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August 2012

Seth Godin on libraries, literary agents and the... →

Rivera: Many authors hear your message about being willing to give away their books for free, or to focus on spreading their message but their question is: “I’ve got rent to pay so how do I turn that into cash money?” Who said you have a right to cash money from writing? I gave hundreds of speeches before I got paid to write one. I’ve written more than 4000 blog posts for free. Poets don’t get...

July 2012

“‘Google Books is an important advance on the card-catalog method of finding...”

– The heart of Google’s fair use argument in Publishers Weekly (via laurie-gold)

why do I constantly want a new ereader?

pr3cocious: Kindle doesn’t read ePub, Nook is ugly, Kobo is glitchy (but how beautiful is the quilted back). Hmph.

E-Reading: A Midterm Progress Report (from The... →

…for consumerist reading, e-readers have gotten better in some ways while stagnating in others; for engaged, responsive reading, they seem to be generally stagnating, or perhaps even moving backwards. These are technologies that need a kick in the pants. They’re not getting better nearly fast enough. And that matters, because they are now essential to millions of readers’...

eBooks and eReaders Survey →

“Here’s my conclusion: ebook models make us choose. And I don’t mean choosing...”

– —Andromeda Yelton, Ebook Choices and the Soul of Librarianship. As I was reminded in a meeting recently, my library’s (unofficial) motto is “Access, Not Ownership.” I have a sneaking suspicion that the administration wouldn’t mind going 100% digital if it meant more access. We’re sort of having...

A Fascinating Use of Metadata and Maps →

The Visualization of Emancipation is an ongoing mapping project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, that sheds light on when and where men and women became free in the Civil War South. It tells the complex story of emancipation by mapping documentary evidence of black men and women’s activities—using official military correspondence, newspapers, and wartime letters...

An ereader for car guys →

An idea that has some merit. The military and aviation have been developing digital maintenance manual solutions for some time but now the time may be right for a consumer application. “I think there is a real market for an e-reader device that is designed to be used with greasy, possibly gloved hands and built to take actual abuse. The kind of thing that can live in your toolbox or...

Apple won't carry an ebook because it mentions... →

“Author Holly Lisle has a series of online writing guides that she sells. One volume of this, “How To Think Sideways Lesson 6: How To Discover (Or Create) Your Story’s Market” was rejected by Apple’s iBooks store. At first, Apple told Lisle that she wasn’t allowed to have “live links” to Amazon in her books. So she removed the links and resubmitted the...

Science Fiction Kindle and Nook sleeves →

Best Books of 2011: Science Fiction & Fantasy →

10 science fiction and fantasy novels for your Kindle worth reading.

Book Weirdo: Great New Sci-Fi From Indie Authors →

bookweirdo: Paragon: The Propagation by J. Alan Stephens. $5.99 from Smashwords.com On planet Terradomus, ex-assassin Tanner Corbin and Shera Halsey, are separated when she is flown to planet Paragon for a reality show. He soon becomes suspicious of events surrounding the show. Are old habits…

Kickstarter for cool classic book ereader covers →

Now this is a cool idea… Made by the oldest bookbinder in the U.S., our cases are the first to look, feel and wear like an actual book. Each hardcover case features original book cover art, printed on book fabric that has been treated to withstand daily wear and tear. Because it is made like a book, it will look better the more you use it.

Landmark publication Weekly Reader to shut down →

infoneer-pulse: Weekly Reader, a staple in American classrooms for a century, has some hard news for its young readers: it’s shutting down. Chief rival Scholastic, which bought the school newspaper earlier this year, is folding it into Scholastic News and axing all but five of Weekly Reader’s 60 employees in White Plains, NY, The Post has learned. » via New York Post

Kodak (2006), a film by Tacita Dean →

Filmed in 2006, the ennui has only heightened in the subsequent years. As we watch a once global and ubiquitous tech industry all but erased by digital disruption those of us in print publishing can’t help but feel a little chill run up our spines. After discovering that the Kodak factory in Chalon-sur-Saone, France, was closing its film production facility, Dean obtained permission...

“Too much information can be very dangerous because it can lead to a situation of...”

– The Great Abbreviators | James Shelley (via slantback) What do you read when everything is available to read? Ask your librarian. ~ eP

Photo of boy in public housing with an iPad... →

Our goal as a nation should be for every child in Public Housing to have an ereader or iPad or some form of portable screen with internet access. Our goal should be to insure that children growing up with the least advantages economically have more not less educational advantages. An iPad is cheaper than most computers. It’s portability allows a child to use it outside rather than tethered...

“In a digital culture that granulates knowledge, books synthesize it. In an...”

– The Global University Press - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education (via infoneer-pulse)

Voicing my opinions: nook →

Remember that favorite paperback you reread over and over till the pages fall out? Every ebook you read is on the same ereader. When the pages fall out they fall out on every book you own. Worth thinking about quality construction when you buy your ereader. voicingmyopinions: Ack! My beloved nook’s screen has gone haywire. It’s still readable but I can’t see words that are in the very bottom...

“When books disappear into the cyber […] they will be like the genie—summonable...”

– James Salter in his introduction to Jacques Bonnet’s Phantoms on the Bookshelves. (via smukherjee14)

Penguin buys self-publishing service Author... →

According to the company statement, Author Solutions generated $100 million in revenue in 2011 and has been growing at about 12% per year for the past three years. The company derives its revenues from self-publishing authors paying for publishing, marketing and distribution services — roughly one third of its revenue from each business. Author Solutions has 150,000 authors who have published...

Kristen Lamb: An Industry on the Brink—Five... →

calimae: Some of these points are applicable to libraries, as well. Mistake #1—Fear Mistake #2—Paper is Married to Petroleum DOOM Mistake #3—Reliance on Outdated Gimmicky Marketing Tactics Mistake #4—Over-Fixation on Tools Mistake #5—Expecting Commerce Before Community

electricfeeler: Paper books don’t have to be plugged into a wall. (…but ebooks don’t get ruined when the basement floods ~ eP)

raelinn: Nook Simple Touch :D I didn’t think I would love this as much as I do… comparing it with real books though, I still prefer books, but not comparing it, it’s so great!! I’ve mostly only been looking for free books so far. I’ve been reading Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Little Women and some random pages of other stuff. I bought 25 Favorite Novels and The...

Here are the new rules for book publishing →

quantumblog: 1. Self-published books are the new business card. It’s a way to remember someone and also know what’s interesting about them. …not sure this is realistic in practice. The last thing I want to read is a 320 page resume. 2. Nonfiction writers write books to get something else—speaking gigs, consulting gigs, a steady flow of job offers. Books are good for a lot of things, but...

In the Library with the Lead Pipe →

chrischelberg: A fascinating, long piece on ebooks, what went wrong in scholarly publishing, and some options that we really should be pursuing faster. Brett Bonfield says, and I agree, that the shortsighted error was the outsourcing of indexing and abstracting to private firms. Not just for the cost, but for the damage to the core values of preservation and accessibility. To prevent further...

R.A. Library: Short Fiction In The Digital Age →

ralibrary: image: kodomut As television programs grow progressively more uninspired and yawn-inducing, I find myself more inclined to log onto the kindleboards and shortstorysymposium to hunt for short fiction “episodes.” It wasn’t long ago that I shared the formerly popular sentiment that…