Archive for the ‘E-books’ Category

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Internet Archive: Redesign of Open Library Goes Live

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

The Open Library is the work of George Oates and members of the Internet Archive engineering team and staff.

It’s a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.

From a Blog Post:

1. This is v. 1 of the Reconstructed Site (aka soft launch). Right now, the URL is: http://upstream.openlibrary.org/

2. Works

The previous version of Open Library was only aware of editions of books, or “manifestations” in FRBR-speak. We’re excited to release Works, which helps catch all editions of the same book and collect them all under this one umbrella. Each work also has its own URI too – we’re hoping these propagate.

Note that our representations of Works is imperfect. We’re the first to acknowledge that there are lots of duplicate edition records in Open Library, and these dupes clog up our ability to derive or create works from editions.

3. Subject pages

We wanted to find a way to help people browse the catalog rather than having to know what they’re looking for before they start. So, we’ve gone through a process of breaking down and reconstructing the subject headings on our records, giving each heading a URL, and displaying a whole bunch of data about each heading: works about that subject, publishing history, related subjects, authors who write about it, and publishers who publish in that subject area.

4. Revamped search

We’ve rewritten search from scratch and upgraded to SOLR 1.4. Our ranking is very basic for now, so “relevance” doesn’t mean a lot yet. We can’t wait to improve on it, and in the meantime, you can also sort your searches by the number of editions, when things were published, or filter using facets.

We also noticed directly below the search box is box to limit your search to only e-books.

5. Cavets to be Aware Of:
The API, The Data, The Data

Odds & Ends

+ Of course, you can search the catalog but they also suggest browsing by subjects.
+ You can add books by completing a simple form.

+ Follow the Open Web Team on Twitter and/or an e-mail discussion focusing on librarianship.

Stats

+ 20 Million Records So Far
+ Goal: “A Web Page for Every Book Published”

That’s it for now. We’re going to take it for a spin and report back.

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

OCLC Sells NetLibrary to EBSCO, Will No Longer Sell Vendor-Owned Databases On FirstSearch & Relationship with H.W.Wilson Also Changing

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Another acquisition in the library world and this one will see EBSCO becomes an audiobook and eBook provider with acquisition of NetLibrary.

From an Announcement:

OCLC and EBSCO Publishing have announced that EBSCO has acquired the NetLibrary Division. The purchase includes the NetLibrary eBook and eAudiobook platform as well as operations and infrastructure in Boulder, Colorado. As eBooks become mainstream components of a library’s eContent collections, there is increasing value to libraries to be able to integrate eBook acquisitions and delivery with other electronic databases and eJournals. EBSCO will maintain and enhance the NetLibrary platform and will also work to integrate NetLibrary eBooks into the EBSCOhost platform. There will be no interruption in service to libraries.

The other news concerns FirstSearch. OCLC no longer wants to be a reseller of vendor-owned databases.

Therefore we will transfer or discontinue sale of the vendor-owned databases on FirstSearch when subscriptions have ended. We will instead increase our focus for both FirstSearch and WorldCat.org on providing libraries with access to a rich set of library-owned content and increasing visibility and access to the full scope of a library’s collection. We will work with libraries, publishers and other information providers to expand WorldCat.org as a comprehensive platform for eContent.

So, what about the vendor-owned databases?

As a part of this migration, EBSCO has acquired the rights to license a select number of vendor-owned databases that we currently offer on FirstSearch. Our long-term relationship with H.W. Wilson is also changing as we will work together to transition from reselling Wilson databases on FirstSearch to indexing Wilson databases in WorldCat Local over the coming months. There will be no interruption in service to libraries.

More Resources:

+ Letter to OCLC Members, Signed by CEO Jay Jordan

More detail on what was discussed above including:

Securing libraries’ investments in NetLibrary eBook collections is a critical element of the agreement. All NetLibrary eBooks purchased by libraries will be placed in a dark archive, the OCLC eBook Archive. EBSCO will continue to place all new NetLibrary eBooks purchased by libraries into the OCLC archive at least through March 2013.

Discoverability of your eBook collections through WorldCat.org will continue with your future NetLibrary eBook purchases. Today, records for more than 2.2 million eBooks are available through WorldCat.org and EBSCO will continue to offer OCLC MARC records free of charge to libraries for NetLibrary eBooks.

…proceeds from the sale of the NetLibrary assets will be invested both in advancing future member services and in current operations so that we can hold the line on prices. OCLC will hold prices flat in the U.S. on all WorldCat and WorldCat platform services for a second consecutive year—through June 2011.

+ All the Details: More on EBSCO and NetLibrary

+ All the Details More About from OCLC and H.W. Wilson

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

Underway: Overdrive’s Program for Visually Impaired Readers, LEAP (Library eBook Accessibility Program)

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

From the Announcement:

Overdrive has created a program named LEAP (Library eBook Accessibility Program) and it’s now up and running at the Cleveland Public Library. OverDrive is fully funding this program and offering LEAP to your qualifying patrons at no cost to the library and at no cost to your patrons

If a patron of your library has a print or visual disability, they will be eligible for a LEAP account at Bookshare.org. Bookshare has established this program solely for qualified patrons of U.S. public libraries that offer eBooks from OverDrive. LEAP account patrons will be able to download and read up to 20 accessible eBooks each month. The Bookshare national catalog of titles is growing each month with thousands of popular titles available, though it should be noted that it is not the identical collection of eBooks that OverDrive provides to your library.

Source: OverDrive.

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

Now Available (Free Access): ebrary’s Natural Disaster and Extreme Weather Searchable Information Center

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

From the Announcement: (PDF)

Now available and permanently free to access and use.

The ebrary Natural Disaster and Extreme Weather Searchable Information Center features “hundreds” of government documents “related to natural disasters and extreme weather.”

Access to the material is available at:
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/disaster/home.action.

“While government agencies house some of the world’s most pertinent information, it is not always easy to search and find the information you need online, especially across multiple websites. Additionally, downloading PDFs, a format used by many government and other agencies for their most important documents, can be extremely cumbersome and frustrating,” said Kevin Sayar, President of ebrary. “Using DASH! (Data Sharing, Fast), and other ebrary services, our staff was able to very quickly and easily aggregate PDF content and develop our new Natural Disaster and Extreme Weather Searchable Information Center.

Features Include:

+ Multiple options for searching, navigating, and browsing.

+ Ability to copy/paste and print text with automatic citations and URL hyperlinks back to the
source.

Sources Include:

+ Federal Emergency Management Agency
+ International Tsunami Information Center
+ Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC)
+ National Drought Mitigation Center
+ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
+ National Weather Service
+ U.S. Department of Homeland Security
+ U.S. Fire Administration
+ U.S. Geological Survey
+ other authoritative sources

Source: ebrary

See Also: H1N1 Information Center from ebrary (Also Free)

See Also: If you don’t have access to ebrary through your school, company, or other organization, check out ebrary Discover.
Access to Over 20,000 Full Text Books, New Material.
Pay only 25 cents per page to print or copy. Read, for free, as much as you like online.

Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, E-books, Government Documents and Political Information, Reference Tools, Resources | No Comments »

Gone Digital: Bestselling Fiction Writer Has All 23 of His Titles Now Available as eBooks

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

From the AP Story:

More than a year after reports emerged he [John Grisham] would make his books available in electronic format, his publisher [Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group] made it official Tuesday, announcing that all 23 of his works can be purchased as e-texts.

[Snip]

Mr. Grisham, the author of such favorites as The Firm and The Pelican Brief, has expressed mixed feelings about e-books and the quickly growing market, currently estimated at around 3% to 5% of total sales. In an interview with the Today show last fall, he worried that if e-books really caught on “then you’re going to wipe out tons of bookstores and publishers and we’re going to buy it all online.”

“I’m probably going to be all right,” he said, “but the aspiring writers are going to have a very hard time getting published.”

Source: AP via (Crain’s NY Business)

See Also: Page Regarding Release from Knopf Doubleday Web Site

Posted in Books, E-books | No Comments »

Two Milestones: One for Project Gutenberg Canada and the Other for Portuguese Language Content in the Gutenberg Database

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

From the Post on the PG News Blog by Mike Cook

1. Project Gutenberg of Canada Release their 500th eBook

“Forty Years of Song” by Emma Albani, first published in 1911. Emma Albani (1847-1930) was the first Canadian singer to gain a worldwide reputation, which is rather something considering the combination of Canada’s low population and remoteness for the time period. Think of how much “easier” it was for Piaf. “Easier” quotes because Edith Piaf did not have an easy time, but it was certainly easier for the world to find her.

Access Project Gutenberg of Canada

2. 400th Project Gutenberg eBook in Portuguese Has Just Been Released

Novo Dicionario da Lingua Portuguesa, by Candido Figueiredo. Released as PG eBook #31552.

Thanks to Rita Farinha, Alberto Manuel Brandao Simoes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (This file was produced from images generously made available by National Library of Portugal (Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal).)

Source: Project Gutenberg News Blog

Posted in Digitization Projects, E-books | No Comments »

Macmillan CEO John Sargent on eBooks Possibly Causing a Change in Publisher/Library Relationship

Friday, March 12th, 2010

The other day, Macmillan CEO John Sargent spoke at “Publishing Point“ Meetup Group in New York City. Lucky for us, Eric Hellman from the “Go to Hellman” blog was at the event and wrote an excellent blog post titled, “eBooks in Libraries a Thorny Problem, Says Macmillan CEO.” It’s a post that is worthy of your time to read.

Hellman asked John Sargent if he had done any thinking about the role libraries and more specifically public libraries play in the distribution of e-books.

His answer indicated that just as he was not afraid of changing the relationship with Amazon, Sargent is not afraid of changing the publisher’s relationship with libraries. In fact, change may well be required.

“That is a very thorny problem”, said Sargent. In the past, getting a book from libraries has had a tremendous amount of friction. You have to go to the library, maybe the book has been checked out and you have to come back another time. If it’s a popular book, maybe it gets lent ten times, there’s a lot of wear and tear, and the library will then put in a reorder. With ebooks, you sit on your couch in your living room and go to the library website, see if the library has it, maybe you check libraries in three other states. You get the book, read it, return it and get another, all without paying a thing. “It’s like Netflix, but you don’t pay for it. How is that a good model for us?”

Hellman, who is also knowledgeable in the workings of libraries, adds:

Sargent has clearly thought about libraries, but perhaps he’s not talked much to them. His points are valid- the existing business relationship between publishers and libraries won’t work for ebooks the way it has worked for print books and the “frictions” that exist for print materials could disappear for ebooks.

Hellman continues by saying that some of Sargent has some “gaps of knowledge” about library models and then shares some examples. Next, he mentions models “preferred” by libraries. Hellman believes that a subscription model will probably work for academic libraries but, it would turn public libraries into unnecessary intermediaries,” while perpetual access would be “suicide” for publishers.

Hellman concludes by saying that this is the time for publishers and libraries to talk to one another to develop new business models.

Again, you can access the complete blog post here.

Source: Go to Hellman

See Also: New Blog from John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan Publishing

Note: The ResourceShelf team would be interested to learn how many public libraries are building their own collection of e-Books vs. accessing them through OverDrive, NetLibrary, and other providers. I would think OverDrive and others also need to be at the discussion table. OverDrive literature says they work with over 10,000 libraries (we will try to find out how many are public) and as we monitor the news each day, we often see items about e-Books and audiobooks becoming available at x public library. Most often, it appears that OverDrive is the provider. I have also seen some public libraries that offter material from NetLibrary and OverDrive. What are the short term and long term implications about what Sargent said for these companies?

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

Germany: National License for Springer eBooks Signed, Largest eBook Deal Ever Signed in Germany

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

From the Announcement:

The German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) and the German National Library of Medicine (ZB MED) have signed an extensive and ground-breaking agreement for access to Springer eBooks on SpringerLink. The agreement represents the largest eBook deal ever to have been signed in Germany, and is, in fact, a national license for all English-language chemistry, materials science and medicine titles of the copyright years 2005 – 2008. Concretely, this means that all researchers, students and staff at all publicly funded universities, technical colleges and research institutions will have access to the content included in the deal. The agreement was made possible by support from the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Source:Springer Science+Business Media

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

Libraries Lead the E-Book Revolution

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

From an Article by Philip Harvey:

I haven’t read an e-book and when asked by borrowers if I feel that my profession of librarian is under threat, I ask them if they themselves have used an e-book . No, is the consistent reply. But they know chapter and verse about the developments, usually from what they have seen on the internet. The new slimline gadgets can display everything a text maniac wants to get their hands on. Or so it seems.

[Snip]

Digital is moving in, that’s for sure. But will readers get what they want? I don’t mean readers who ask for the latest blockbuster, but all of us who need those difficult-to-get books for study or personal interest, the ones Google says are not easily accessible. It is the same librarians who remind the digitising deliverers that inter-library loan can get the requested print version at next to no cost and in short time.

Far from sidelining academic and special collections, the digital libraries of the future make easy and free access to print-libraries even more of a priority: there is no way of predicting the price tag for that rare thesis or out-of-print title in its downloadable form. This is an issue that more academics and specialists need to be questioning now, especially as they are the ones often making the decisions about their libraries, and not the librarians.

[Snip]

Indeed, the fourth century shift from the scroll to the codex is being used as a comparison to the present transmogrification. I tend to believe that we are seeing the early technology of the e-book. In five years the e-book will look, feel, sound, smell and gesticulate in very different ways from its iPad and Kindle prototypes. iPad will look as cute as a cassette tape.

Access the Complete Article
An illustration is included.

Source: HomePAGE Daily
Note: This source for this items calls itself the first Global Student Newspaper.” It’s based in Australia.

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

Academic Publishers Seeing Strong Growth From e-Book Sales

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

From the Article:

Nearly 90% of commmercial academic publishers have seen growth in e-book sales over the past two years, according to a cross-sector survey released today (10th March) by the Association of Learned Professional and Scholarly Publishers. Growth in some cases was more than 1,000%, with e-book sales now almost 10% of total book sales of the publishers surveyed.

[Snip]

In total 68.6% of publishers have seen an increase in e-book revenue over the last two years. For those publishers with e-book programmes growth had been extraordinary, with one publisher recording e-book growth of 44,000%. Even without this figure included, publishers recorded growth in e-book sales of more than 200%, with commercial publishers seeing a rise of 345% and non-profit publishers growth of 108%.

While e-book sales still account for a relatively small amount of total book sales, the survey found that for commercial academic publishers they now represented almost 8% of business, while for non-profit publishers it was more than 10%. For ‘very small’ publishers it was above 17%, while for ‘large’ publishers it was close to 13% of book sales. Overall digital accounted for 9.4% of total book revenue, a three-fold increase on previous estimates.

Access the Complete Article

Source: The Bookseller

See Also: E-Books Make Gains (2006-2009) (eMarketer via Adweek)

These numbers come from the Association of American Publishers. The post includes a graph.

Posted in E-books, Scholarly Publishing | No Comments »

At the U. of Minnesota: “E-books Cheaper, But Still Popular”

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

From the Article:

Electronic textbooks are cheaper for bookstores and students, but University of Minnesota Bookstore Director Bob Crabb said they have yet to catch on with students.

Electronic books have been offered for only a few semesters, but Crabb said he is surprised that their sales trail so far behind traditional books.

The bookstore sells about 500,000 books every year, and Crabb estimated that only 2 percent to 3 percent of these are electronic books.

“It’s a slow go,” Crabb said. “It’s catching on a little bit, but there’s still an awful lot of resistance from students.”

Crabb said students have cited eye strain and their familiarity with using regular books as problems with electronic textbooks.

[Snip]

[Applied economics professor Donald] Liu said he would be interested in the [Macmillan DynamicBooks program but would want to poll his students before making such a decision.

Liu said that whenever he can, he opts for smaller, more concise versions of textbooks. With many students studying a given topic for only a single semester, he believes that an expensive and lengthy textbook is often not the best option.

“I think most instructors find that a very thick textbook containing many, many chapters is sort of a waste for students,” Liu said.

Like the digital books currently available through the University Bookstore, DynamicBooks will be considerably cheaper than printed textbooks.

Source: Minnesota Daily

Posted in E-books | No Comments »

Elsevier Signs Agreement with Baker & Taylor to Supply Blio with Rich Digital Media Content

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

From the Announcement:

Baker & Taylor, Inc., has entered into an agreement with Elsevier – a leading publisher of scientific, medical and technical books – to provide rich, highly-formatted content on Blio. Blio is the revolutionary e-reader software application created by knfbReading Technology and powered by Baker & Taylor.

“Baker & Taylor is thrilled to add Elsevier’s titles, which are essential in the scientific and medical communities, to Blio,” said Tom Morgan, Chairman and CEO of Baker & Taylor. Blio is the perfect e-reader software to showcase Elsevier’s books, which provide highly specialized and informative text and graphics. Readers will enjoy a truly interactive reading – and learning – experience.”

[Snip]

By the end of the year, Elsevier plans to launch between 8,000 and 9,000 titles, including titles within its life science, physical sciences and professional lists. Elsevier’s Focal Press has plans to introduce enhanced titles with embedded media on Blio for its post production list, including titles with 3-D effects.

Source: B&T

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

New ELI 7 Things…Brief Explores E-Readers

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

The latest brief from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. It’s an overview on E-Readers and is two .pdf pages long.

Access Complete 7 Things Report on E-Readers

Topics Include:

+ How Does It Work?
+ Who’s Doing It?
+ Why is It Significant?
+ What are the Downsides?
+ Where is it Going?

Access Other 7 Things Reports

Source: EDUCAUSE
Hat Tip: Info Literacy Weblog (Sheila Webber)

Posted in E-books | No Comments »

Electronic Ink Paperless Display Technology Saves Trees and the Environment

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

From the Article:

Unlike the LCD screen, E Ink’s technology enables the electronic reader to replicate the look and feel of a printed book: Displays have the visual appeal of ink-on-paper and use no backlight so that screens can be viewed under almost any lighting condition, including direct sunlight, all the while using little power. Typically, one battery charge of four hours can power 7,500 continuous page turns.

[Snip]

In his 2003 thesis, University of Michigan student Greg Kozak studied the life-cycle assessment of paper books versus e-books. He found that a paper book created four times the greenhouse gas emissions of an e-book reader.

Print books needed three times more raw materials and 78 times more water consumption than e-books.

In another study out of the University of Berkeley, reading a newspaper electronically released 32-140 times less CO2 and used 27 times less water.

In the U.S., where e-reader sales have taken off, customers are able to download books, magazines and major daily newspapers such as USA Today. It’s a future the newspaper industry is eyeing with careful suspicion — online readership has already endangered the print format, putting thousands of traditional newspaper men and women out of work.

But French newspaper Les Echos has been offering its content on the e-reader iRex iLiad since 2007. Stories are delivered wirelessly and updated every hour. Cost for the subscription and the unit is around $600 Cdn.

While newspaper subscription is not yet available on the only ebook in Canada, the Sony Reader Digital Book, company spokeswoman Candice Hayman said a major Canadian newspaper, which she declined to identify, recently expressed interest in the device.

Rita Toews who we mentioned in the previous post about E-book Week is quoted several times in this article.

Access the Complete Article

Source: Toronto Sun

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

Read an E-Book Week 2010 Begins Today; Free and/or Deeply Discounted Content

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

Several sources including TeleRead remind us that Read an E-Book Week 2007 begins today.

Canada’s Rita Toews is the organizer of this special week long event.

Steve Jordan Writes:

Rita Toews has been working her butt off, interviewing for periodicals and blogs, contacting and drawing in new participants and promoters and twittering until her fingers are hoarse!

As the list of partners and promoters of e-books has grown, the number of participating authors and publishers has increased enormously. On Smashwords, over 3,000 authors will participate in the promotional event. Blio, QBook, Diesel E-Books and Sylvan Dell Publishing have joined most recently. The event has been mentioned as far away as Poland and England and as close to home as the Huffington Post. And the exposure to e-books being created by the soon-to-be-released iPad is drawing even more interested parties in.

Links

e-book Book Store (Access Content to Download)

A Librarian Speaks: Interview with Head of Reference, Wright State University Libraries, Sue Polanka

Writer and Photographer, Sara Rosso, Shares Her Views on the Advantages of E-books.

Much More Content on the Web Site

Keep Current with the E-book Week Twitter Feed

Posted in E-books | No Comments »

Penguin Publishing, the iPad, and the Book

Friday, March 5th, 2010

A look at some of the ideas Penguin has for reading and using books with the iPad. This post includes a 3 minute 20 second video where you can see some of the ideas in action.

Source: Scholarly Kitchen

See Also: First Look: How Penguin Will Reinvent Books With iPad

Many of Penguin’s iPad books seem hardly to resemble “books” at all, but rather very interactive learning experiences, from its Dorling Kindersley and kids imprints – the Vampire Academy “book” is “an online community for vampire lovers” with live chat between readers, and the Paris travel guide switches to street map view when placed on a table.

[Snip]

“We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we’re now talking about.

“So for the time being at least we’ll be creating a lot of our content as applications, for sale on app stores and HTML, rather than in ebooks. The definition of the book itself is up for grabs.—-John Markinson, CEO, Penguin Publishing

This article includes a video.

Source: paidContent.uk

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

New Report: HighWire Presents Findings from eBooks Librarian Survey

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

From the Summary (2 pages; PDF):

The survey was conducted as part of HighWire’s ongoing exploration of the fast-growing scholarly ebook market. The results and accompanying analysis draw together the input of 138 librarians from 13 countries. The responses underscore the significant growth librarians expect in ebook acquisitions and point to their current preferences and possible trends in this evolving area.

The survey data was analyzed by Michael Newman, Stanford University’s Head Biology Librarian, and the report presents his perspective on what his librarian colleagues had to say about ebooks

+ Simplicity and ease of use seem more important than sophisticated end-user features. ? Users tend to discover ebooks through both the library catalog and search engines. ? While users prefer PDFs, format preference will likely change as technology changes. ? DRM seems to hinder ebook use for library patrons; ability to print is essential.

+ Users tend to discover ebooks through both the library catalog and search engines.

+ While users prefer PDFs, format preference will likely change as technology changes.

+ DRM seems to hinder ebook use for library patrons; ability to print is essential.

+ The most popular business model for librarians is purchase with perpetual access.

HighWire is also conducting one-on-one interviews with students and faculty to determine their needs and expectations. Through a series of interviews, surveys and data collection activities throughout 2010, HighWire will continue to help their scholarly publisher customers understand the evolving needs of libraries and individual readers.

Access the Full Text of the Report (38 pages; PDF)

Source: Highwire Press

Hat Tip: Gerry M.

Posted in E-books, Search News | No Comments »

The Electronic Book: An Excerpt from The Oxford Companion to the Book

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Here’s a an excerpt from Chapter 19 of The Oxford Companion to the Book (2010) placed online by the Wall Street Journal.

A nice chunk of basic digital technology history.

The excerpt ends with this passage about Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg in 1971. That’s right, 1971. In many ways, eBooks aren’t a new idea. However, these days all of the technologies (not sure about the business models) to power and view eBooks appear to be aligning.

In 1971 Michael Hart at the University of Illinois began Project Gutenberg (PG) by creating electronic texts of small, public-domain works, beginning with the *Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the US Constitution. These were hand-keyed: a labour-intensive, and volunteer, effort. When the capacity of storage media increased, PG digitized larger books, including Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and the Bible; and with the development of affordable optical character recognition (*OCR) technology by the mid-1990s, PG could rely on a speedier processing method, which eventually had nearly the same accuracy as rekeying. This pioneer initiative continues on 40 mirror sites with thousands of books that can be read on any computer, personal digital assistant (PDA), or reading device.


Access the Complete Excerpt

Source: WSJ, Oxford University Press

Posted in E-books | No Comments »

Anne Rice Releases Her First Vook (Book Plus Multimedia) Today

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

From GalleyCat:

Bestselling novelist Anne Rice launches her inaugural vook today, a multimedia version of her 1984 vampire story, “The Master of Rampling Gate.”

To find out more, we caught up with Vook CEO Brad Inman–who said the company has more than 500 titles planned for 2010. According to Inman, the company shot between six and eight hours of footage for the Rice vook, including a New Orleans tour with her son, Rice interviews, and expert commentary.

Inman added some advice about video length: “While I think that video content and length will always depend first and foremost on the text, it seems that, generally speaking, shorter videos are better suited for our vooks. 1 to 2 minute videos are long enough to provide context or illustration to the text while still being short enough to keep the reader’s attention and interest.

A Few More Notes via the Vook Blog:

+ The new Vook by Anne Rice is regularly $4.99 but for a limited time you can purchase/download for $.99 cents.

+ Additional content includes seven videos about vampires, the black plague, gothic style, and Rice herself.

+ It’s for sale at the iTunes store or an online version on the Vook website.

Source: The Vook Blog

Posted in Books, E-books | No Comments »

ResourceShelf Roundup: News from Alexander St.; Yahoo; IEEE; LJ; and Gale

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

A few stories we thought were worth mentioning.

1) New Literature From Around the World
In February, Alexander St. Press added over 20,000 pages of new content to four collections.

2) Happy 15th Birthday From Jerry and David (Yahoo’s Founders) (via Yahoo Anecdotal)
|||
More Yahoo Birthday (via Search Engine Land)

See Also: Yahoo Company Timeline (Hat Tip: Matt M.)

3) Wiley-IEEE eBook Collection Added to IEEE XPlore

4) Best of 2009 Sci-Tech Books (via Library Journal)

5) Gale Releases New Editions of Two Popular Print and eBook Titles (via Gale)
The titles are: New Catholic Encyclopedia Supplement 2009 and Human Diseases and Conditions.

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

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