No Shelf Required

I read this article in LJ about another library digitization/print-on demand product.  This time it’s with the University of Pennsylvania (UP) and Kirtas.  UP is now part of the elite group of libraries providing print-on-demand services including University of Michigan, Emory, and Cornell.
The UP project will scan books in the public domain (200,000), but only […]

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Tim O’Reilly: Kindle needs open ePub-style standard to survive
www.teleread.org - Posted: 23 Feb 2009 08:40 AM CST
“Unless Amazon embraces open e-book standards like ‘epub,’ which allow readers to read books on a variety of devices, the Kindle will be gone within two or three years.” - Tim O’Reily in Why Kindle should be an open […]

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From a Gale/Cengage email I received:
Free Access on our Women’s History Web site
From women in politics to women in the environment, start planning your Women’s History Month events now with great resources from Gale.Farmington Hills, Mich., Feb. 17, 2009 – In recognition of Women’s History Month in March, Gale, part of Cengage Learning, is offering […]

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I read an interesting paper by Mark T J Carden of Ingram Digital. He presented this paper at the Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (see citation below).  Mark discusses how eBooks are following the same evolutionary path of physical books and won’t be fully adopted until the “traditional book is deconstructed and reconstructed to […]

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 The OReilly Tools of Change conference is underway in NYC, with many presentations and discussions about ebooks.  One that caught my eye was a panel discussion of eBook business models and strategies.  The presenters were:  Michael Smith (International Digital Publishing Forum), Kenneth Brooks (Cengage Learning), Leslie Hulse (HarperCollins Publishers), […]

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A new audio interview has been posted to NSR’s interviews page.  This one features Leslie Lees, VP-Content and Market Development, ebrary.  Leslie and I discussed methods of ebook purchasing that involve patrons and what ebrary is doing to plan for these new business models.  Check it out, it’s absolutely the best thing you’ll hear all […]

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Getting to grips with developing and managing e-book collections: an introduction
to be held in the
Netskills Training Suite, University of Newcastle
Tuesday 27th October 2009, 9.30 - 16.30
Course Outline
This course opens the door to a new electronic format and is designed to support librarians who are beginning to set up e-book collections. In the last eight years, […]

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Yesterday I had a rare opportunity to walk on the US House floor, thanks to a private tour from my nephew Matt, who works for one of the Ohio Representatives.  As we were milling about, looking at the electronic voting, printers and fax machines, laptop plugins, and CSPAN cameras, I was shocked to see, sitting […]

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The Once and Future e-book: On Reading in the Digital Age
A veteran of a former turning of the e-book wheel looks at the past, present, and future of reading books on things that are not books.  -by John Siracusa, Apple Technology Specialist at Ars Technica.
John writes about the history of ebook devices, corporate mis-steps, outmoded […]

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At the ALAMW Conference I sat in on a brainstorming session with ebrary folks and about 50 librarians.  The topic was patron driven/initiated purchasing models.  ebrary is in the beginning stages of creating a model and wanted to get feedback from librarians.  Some common themes that came up included:
budgets - librarians weary of budget control, […]

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