TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for April, 2005

By David Rothman

So what happened after Matt McClintock, at the invaluable Manybooks.net, borrowed my Librie? Details later this weekend.

By David Rothman

French President Jacques Chirac and leaders from five other countries are advocating a Euro digilib picking up the contents of national libraries. Can they successfully address copyright and cultural issues? Will the French and the Germans be at odds? And what about “hate books”? Euro free speech isn’t the same as the U.S. variety.

How the project could be useful: If the Euorpeans handle this right and do not just think “Library” in the strictest sense, then interesting advances could happen in areas such as search technology. (more…)

By David Rothman

In the wake of a related Slashdot article from earlier this month, MobileRead has a forum on a perennial topic–best sources of e-books.

My own is Blackmask because of the size of the library of freebies and the particular variety of formats available. If, however, you use a reader such as uBook, which can digest plain ASCII, HTML and nonencrypted Mobipocket, this format business does not matter as much as it would otherwise for public domain books. And commercial DRMed books? Well, I’ll legally borrow them but generally not buy them.

By David Rothman

…then they should howl to vendors and back efforts such as OpenReader. Yo, NetLibrary? Doesn’t OCLC own you? If you care about your clients, you’ll work toward a nonproprietary approach. I’m glad to see that others are sharing TeleRead’s concern over proprietary formats.

But should libraries avoid all commercial e-books and audio books right now? Please no. The trick is for libraries and outfits like NetLibrary to limit the investment in proprietary tech and keep vendors on a very short leash. (more…)

By David Rothman

The year-old Librie is ancient news for most readers of the TeleBlog. In fact, the machine even has its own entry in the Wikipedia. Now, however, in the wake of the gadget session at GEL, people are acting almost as if it’s new.

Reminders: (1) The screen res is fantastic but the Librie’s contrast is far from paper-level. (2) The best price for nonJapanese buyers is apparently still US$419 from Japan-Direct. (3) Best starting point for prospective purchasers is the links area within the Web site for the Librie email list, and (4) Sony still lacks an English-language manual.

By David Rothman

“While it may be true gamers play a role in creating knowledge and adding value to their games, I think it’s of very limited usefulness when compared with other groups known to frequent the realm of the microprocessor and TCP/IP: open source hackers, bloggers, and the wiki people.” – Blake Carver in LISNews–commenting on a games-related article in LibraryJournal. (more…)

By David Rothman

“Some roadblocks stand in the way of the creation of a digital information library. Officials said their worries include funding, the ability to find information in an electronic system and compatibility with new software and hardware.” – Digital storage may be in UNC libraries’ future, in the Daily Tar Heel, via LISNews.

The TeleRead take: Anyone care for a systematic approach for a well-stocked national digital library system–well integrated with local schools and libraries? And ideally the academic variety, tool? (more…)

By David Rothman

So what do you do if you’re a linux user and you want to read a legally purchased book in a DRM-hobbled Microsoft Reader format meant only for machines with Operating System W.

Psst! DMCAists like Bruce Lehman–the Hollywood lawyer-lobbyist and campaign fund raiser who as White House IP czar led the Clinton-era battles against fair use–won’t be happy. But I can’t resist passing on this link while expressing my opposition to piracy. (more…)

By David Rothman

The Mind Hacks blog is questioning the usefulness of the the study saying email lowers IQ. Of course it does. So do other distractions.

The much-hyped study apparently didn’t claim that the IQ reduction is lasting. In fact, gasp, isn’t it possible that multi-tasking emailers are increasing their mental abilities by stretching them? If you go around all day with weights strapped to your back, you won’t be able to run as quickly as people without them. But you’ll most likely grow stronger than otherwise. Might the guy to the left have ended up even smarter in certain respects if he’d used e-mail more often? Not in all ways and not necessarily those conducive to his particular line of work. But some.

Meanwhile other bells are going off in my email-addled mind. Dr. Glenn Wilson, author of the study, refused to release the full material directly to a skeptic, referring him instead to the less-than-cooperative Hewlett Packard PR department. I myself have a few pesky questions about the psychologist’s scientific qualifications as the ultimate IQ maven. (more…)

By David Rothman

“IBM is readying a ThinkPad laptop that features a rotating screen designed to turn the machine into a tablet computer…” – eWeek.

The TeleRead take: Another boost for e-books–just like the rumored new Microsoft tablet design? And is Apple next?

Related: IBM Turns Its ThinkPad Into a Tablet PC, from PCWorld.

By David Rothman

“One of my favorite digital library projects is the Cuneiform Digital Library Intiative (CDLI). 5000 year old clay tablets and XML–what more could you want? You may not have 5000-year -old documents hanging around, but your community may have its own neat old stuff locked up somewhere.” – Clay Tablets in Your Attic, in BlogJunction.

The TeleRead take: Separately Robert Nagle is already looking in his attic. He’s researching Texas classic literature as digitization fodder. Way to go, Robert.

By David Rothman

Is there a place for advertising in e-books, or even sponsorships?

Maybe in some situations–but libraries, especially, should be very careful.

From the Telegraph in the U.K come examples of p-books, not just games, being used to ballyhoo sugary food. So what’s next–Flash- or SVG-powered books as ballyhoo tools for Cheerios?

(Via LISNews.)

By David Rothman

Details from Deutsche Welle, via LISNews.

By David Rothman

Podcasting Killed the Radio Star is a headline over a Wired News piece–announcing an all-podcast station in San Francisco. Hmm. Shades of the approach that Al Gore is taking with videos.

Related: I Left My iPod in San Francisco and Internet TV Age Is Dawning, but Who Will Watch?, both from the Washington Post, and Podcasting: Making Wave, from Forbes.

By David Rothman

Not everything is horrible about the new Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. The latest from the Hollywood Reporter:

The FECA law also renews the Library of Congress’ film preservation program. It also corrects a drafting error in the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act that will allow libraries to create copies of “orphan works”–copyrighted materials that are in the last 20 years of their copyright term and are no longer commercially exploitable.

Related: Text of FECA and Walt Crawford’s FMA: Watching the Way You Want.

By David Rothman

Courtesy P.G. Wodehouse–inspiration for author Andy Ihnatko. Composed in 24 hours. MP3 Link. (Via Paul Jones.)

By David Rothman

At this point it still isn’t clear whether Microsoft’s Metro will include an e-book-oriented reader. One argument against this: the fact that the Metro approach is page-oriented. But could marketing considerations prevail over technological ones? Things are still unclear. And as Adobe shows, some folks will use the page-oriented approach for e-books. Of course, the real solution is OpenReader.