eBooks on Demand (EOD)
From the web site:

This is the vision of the eBooks on Demand (EOD) project.

European libraries are hosting millions of books published from 1500 to 1900. Due to their age and value, they are often only accessible to users actually present at these libraries.

With the EOD service these hidden treasures will now become available to everybody - just a few mouse clicks away. Users will be able to order eBooks via the common library catalogues; the libraries will then digitise the requested item and send it to the user via the EOD service network. The books digitised in this way will simultaneously be incorporated into the digital libraries of the participating libraries and thus be accessible on the Internet. This project, co-funded by the EU, comprises 13 European libraries from 8 countries!

Source: EOD

More eBooks on the Way as NetLibrary announces distribution agreements with 21 key international publishers

NetLibrary, OCLC’s platform for eContent and the leading provider of eBooks for the institutional library market, has announced agreements with 21 leading publishers that will add thousands of new eBooks and eAudiobooks to NetLibrary’s growing catalog of more than 160,000 titles.

Source: OCLC

Getting a Read on Amazon’s New Kindle

On November 19, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos announced the launch of an e-book device called Kindle. It weighs 10.3 ounces, costs $399 and can download books in less than 60 seconds. He acknowledged upfront that the e-book landscape is crowded with other efforts, most of them unsuccessful, but Bezos thinks that he has a winner. Kindle lets users download many new books for $9.99 and it can be used without a computer — offering instead a free high-speed wireless data network from Sprint. It can also download newspapers, magazines and blogs for a fee, can store up to 200 books, uses an eye friendly screen and lets readers increase the type size as needed. So, what’s not to like?

We asked marketing professor Peter Fader, Don Huesman, senior director of information technology and management professor Dan Raff to give us their reviews of Kindle. In the interest of full disclosure, we would like to note that Knowledge@Wharton’s content is available on Kindle.

Source: Knowledge@Wharton

Timelines: History of Flight
Search using categories, beginning and ending year, and keywords. Timeline data ends in 2003.

See Also: Centential of Flight Dictionary

See Also: Centennial of Flight Images

Source CentennialofFlight.gov

+ Amazon Releases Kindle eBook Reader ||| News Story ||| News Release ||| Letter from Jeff Bezos
See Also: Amazon Unveils New Book Reader (via Publisher’s Weekly)
See Also: More Coverage from Last Week

+ Google and Yahoo Sued for Hosting Content That Allegedly Infringes Trademarks–(ISC)2 v. Degraphenreed (via Eric Goldman)

+ Senators Urge FTC To Review Google-DoubleClick Deal Closely (via Dow Jones)
The story reports on a letter sent from Sen. Herb Kohl and Sen. Orrin Hatch to the head of the FTC. Here’s a copy of the 2 page letter (PDF).

+ don’t 4get ur pills: Text Messaging for Health (via Wall St. Journal)

For FishPhone, the text service used by Ms. Hemond, the Massachusetts nanny, the process is pretty simple: Users send a text to the number 30644 with the message “FISH” and the species, and then get back a message. Ms. Hemond opted for wild Alaskan salmon over farmed because of its healthier profile, according to FishPhone, which was launched last month through Blue Ocean Institute, a nonprofit marine conservation organization that also offers information via email and on the Web.

+ Amazon to debut Kindle e-book reader Monday (via News.com)
See Also: Review of Sony eBook Reader (via LIS News and Ars Technica)

Amazon to Debut E-Book Reader (via WSJ)

See Also: Amazon Kindle E Book Reader Coming Next Week (via Gizmodo)

See Also: Amazon Kindle: meet Amazon’s e-book reader (via Engadget, September 2006)

This document lists all magazines produced or distributed by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), Library of Congress, through its free reading program. These magazines are produced and distributed in various formats through a network of cooperating libraries. Individuals who are unable to read or handle conventional print materials because of a visual or a physical impairment are eligible for service. To be eligible, a person with this impairment must be a resident of the United States or its territories or an American citizen living abroad.

Titles may be available in single or multiple formats, including digital braille and digital text. Braille titles may be accessed through Web-Braille, a free Internet service available to eligible readers, for download or use online with braille output devices. Digital text may be accessed via the Internet or computer diskette.

Source: NLS

First, Christopher Warnock and company at ebrary have released the results of their Global Faculty eBook Study. Interesting reading for sure but remember this report was funded by ebrary.

You can read a summary here (PDF) and request the full text (free) here.

From the summary:

“ebrary has personally learned a number of things from this survey, which we intend to apply to our business going forward,” said Kevin Sayar, President and Co-founder of ebrary. “For example, 57 percent of respondents indicated that students do not know how to use electronic resources provided by the library, and nearly 28 percent stated that there is not enough instruction in how to use electronic resources. Providing better and more comprehensive training is definitely one area in which ebrary can help librarians, faculty and students alike, and we will be rolling out a new global training program later this month.”

We’re looking forward to seeing the training program. Of course, it’s one thing to have a training program and something else for people to use it/study it. You first have to get people to use the program. We also will be looking to see if ebrary will market directly to students and faculty. In other words an ad might read, “did you know that your library offers x and x. It’s available from your dorm room, office, etc. 24x.7.”

• Approximately 50 percent of respondents indicated they prefer using online resources for research, class preparation, and instruction versus 18 percent who prefer print resources.

• Eighty-five percent of respondents viewed information literacy as very necessary, compared to 15 percent who stated it is somewhat necessary and less than 1 percent who find it unnecessary.

• Almost an equal number of faculty members require students to use electronic resources as print for course assignments.

• Fifty-three percent of respondents indicated that Google and other search engines are powerful tools for finding information. Twenty-nine percent indicated Google and other search engines are more useful tools than the print resources provided by the library, compared to 11 percent who indicated they are more useful than library-provided electronic resources.

FINALLY, don’t forget that ebrary continues to provide the ebrary Discover service. It’s completely free to search and also read more than 20,000 books online in many subject areas. Users only pay to copy or print a page. ebrary Discover is also an interesting pricing model.
1) Register for Service
2) Put a minimum of $5.00 on a credit card, this is ONLY used if you print/copy a page.
3) Download the ebrary reader.
4) Search, browse, read.

Of course, many libraries of all types also provide free access to other full text book services including:
+ Books24×7
+ Safari Tech Books
+ NetLibrary

+ The Guardian and The Observer Added to ProQuest Historical Newspapers

+ The Quaero project - new European search technology (via Pandia)

+ Podcast: Breaking down the e-books barrier (via JISC)

e-Books are as yet an untapped and underused resource – a resource which could have a major impact on access to key texts particularly for undergraduates. In this podcast for Inform Plus3, Anne Bell, Librarian at Warwick University, and Caren Milloy, JISC e-books project manager, talk with Philip Pothen about the national e-books observatory project and how it is beginning to realise the enormous potential of an underexploited resource.

Note: You can also listen to the podcast as a phonecast, by dialing this U.S. telephone number: 1 (631) 964-6673.

From a post by Brewster Kahle:

…the Internet Archive’s Open Content Alliance grew to 80 contributing libraries.

We have scanned over 100,000 books now available to everyone. (Over 250,000 total.)***

The New York Times has an article today on page 1, above the fold!

Other announcements of the OCA include:

* Digital inter-library loan of out-of-print works starting;

* Mass Microfilm scanning program started;

* Mass journal literature scanning program started;

* OpenLibrary.org opensource site now has tech framework for online book catalog and books;

* Print-on-demand machine demonstrated with OCA books.

*** Illinois Harvest from the University of Illinois is One Example of an Open Content Alliance Digitization Project
One collection contains full text materials about Abraham Lincoln

See Also: Digitized Book of the Week Blog (via U of I Library)
Try a book in the “Flip Book” Format.

See Also: American Library Association Archived Digital Collections

OK, let’s see if we can try to make this story clear, one step at a time. This post will focus on content. We can save other issues for future posts. With so much scanning going on, it can be very easy to get confused. Bottom Line: Book scanning involves many more projects than the ones that get a lot of the attention. BTW, the NY Times ran another story about digitization projects in March.

The Story: Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web
The focus is on Google Book Search, Live Book Search from Microsoft (when was the last time you visited that service?), and the Open Content Alliance.

(An example of a topical collection from the Open Content Alliance — Illinois Harvest. Includes books about Chicago, Abraham Lincoln, and many other topics.)

+++ List of Open Content Alliance Contributors
+++ Google Book Search Library Partners

1) In this post, we’re talking about digitizing books (both in and out of copyright) that are found in library collections. We’re NOT talking about material made available from publishers directly to Google Book Search (Google Book Search Partner Program) and Amazon’s Search Inside the Book databases. We have found that this difference can confuse people.

2) Some libraries are working with Google/Microsoft/Open Content Alliance.
In fact, both Cornell and the University of California Libraries have announced they will work with both projects. However, when you look at the number of libraries (and don’t forget about archives, museums, etc.) in the world, it’s really only a small number. It’s sad to see that what’s likely happening is that money (not a major issue, in this case) and TIME (a key issue) likely mean that the same titles are being scanned multiple times. We could all think of other uses for the dollars going to digitize the same title more than once.

The article also points out, both MSFT and Yahoo are members of the Open Content Alliance, and it discusses the pluses and minuses of each program. Here’s how we covered it almost two years ago. Then, as today’s article notes:

A year after joining, Microsoft added a restriction that prohibits a book it has digitized from being included in commercial search engines other than Microsoft’s.

3) Book digitization is NOT NEW. It’s difficult to believe that the NY Times article makes NO mention of Project Gutenberg, which has been digitizing books for over 36 years. That’s right, 36 years! BTW, Project Gutenberg Canada launched a few months ago.

4) Keep in mind that access and organization are two different things here. We also know that search habits (for many) will have people searching for phrases like “Dallas Cowboys” or “London Underground” or “New York City Fire Department.” We know that most searchers will not use quotation marks to search the words as a phrase. That means millions and millions of hits. This is an excellent example of what constitutes a good part of the invisible or deep web in 2007. True, Universal Search, Onesearch, 3D search, etc., can help but that’s another story.

5) Other issues for other ResourceShelf posts include:

A) Book digitization from companies like:
++ ebrary. (ebrary Discover offers more than 20,000 full text books for free. Pay only to copy or print a page.)
++ NetLibrary, available free from many public libraries — which just passed the 150,000 book milestone
++ Books 24×7
++ Safari Tech Books O’Reilly and Pearson

B) Quality of the scanning and how it appears on the web.

C) The issue of whether people really want to read books on a computer screen — be it a large monitor or on an iPhone or Treo?

5) Let’s review some projects, services, and where to find digitized books:
+ Online Books Page
Thousands and thousands of FREE, full text books from many sources. If you browse the “What’s New” page, you’ll see links to freely available full text books — both old and new — being digitized by organizations like:

+ American Historical Association
+ John F. Kennedy Library
+ The Online Library of Liberty
+ LibraryIreland
+ Rice University Press
+ Internet Sacred Text Archive
+ Doctortee.net
+ University of Virginia Digital Collections
+ Making of America (U of Michigan), Over 12,000 Volumes
+ Illinois Institute of Technology

And these are just the tip of the iceberg.

In other words, many organizations and LIBRARIES, are digitizing books.

Info pros should know about a variety of sources. Here are a few more:
+ International Children’s Digital Library
Both old and new books. Free Access. Fun for all!!!
+ Digital Book Index
130,000 titles listed, over 100,000 free. Also note the list of organizations providing content in the right rail.
+ World Public Library
Over 500,000 titles, searchable, available for a very small yearly fee.
+ Internet Archive–Texts
Comprises several projects and has the same leadership as the Open Content Alliance. Also, many titles are available in several formats, from simple text to HTML to PDF.
+ UK: Full text books and cool technology from the Turning the Pages service at The British Library.
+ UK: British Library books go digital
+ OpenLibrary.org
+ Shakespeare Full Text and Full Image on the Web
Some gorgeous work.

Want More? Projects from Around the Globe? Dave Mattison’s British Columbia International Digital Library is the place to begin.
Start browsing here and here. Wow!!!

Publishers Get in the Act: The National Academies Press Offers Thousands of Full Text Books at No Charge to Search/Read (Unlimited Amount) at No Charge.

See Also: Bradley on Changes at Google Book Search: Google Book Search Improved(?) (via SEL)

See Also: an article about U of Toronto Scanning: Building an Online Library, One Volume at a Time (via WSJ, free)

See Also: 2004 Video of Book Scanning Robot at University of Toronto

ResourceShelf’s Sunday Best (RSB) #4: The Online Books Page
After one visit on you”ll be hooked. Full text books from numerous sources and a constantly updated “What’s New” list and feed.

Yale University Press Adds Digital Content to OCLC NetLibrary, More than 2,000 eBook titles will be Made Available Online
More exciting news and great content for NetLibrary. However, like we said the other day, NetLibrary, with the help of info pros needs alert people know that this service exists and can be accecssed for free 24×7x365.

Notable books in the Yale University Press collection include Ali Allawi’s The Occupation of Iraq, E.H. Gombrich’s A Little History of the World, the Yale Series of Younger Poets, the Annotated Shakespeare, the Lamar Series in Western History, the Annals of Communism series, Yale University Press Health and Wellness series, upcoming Yale Drama Series titles, and upcoming Cecile and Theodore Margellos World Republic of Letters series titles.

Source: OCLC

See Also: NetLibrary reaches 150,000 - title milestone

+ NetLibrary reaches 150,000- title milestone
Congrats to the NetLibrary team in Boulder. Now, if they could get more people to know about the service we think these users would be pleasantly surprised at what they found and how NetLibrary works. In other words, we think plenty of new and excited users would flock to the service. NetLibrary features include being able to access FULL TEXT, FULL IMAGE BOOKS with no limit on how much you can view online and 24×7x365 from just about anywhere with a web connection. However, as we’ve said many times before, people (aka potential users) have NO CHANCE of using what they don’t know about period. Be it a database, a new wireless device, or a service that washes your car while you’re at work. Btw, The 150,000th title to go live with NetLibrary was ECOhouse: A Design Guide by Sue Roaf, Manuel Fuentes and Stephanie Thomas, published by Elsevier (2007).

+ The Shape of the Scientific Article in the Developing Cyberinfrastructure
by Clifford Lynch
From the intro:

For the last few centuries, the primary vehicle for communicating and documenting results in most disciplines has been the scientific journal article, which has maintained a strikingly consistent and stable form and structure over a period of more than a hundred years now; for example, despite the much-discussed shift of scientific journals to digital form, virtually any article appearing in one of these journals would be comfortably familiar (as a literary genre) to a scientist from 1900. E-science represents a significant change, or extension, to the conduct and practice of science; this article speculates about how the character of the scientific article is likely to change to support these changes in scholarly work. In addition to changes to the nature of scientific literature that facilitate the documentation and communication of e-science, it’s also important to recognize that active engagement of scientists with their literature has been, and continues to be, itself an integral and essential part of scholarly practice; in the cyberinfastructure environment, the nature of engagement with, and use of, the scientific literature is becoming more complex and diverse, and taking on novel dimensions.

Source: CTWatch Quarterly

Another UK research funding body, the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has issued a deposit mandate for all research papers resulting from AHRC fundings. Now 6 of the 7 UK Research Councils have mandates in place. (See the up-dated table) describing the positions of each Research Council.)
Source: SPARC Europe

+ To Read: International Council on Archives Strategic Vision (Draft)
http://www.ica.org/en/node/38472“>Direct to SV paper.
5 pages; PDF.

+ Bradley on Changes at Google Book Search: Google Book Search Improved(?)
Like Phil Bradley is famous for, this post offers crisp and incisive analysis and opinion. What follows some might consider a sidebar.

We would suggest knowing about and using more than one online book services. A searcher has plenty to choose from. This is no different than using more than one web search engine.

Here are just a few other favorites ResourceShelf favorites we’ve compiled.

+ Amazon’s “Search Inside the Book” (new books) and MSN’s Book Search (both old and new) are two candidates. We’ve found it’s often the case that a preview (the ability to “search inside” is available on one service but not the other. Battelle’s, The Search is one example. A || G. We also like the interesting stats Amazon often provides.

Live Book Search also will show how much (all, 10%, 20%, 40%, words around search terms) can be viewed online. Like other services, books that offer 100% of their content online (primarily titles where the copyright has expired) can often be downloaded as PDF files at no charge.

The Online Books Page is the place to begin for freely accessible full text books online. Don’t forget to review the new listings page with hundreds of books listed weekly (including Gutenberg and Google Library Program titles, RSS feed, too!)

ebrary Discover offers over 20,000 NEW full text books for free (pay only to print or copy, about $.25 cents/U.S.).

The World Public Library offers more than 500,000 full text titles.

The International Children’s Digital Library is amazing for both kids and older children.

Full text books and cool technology from the Turning the Pages service at The British Library.

A number of full text collections from The Internet Archive.

NetLibrary is a service that many libraries offer at no charge, for free, without having to visit the library. Full text, full image without a limit on how much you can read, annotate, etc. The same goes for Safari Tech Books and Books24×7. The latter two services also offer individual subscriptions.

Finally, the Digital Book Index lists over 137,000 online books with nearly 100,000 available free.

See Also: About a year ago, we compared a bunch of classic titles using both Amazon and Google focusing on titles that could be previewed online.

UPDATE: Here’s an example of a book where the full text is available from Live Book Search but not available via the Google Book Search database. Of course, plenty of examples can also illustrate the opposite of this scenario.

UPDATE: LISNEWS.com on the Release of a New German Book Service

+ Elsevier launches DoctorPortal, the independent online voice of UK doctors (via Elsevier)
Direct to DoctorPortal.