zetta Elliott, an American Library Association 2009 Notable Children’s Book author; and “They Never Die Quietly” by former book editor Daniel Annechino. These books were previously self-published via BookSurge [also part of Amazon.com].

Announced in May 2009, AmazonEncore is a program which identifies exceptional, overlooked books and authors that show potential for greater sales based on feedback gathered from Amazon.com’s readers, including customer reviews on Amazon websites. Amazon then works with the authors to re-introduce their books to readers by marketing and distribution into multiple channels and formats, such as the Amazon Books Store, Amazon Kindle Store, www.Audible.com, and national and independent bookstores via third-party wholesalers. AmazonEncore has released one title, “Legacy” by Cayla Kluver, in August 2009. AmazonEncore is the brand owned by Amazon Content Services, LLC.

Posted in E-books, Print Publications | No Comments »

Kindle for PC Software Now Available

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

On September 23rd, we posted that Amazon.com was going to release software allowing PC users to read their Kindle book purchases on a PC.

According to this post on Teleread, the software is now available. In a second post, Teleread’s founder and editor, David Rothman. shares his impressions of the Kindle PC software after a quick “test drive.” Overall, they’re positive saying that software “looks promising” but MobiPocket PC software surpasses Kindle in terms of “flexibility.” He also asks Amazon.com when will the Kindle be able to handle the ePub format?

As a first generation Kindle owner, we’re very happy to see this release. We find the actual Kindle device not the easiest tool to deal with in terms of the way content appears on the screen and also moving from one page to the next. There are more issue we can discuss at at another time.

We use the Kindle for iPhone app most of the time and find pages MUCH easier to read and navigate . Our wish for the Kindle is that back-of-book indexes get hyperlinked. Yes, in most cases the TOC is hyperlinked but not the index and we don’t need to tell the ResourceShelf readership that each has it’s own purpose. We’re not sure who is responsible for hyperlinkng content. If it’s Amazon.com, fix it. If it’s the publisher, fix it.

Right now, usability suffers from not being able to go to a specific place in a book without having been there before and bookmarking the page. Finally, we’re also interested in comparing the Kindle PC experience with other eBook services that are often found in libraries like ebrary, OverDrive, and NetLibrary.

And in case you were wondering, the Amazon PC Software page says that a Mac version is “coming soon.” However, no time frame is provided.

The official news release is here and you can download Kindle PC software here.

UPDATE from TeleRead: David Rothman Reports that You Can Download Kindle eBooks Directly to Your PC from Non-Amazon Sites–app lets you download Kindle e-books directly to your PC from non-Amazon sites—not just the Kindle Store.

Rothman Writes:

The good news, not evident to me when I first tested the software and wrote an earlier version of this review, is that, yes, you can download non-Amazon books through Kindle for PC from sites like Feedbooks. Firefox, Internet Explorer or other popular browsers will give you that format as an option.

“The books are then stored in the My Kindle Content folder in My Documents in unaltered .mobi or .prc format,” says GJN, who has tried the feature, as have I now.

“One can also move .mobi or .prc books to the My Kindle Content folder and they show up in your library. I like it much more now. If it could read .pdf file (haven’t tried that yet) and vary fonts, I’d be happy with it. By the way, it counts as one of the six Kindles you can have registered to your account.”

Source: TeleRead, Amazon.com

Posted in E-books, Information Industry | No Comments »

An eBook Reader Designed Specifically for Use in the Kitchen

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Over the weekend we posted a link to a massive chart with facts and figures about numerous eBook readers. It has the potential to be a resource you’ll be using a lot.

Today, the Austin Business Journal is running an article about the “Demy,” an eBook reader designed for use in the kitchen. Amazingly, it’s an eBook reader that’s not listed on the chart.

From the Article:

A 4-year-old Austin company is expecting the rising interest in electronic books to boost the sales of kitchen-based electronic recipe readers that were launched last year.

Key Ingredient Corp. is planning to quintuple the number of Demy e-reader devices it sells during the upcoming holiday season.

[Snip]

Just as Apple’s iPod supports the content sold on iTunes, the Demy supports Key Ingredient’s Web site.

[Snip]

The Demy, which sells for $299, was designed differently from conventional e-readers because it needs to be more durable for the kitchen, [CEO David] Goodman said. As a result, it operates without buttons and stands on a countertop, enabling the user to flip the screen vertically or horizontally.

Source: Austin Business Journal

See Also: The Demy Web Site

Posted in E-books | No Comments »

The Library as eBook Provider

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Project Gutenberg News has posted an item about the growing popularity of eBook access from libraries.

Here are a few stats included in the post:

+ The New York Public library currently offers over 17,000 eBook titles, just a fraction of their 800,000 circulating print titles. Comparing these numbers, it’s obvious that eBook acquisitions still represent a small percentage of their budget.

+ eBook circulation is expanding at an amazing rate. eBook checkouts have increased to more than one million in 2009, up from 600,000 in 2007, according to OverDrive.

There is also discussion of issues confronting libraries and eBook usage. Two issues in particular:

1) Trying to keep up with new readers [This Might Help]

2) Publishers

Access the Complete Project Gutenberg News Article

Source: Project Gutenberg News

Posted in E-books | No Comments »

An Interview with Project Gutenberg Founder Michael Hart

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Andrea Kobeskzo recently interviewed Michael Hart and now you can read the Q & A interview on the Project Gutenberg News Portal.

Here’s an interesting passage when Kobeskzo asks Hart about how Project Gutenberg has evolved over the years (PG began in 1971). Hart says:

Believe it or not people were still saying eBooks were never going to make it just a few years ago. Look for a quote in the Wall St. Journal: “Ebooks are never going to make it.” Before that the NY Times: look for: “twitchy” screen. However now that it’s obvious they are moving eBooks on their own, but I can’t tell how serious they are. They may just be following the rule of simple reporting: “Follow The Money.” If eBooks fall flat will they all just move on and pretend there was never any interest?

The first goal of PG was just to prove eBooks feasible. My own estimations were that it would take about 10,000, and that seems to have proved correct as Google called me in to advise them ASAP after we hit 10,000, and we went to do just that on December 14, 2003: and they announced they had invented eBooks and eLibraries December 14, 2004. However, they did the opposite, or rather exact opposite of what I said they should do and look what happened. Most of the big legal fray is because they were more money oriented, and as such may have intentionally played the copyright cards that got them in the big legal hassles. If they had started out by emphasizing the public domain it probably would have worked out a lot better for them in the press as the good will they would have built up would have gone a long way.

Personally, I am OK with nearly any eBook format that is compact and search quote friendly.

Access the Complete Interview

Posted in Digitization Projects, E-books, Information Industry, Technology and Internet | No Comments »

Facts and Figures: A Comprehensive Matrix of eBook Reader Info

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

It’s likely that eBook readers will be a popular item this holiday season. It’s also likely that library users and even our friends will turn to information professionals for help in deciding which one to purchase. We’ve also read about some libraries purchasing eBook Readers. Whatever the case, info pros should become familiar not only with eBook content but also with the tools needed to access and use it.

So, make sure to take a look at the MobileRead Wiki E-Book Reader Matrix. It’s loaded with facts (e.g. the formats a reader can handle) and figures (e.g. battery life) about A LOT of eBook readers.

Source: MobileRead Wiki (A Part of the MobileRead Web Site)

See Also: An Excellent Resource for the Latest eBook News and Info is TeleRead.org.

See Also: New: MetaEbooks.com
Metasearch multiple ebook providers including free service like Project Gutenberg. A new service from AddALL Book Search.

Note to MetaEbooks: Why not add the 1.7 million titles from the Internet Archive ? The same goes for titles available from The World Public Library,, International Children’s Digital Library, and the more than 20,000 free titles (recently published titles) from ebrary Discover.

See Also: AddALL Book Search
Compare availability and pricing by searching 40 databases simultaneously.

Posted in E-books | No Comments »

October Rankings Published: The Most Popular Downloaded eBooks and Audiobooks from Libraries Using OverDrive

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

OverDrive has updated their rankings page to reflect the most popular downloaded titles from libraries using OverDrive during the month of October.

Access the Complete List

The complete list includes the Top 10 eBooks or audiobooks in eight categories. Most audiobooks include an excerpt. You’ll find it by clicking a title link and looking on the right side of the page.

What follows are the number one audiobooks and eBooks downloaded in each of the eight categories.

This October, 2009 data comes more than 9,000 libraries that use OverDrive.

Download Audiobooks – Adult Fiction
1, The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown (Books on Tape
Two months on list and second month at #1 in this category)

Download Audiobooks – Adult Nonfiction
1. Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell (Hachette Audio)
22 months on list.

Download Audiobooks – Juvenile Fiction
1.Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer (Listening Library)
22 months on list.

Download Audiobooks – Juvenile Nonfiction
1.Night, by Elie Wiesel (Audio Bookshelf, LLC)
22 months on list.

Download eBooks – Adult Fiction
1. The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group)
2 months on list.

Download eBooks – Adult Nonfiction
1. Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown and Company)
22 months on list.

Download eBooks – Juvenile Fiction
1. New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
22 months on list.

Download eBooks – Juvenile Nonfiction
1.Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson (Penguin USA, Inc.)
9 months on list.

Access the Complete Rankings

Source: OverDrive

Posted in E-books, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »

Internet Archive Founder Brewster Kahle Profiled in Forbes

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Brewster Kahle has many titles. These days he’s best known as founder of the Internet Archive (home of The Wayback Machine) and founding member of the Open Content Alliance.

From the Article:

“We have to have universal access to everything, just like a library,” he says. “Do we want that under a single corporation’s control? It is openness, not corporate control, that propels capitalism.”

[Snip]

Digital libraries will shape education, creativity and our shared intellectual heritage, Kahle declares. As founder and director of the Internet Archive, Kahle has posted online digital copies of 1.7 million books, 100,000 hours of television, 200,000 video clips, 70,000 concerts and 415,000 audio recordings. All that material can be downloaded for free from the Archive’s Web site.

[Snip]

Bookserver* uses a range of open source and proprietary electronic book standards, search algorithms, editing tools and libraries. The architecture, as Kahle calls it, potentially separates manufacturers of devices from control over much of the content inside them. It also preserves the idea of the lending library–if you “check out” a volume, others cannot access it in the time allowed to you. Publishers sell their books in the system using credit cards.

The article continues with more about Google Book Search and Kahle’s background.

We were surprised not to see The Wayback Machine mentioned in the stats about the Internet Archive listed above. At the moment (and we know of nothing coming), “Wayback” is probably the best chance a researcher has to access a page no longer on the Internet. Material in “Wayback” dates back to 1996 and as of today, contains more than 150 BILLION archived pages. The Internet Archive also offers a fee-based service that helps organizations organize and archive their web content. It’s called, Archive-It.

Source: Forbes

Posted in Archives and Special Collections, Digital Repositories, Digitization Projects, E-books, Information Industry | No Comments »

Computerword Reviews 9 eBook Readers
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

From the Article:

Unfortunately, the world of e-books is Balkanized, with multiple incompatible file formats and digital rights management (DRM) technologies, and devices with varying support for both. Books in the public domain are widely available in PDF and other standard formats. But copyrighted material is another story. Amazon’s current Kindles can obtain commercial e-books in Amazon’s AZW file format via wireless download only in the United States (in early October, however, the company announced a Kindle capable of downloading content in most countries).

A chart of the Top 5 eBook Readers is Available Here (The nook is Not Included).

1) Sony Reader Touch Edition

2) Amazon Kindle DX

3) Amazon Kindle 2

4) Sony Reader Pocket Edition

5) Interead Cool-ER

You can find reviews for all of eReaders reviewed, on this page

Source: Computerworld, PC World

Posted in E-books | No Comments »

Report Preview: CIBER Completes Global Survey of Library Concerns, Challenges Trends, and Best Practices in Tough Economic Times
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

CIBER research group at University College London today announced the completion of its global library survey that concerns challenges, trends, and best practices in tough economic times.

To register for a free copy of the complete report visit this page. It’s scheduled to be released on Thursday at The Charleston Conference during a presentation by executives from CIBER, YPB, and ebrary.

What Follows are a Few Key Findings From the Study:

+ The current financial year is a tough one for academic libraries, with 34.7% of institutions receiving a total library budget that is at least 5% smaller than the previous year (excluding inflation).

+ The outlook in two years’ time is mixed, with 31.4% expecting their total library budget to be smaller than in the current financial year, 40.1% about the same, and 28.4%
expecting an increase.

+ Overall, resource budgets are more vulnerable than personnel, services or infrastructure, with monographs and print journals being the most vulnerable to cutbacks.

+ When trimming their resources budget, libraries were least likely to cut e-books, followed by electronic-only serials and database subscriptions.

+ 52.5% of libraries view the acceleration of print to digital as the most effective option for balancing their budgets, with subscription as the most popular method.

A total of 800 libraries (academic, government, public, and others) from around the world participated in the study.

Summary ||| Register for Full Text (Free)

Source: ebrary

Posted in E-books, Information Industry, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »

Lists: Amazon.com Unveils Best Books of 2009, Including Editors’ Top 100 Books of the Year
Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Well, it really is starting to be year-end list season. Just one post below this entry is the is the Publisher’s Week year-end list.

Now, it Amazon.com’s turn with numerous list, some from editors others from customers based on sales.

From the Web Home Page

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced its picks for Best Books of 2009. This annual feature includes the Editors’ Picks for the Top 100 Books of the Year, Top 100 Customer Favorites, Top 10 lists for both editors and customers in nearly two dozen categories, including Literature & Fiction and Cooking, Food & Wine, as well as videos of the year.

It’s worth noting that twice near the top of the document Amazon.com points out that a “majority” of the titles on their Top 100 Books of the Year list are also available for the Kindle. It will be interesting to see next year at this time how many 2010 books are available for both the nook [coming soon from Barnes & Noble] and Kindle and which titles (if any) will be exclusive to one reader or another. Of course, there are other (with more coming) eReaders out there so we will have to watch closely to see what content is available for each device.

“Our editorial team spends the whole year reading new releases with our Best Books of the Year lists in mind, and every year it proves to be our most popular feature among our customers,” said Tom Nissley, senior editor of Amazon.com Books. “Deciding on our Top 100 Books can often get a little contentious, but [our emphasis] this year our choice for the Best Book of the Year, Colum McCann’s ‘Let the Great World Spin,’ was the closest we’ve ever come to a unanimous pick across the entire Amazon.com Books team. Many readers have already fallen in love with this moving story of New York City in the mid-‘70s, centered around Philippe Petit’s audaciously graceful tightrope walk between the Twin Towers, and we’re looking forward to sharing it with many more.”

Access the Complete List

Categories Include:

+ Top 100 Editors’ Picks

+ Top 100 Customer Favorites

Our top 100 customer favorites are ranked according to customer orders on Amazon.com through October. (Only books published for the first time in 2009 are eligible.)

+ Editors’ Top 10: Literature & Fiction

+ Editors’ Picks: Children’s Books (Picture Books, Middle Readers, Teens)

+ Customers’ Top 10: Mystery & Thrillers

+ Best Books of 2009 on Your Kindle
Editors Picks ||| Customer Favorites

MANY more categories (both “Editors Picks” and “Customer Favorites”) can be found in the left margin of the 2009 list home page. In that same location you’ll find links to lists from 2000-2008.

Source: Amazon.com

Posted in E-books, Information Industry, Lists and Rankings, Print Publications, Year End Wrap-Ups | No Comments »

E-readers: To Bo Open or Not to Be Open — That is the Question
Friday, October 30th, 2009

From an Article by Matt Hamblen:
LibreDigital Inc. is previewing its AllAccess content delivery platform to allow publishers, authors and book resellers to offer book readers the option of downloading and reading e-books they purchase on virtually any device, such as a desktop computer, Apple iPhone, Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader.

AllAccess will be available sometime in the first half of 2010, a spokesman for LibreDigital told Computerworld today.

[Snip]

Customers will pay for the books, textbooks and periodicals that they receive via AllAccess at prices set by publishers and resellers. LibreDigital will take a percentage of that cost, an amount still not determined, the spokesman said.

AllAccess is also supporting a wide variety of open e-book publishing standards, including ePub. In addition, LibreDigital is offering the ability to enhance and optimize book art and text for all the devices it will run upon, the LibreDigital spokesman said.

Anyone with Web access can get a preview of an actual book with the AllAccess tool through the Texas Book Festival Web site.

Source: Computerworld

See Also: Learn More about Libre Digital via Their Web Site

See Also: Keep Current With LibreDigital via their Twitter and/or RSS Feeds

See Also: Teleread, the expert site in eBooks, has more in this post.
Make sure to note the demo link.

Posted in E-books, Information Industry | No Comments »

U.K.: Public Libraries and eBooks
Monday, October 26th, 2009

From the Article:

After years of library membership declining and fears that the public no longer wanted to borrow books, some institutions are reporting a spike in interest since they started to offer e-books.

[Snip]

Tony Durcan, former president of The Society of Chief Librarians, said: “Book issues have seriously declined in recent years.

“This is an exciting development. These are not going to replace the paper book, they are as well as.”

He pointed out that e-books were not only cheaper, because of the lack of wear and tear and thefts, but they also offered great opportunities for older housebound readers. That is because with most devices you can enlarge the font size to as large as you like, which will help people with failing eyesight.

Newcastle, where he is chief librarian, is considering buying some e-book reading devices to lend to older, housebound residents.

According to the department of Culture, Media and Sport, annual visits to the library have declined from 302 million a decade ago to 280 million, with the decline in book loans far sharper.

Source: The Telegraph

Posted in E-books, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »

Comparing eBook Reader Choices With New “Cheat Sheet”
Monday, October 26th, 2009

Harry McCracken from Technologizer has put together a “cheat sheet” with key facts about nine eBook readers either in the works or already for sale in the United States. The post offers a ton of data including:

+ Dimensions and weight of reader

+ Is the ePub e-book standard supported? PDF and DOC supported?

+ Readers for other devices?

+ Is a Dictionary Included?

+ Can You Annotate Pages?

and many others.

Source: Technologizer

Ed. Note: The entry for the Amazon Kindle and Kindle DX lists that Sprint is the wireless provider. According to this article from mocoNews, Sprint is being replaced by AT&T for all Kindle devices sold from this point forward. Kindles that have already been sold in the U.S. will continue to use the Sprint network.

Posted in E-books | No Comments »

How e-Books Could Smarten Up Kids and Stretch Library Dollars: A National Plan
Friday, October 23rd, 2009

David Rothman, the founder of one of our favorite blogs, Teleread.org, had a guest column published in The Huffington Post on Thursday. In it Rothman calls for a National Digital Library System.

He writes:

Today millions of children are still growing up in bookless homes. But suppose a well-stocked national digital library system existed for Americans of different ages, along with the means to encourage schoolchildren and others to use it.

He goes on to say:

Ideally the e-books would be just the start. Imagine blending the system into local schools and libraries, while letting states and localities tailor the national collection to their particular needs. Teach the teachers how to work the library system into their lessons. Getting e-books and other items online isn’t enough by itself.

The concluding sentence about getting e-books online is not enough is one point we’re right with him on with or without a national e-books program. Buying content, technology, etc. is not THE solution. Hardly. People (users and potential users) first have to know that the service or resource is available and in some cases that it exists in the first place. Then users have to learn how to use the technology. How much money is wasted when technology is purchased that can do many things only gets used at a bare bones level?

Rothman writes that the key to the program is a full-service program that can help get technophobes to use the technology.

More After a Click
(more…)

Posted in E-books, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »

Getting to Know the HathiTrust Digital Library
Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Barbara Quint Writes:

With all the controversy still swirling around Google Books and its post-settlement offerings, an alternative route to the millions of digitized books and journals supplied by leading Google Book Search library partners has arrived. The HathiTrust (www.hathitrust.org) is a collaboration of 25 research libraries already participating in Google Book Search to produce a shared digital repository for preservation and access to a curated collection. By mid-November, the HathiTrust Digital Library will have a full-featured, full-text search service for 4.3-5 million items. The searches will retrieve bibliographic citations and page references, including those for in-copyright books. Content will extend beyond the digitized copies of books returned to early library partners by Google. HathiTrust is pushing to acquire other digitized special collections from its members, as well as making arrangements for opening access to university press books.

[Snip]

The new launch will open indexing to nearly 1.5 billion pages from well more than 4.3 million volumes with full-text searching by keyword or phrase. (Just between us, if you simply cannot wait until mid-November, go to

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ls.

[John] Wilkin, [associate university librarian at the University of Michigan and executive director of the HathiTrust], tipped me off that, [our emphasis] although this “experimental search” site claims to search only 500,000 documents, it actually includes the full 4.3-5 million volumes. Feedback options appear at the top and bottom of each search results page.) The system already had the equivalent of library cataloging searching, though they expect to upgrade even that kind of searching under a cooperative program with OCLC.

Much More in the Complete Article

Source: InfoToday NewsBreaks

Posted in Digital Preservation, Digitization Projects, E-books, Information Industry | No Comments »

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