An open letter to America’s publishers from ALA President Maureen Sullivan September 24, 2012, CHICAGO — The following open letter was released by American Library Association (ALA) President Maureen Sullivan regarding Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin refusal to provide access to their e-books in U.S. libraries. The open letter states: It’s a rare thing [...]

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Jamie LaRue, Director of the Douglas County Libraries, sent this information to me about a new monthly price comparison of eBooks.  In addition to its appearance in American Libraries, it will be available at both the American Libraries e-Content blog (americanlibrariesmagazine.org/e-content) and at evoke.cvlsites.org. In the past months, the prices of ebooks for libraries—and in [...]

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Andrew Richard Albanese from Publisher’s Weekly wrote a very nice article about life with eBooks in public libraries.  I have clipped a couple of paragraphs below.  The fulltext is available on the Publisher’s Weekly site. Begin clip: Discussions between libraries and the big six publishers over e-book lending have grabbed headlines in 2012, but despite [...]

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Smashwords today announced Library Direct, a new service that allows libraries and library networks to acquire and establish large opening collections of ebooks, direct from Smashwords. Library Direct is available to libraries that host and manage their own ebook checkout systems, typically using Adobe Content Server, and that are capable of acquiring a large opening [...]

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The Handheld Librarian 7 conference will be held virtually next Wednesday and Thursday, August 15th and 16th.  On day two, a 2-hour workshop on the state of the eReader is available. More information is below: State of the eReader:  This featured workshop will focus on the legal, ethical, and technical aspects of eReaders. The goal [...]

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Here is some information on the SEFLIN virtual conference on eBooks, September 21st. Join us for an exciting one-day online conference as five nationally- and internationally-known speakers discuss wide-ranging aspects of the growing impact of eBooks on libraries. Brought to you by the Southeast Florida Library Information Network (SEFLIN). eBooks: Benefits, Challenges, and the Future [...]

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JISC recently announced a new research study on the challenge of eBooks in academic institutions.  A project wiki has been established by the team, of which I am honored to be a member.  I am posting with permission, the first entry on the site. Please check the wiki for periodic updates. Today we kick off [...]

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The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced a $1 million award to support the incorporation and launch of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), a groundbreaking project that seeks to digitize and bring together the contents of our nation’s libraries and archives, and make them freely available to all online. To be created [...]

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Springer, in collaboration with PCG (Publishers Communication Group) released a white paper, Scholarly eBooks: Understanding the Return on Investment for Libraries, today.  It is available for a free download from the Springer site. The following is the introduction:  The Return on Investment (RoI) of scholarly eBooks in research and academic libraries can be difficult to [...]

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From an OCLC press release: DUBLIN, Ohio, July 10, 2012—The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded a $99,957 grant to OCLC for a new initiative, “The Big Shift: Advancing Public Library Participation in Our Digital Future.” The purpose of the grant is to more fully understand the challenges that U.S. public libraries [...]

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