Old classics are fodder for RSS feeds from the essential Distributed Proofreaders project, the real guts of Project Gutenberg. Just click on an RSS icon on the DP home page to subscribe to a list of the latest releases, both fiction and nonfiction. Via MyYahoo.com, I see that A pluralistic universe (1909) - James, William (1842-1910) was posted just this afternoon. Also just added: The book of American Negro poetry. It's been said that classics are books that remain newsworthy, and now, via RSS, they can make news in a new way. Wanna volunteer your own proofing services? It's easy.
posted by David Rothman at 6:41 PM | permanent link

You can read a bunch of blog headlines--and other RSS goodies, such as certain articles from the New York Times, PC Magazine and other top publications--in one swoop with Internet Explorer. Try out Pluck at Pluck.com.

Pluck's feed list appears where the history strip would normally show up within IE--you can use the buttons at the top of the screen to choose which one you want. Click on a topic folder and you'll see already-supplied feeds and any you may care to add. Headlines and articles show up where Web pages would normally go. But with two quick clicks on the appropriate Xs, you can banish Pluck.

What's more, Pluck is free. The FAQ says Pluck's business model is to collect fees for Amazon and eBay searches that are built into the software. No adware. Do read the privacy statement for various nuances, but all in all, this looks like a good tradeoff, complete with RSSed Dilbert.

Also worthy of a try: The free RSS-fortified toolbar from Dogpile, which, among other things, offers ticker style capabilities, allowing me to adorn IE with horizontally scrolled headlines from Slashdot. I don't think the headline feature has multi-feed capabilities, but maybe that'll be on the way.
posted by David Rothman at 5:36 PM | permanent link

"...15 members of Congress have asked for an investigation into the pricing policies of U.S textbook publishers." - Associated Press, via KATU.com and LISNews.

The TeleRead take: E-books would be a natural way to drive down prices while allowing more frequent updating, but then again, overcharges are already happening within this medium as well. Congress and anti-trust investigators should take a good look, especially at the relationship between OverDrive, the Open eBook Forum and the DRM interests. When OverDrive feels capable of charging one-book publishers $300 a year for storage, something is wrong. That's 50 times more than what OverDrive will charge the largest publishers per book. The excuse of paperwork won't do, in this era of automated small transactions.

Significantly, OverDrive's Content Reserve Unit says DRM is among the reasons for high prices--very interesting, considering that OverDrive describes itself as a major player in the DRM area. Are we in chutzpah territory? There are other issues such as the possibility that OverDrive expanded too quickly and wants to use publishers as cash cows for that reason, but the DRM ones continue to fascinate me. Moreover, it is outrageous that bits and pixels somehow justify a storage fee, while p-book distributors must finance brick-and-mortar warehouses themselves.

The developing countries angle

Back to textbooks in particular. I myself am in favor of lower textbook price for students in developing countries, whatever the medium. The question is the extent to which U.S. students should be subsidizing them. One economics book costs almost $90 in the States and $51.46 in England, which, come to think of it, is hardly Bangladesh. In the case of genuine underdeveloped countries, perhaps American publishers should be lobbying for a foreign aid program to address the issue, as opposed to squeezing U.S. students. Under a TeleRead-style approach, the U.S. would promote the spread of well-stocked national digital libraries in developing countries. Some laudable efforts are already underway in India with U.S. assistance.
posted by David Rothman at 12:08 PM | permanent link

Another reminder: TeleRead is moving to another server, so don't worry if we vanish briefly or email goes astray. Questions? Problems? I'm at 703-370-6540. - David Rothman
posted by David Rothman at 1:12 AM | permanent link

Here's a cool, Google-based news site to which Jerry Justianto pointed us. Not all the headlines are legible on my screen. But I love the idea of experimentation.

Memo to Google: Don't sue 'em.
posted by David Rothman at 12:56 AM | permanent link

Billy Barron, although no apologist for Google, thinks that the criticism of the search engine is overdone. His comments:

I really, really hate the computer press's typical cyclic reporting, and I think you are getting sucked into it to a small extent lately with Google. Typical pattern:

Stage 1: Hype. Technology/Company XYZ is great and will solve everything....

Stage 2: Backlash. Technology/Company XYZ is the spawn of Satan and everything is wrong with it....

Stage 3: Realism. Finally somewhat fair and balanced coverage.

Google suffering Stage 2 PR

Google stayed in Stage 1 an incredibly long time. Only eBay can challenge them on that front. Linux is well overdue for a serious backlash (it has had small ones now and then, which may head off the big one). Now in the past month or two they have fallen into Stage 2 very harshly.

I've seen the Internet, Java, every dotcom imaginable, etc., go through it numerous times.

Yeah, Google has pushed DMOZ off to the backburner, but it is no worse than what Yahoo has done to their directory. You have to pay to get a .com listing onto Yahoo these days.

Yahoo issues

Sorry to rant I'm not really defending Google's actions, but I do feel that the strength of the negativity towards them is unjustified. Why isn't Yahoo getting nailed for the same sort of things?
posted by David Rothman at 8:40 PM | permanent link

Posted by Jay Hartman of KnowBetter.com to the eBook Community list:

Note this paragraph from the OeBF Bestsellers page:

Rankings reflect sales for the month ending March 31, 2004. Bestsellers are calculated by aggregate unit sales from reporting retailers and does not represent the bestsellers for the entire eBook retail industry. Participating companies that report to the program may vary month by month and the list may reflect this variability.

So in other words, this isn't really a Bestseller list. It's a sort-of bestseller list from whomever wants to report. Considering their bestseller list contains only ONE indie title from Double Dragon, I'd say this list is probably not nearly as accurate for reporting what's truly a bestseller than, say, the NYT.
posted by David Rothman at 8:31 PM | permanent link

Big thanks to Chris Rippel of the Central Kansas Library System for creating and maintaining the useful "Libraries with eBooks" site, which, alas, he had to take down because the information was out of date. "I am thinking of redoing it, but I haven't time." Perhaps, if Chris liked the idea, a future version of the site could be a group effort with a bulletin board.
posted by David Rothman at 8:15 PM | permanent link

TeleRead has always been big on fixed, stable links--a great argument for well-stocked national digital library systems in the States and elsewhere. So I'm dismayed to see an error message without a new pointer when I try Libraries with eBooks. Is this just temporary or what? I've emailed Chris Rippel for an answer. Oh, well, you can still call up snippets via the Wayback Machine.

Reminder: TeleRead is moving to a new server and itself might vanish briefly if there's a glitch. Same for my email service. Problems? I'm at 703-370-6540.
posted by David Rothman at 8:28 AM | permanent link

Along with some tidbits about Dashiell Hammett and the farce known as copyright law, David Moynihan has just added five Hammett stories to the Blackmask collection--Night Shots, The Second Story Angel, Who Killed Bob Teal?, Zigzags of Treachery and The Road Home.
posted by David Rothman at 7:53 AM | permanent link

We're moving to a new Web hosting service, and there may be an interruption. Not to worry--we'll be back. Keep checking this blog--but if you get a Web error message or your email doesn't go through, you'll know what's happening. Questions or problems? I'm at 703-370-6540. - David Rothman
posted by David Rothman at 3:48 PM | permanent link

The Open eBook Forum has released a list of the 30 best-selling e-books in March, with The De Vinci Code at Number One.

Both heartening and dismaying is that so many names, such as that of Code author Dan Brown, also show up on p-book lists of best-sellers. How nice that e-books are attracting mainstream readers. Then again, let's hope that e-books can also offer their share of surprises rather than just ending up as a mere annex of the p-book industry.

Still, the Forum's first best-seller list is an extremely positive development that at least can help get e-books on the map. One more PR peg.
posted by David Rothman at 2:24 PM | permanent link

Over on the eBook Community list, someone likes the idea of an e-bookshelf that displays the spines of electronic books. But isn't that like saying that automobiles should come with buggy whips?

Granted, I love e-book sites livened up with even pseudo covers--since they tip us off about the contents and tone of a book. What's more, if a paper book has appeared, repros of an actual cover are a good way to piggyback on earlier promotion. But in an attept to win over the many e-book holdouts, let's not clutter up software and Web sites with slow, inefficient interfaces.
posted by David Rothman at 10:39 AM | permanent link

"The American film industry is fighting rampant DVD piracy in Russia with a radical new tactic: cutting prices. To fight piracy here, where 9 out of 10 DVD's sold are counterfeit copies, Columbia TriStar, a division of Sony, will price DVD's at no more than 299 rubles, or just over $10, less than half its current price." - New York Times.

The TeleRead take: Yes! A good example for book publishers, too.

posted by David Rothman at 3:41 PM | permanent link

Jew Watch, a bigoted group "Keeping a Close Watch on Jewish Communities & Organizations Worldwide," is the first site that comes up when you type the word "Jew" into the Google search engine. This is not a recommendation by Google, just a reflection of the hate site's popularity rank as determined by the usual algorithms.

Photos like the one above make the truth of the Holocaust evident--the very event that organizations like Jew Watch love to deny or minimize in import. Alas, if I wanted, I could come up with a far more graphic photograph to show the fruits of hatred in the JW vein.

Two lessons

Two lessons emerge here, as I see it.

First, however distasteful the Jew Watch site is, I don't think that Google should play into the hands of the "Jewish conspiracy" nuts by engaging in censorship. A forum on the server of the reborn Pravda, interestingly, has carried a reproduction of a rather balanced account of the controversy, as published in the Jerusalem Post.

Second, we need to drive down the cost of factual information, especially on matters as important as the Holocaust. Alas, U.S. copyright law has been moving in the opposite direction. That is why Americans can read hate literature for free on the Net but must pay to read an e-book of The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, assuming that a legal edition exists. As best I can determine, it does not.

A word for search engine neutrality--however painful it can be

Google, meanwhile, just might want to see if some manipulation has gone on outside its link-optimization rules. If, however, none has, then nothing should be changed. Search engines are not libraries or magazines and should be neutral in presentation of site rankings. If the hate site has enough links to it and if no cheating has taken place, then the Rank One should be allowed. I arrive at this conclusion reluctantly. I am not in favor of child porn sites being included in featured Google listings, but as I'll say in the next paragraph, I actually can see a positive reason for allowing the hate site to maintain its rank, even if it is pornographic in its own way.

Some personal perspective: At least one of Google's founders is Jewish, and I am, too (went to a family seder last night to commemorate Passover). I'm not religious, but to the bigots we're all the same. If I were a history teacher, I would point my students to the hate site as a reminder that holocausts can and will go on, whether against Jews or others, including Muslims. The operative word here is "context."

The best ways for Jewish groups to respond

The best response from Jewish groups themselves? The truth. And plenty of legitimate links! In fact, Jews have mounted a "Google bombing" campaign to link to a free Web encyclopedia article and boost its ranking past the anti-Semitic site's.

For people unfamiliar with Jews, a good place to start would in fact be the item in the Wikipedia, especially the related essays on the Holocaust and the Jewish community today.

Reading the Diary of Holocaust victim Anne Frank would also help. Too bad the Diary isn't free on the Net for schoolchildren in every country. Here in the States, you can't post the book legally; thank the wonderful Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. It is not just a congressional act. Bono is an act of anti-history--a suggestion, however unwitting, that the copyright elite counts more than the wisdom learned from the diary and other revealing books.

Hatred and the need for balanced copyright law

I favor copyright within bounds. But what starker illustration of the need to repeal or mitigate Bono than the fact that the Frank diary isn't free on the Net, which so many young people in the States and elsewhere use to supplement or even replace actual libraries? Imprisoned by the Nazis in a concentration camp, its young author died of typhus in March 1945. It is time that today's adolescents be able to learn, without charge, from the terrors she experienced as a Jew in Europe during World War II. Anne Frank would have written her diary with or without the copyright extension that happened in the twilight of the 20th century. I haven't the least doubt how she would have thought. While some money from the book presumably went toward Holocoast education, surely her diary could have been so much more useful in the hands of actual readers without the ability and inclination to pay.

I found no e-book of the Diary at ISBN.nu. So far, within Amazon.com, I haven't spotted the book among the very first listings. You can find study guides in electronic format at Amazon, eBooks.com, Fictionwise, but apparently not the actual book by Ms. Frank.


More likely to read the diary if it's free

Rather than lobbying Google to change the site ranking if it's legitimate, Jewish groups would be better off fighting the Bono Act to help keep alive the memory of the Holocaust--along with other history and culture from which cash-strapped people in the States and all over the world could benefit. TeleRead-style national digital libraries to reduce the cost of factual information would help as well. Teachers and students, especially in developing countries, so often hotbeds of anti-Semitic sentiments, are far more likely to read Anne Frank's diary if it is free. Even the poorest countries should at least be planning for such libraries, ideally with help from the U.S. and other well-off countries, which could help finance them and along the way nurture local publishers. Eventually--not immediately--e-book readers will be as affordable and usable as portable radios, given the spread of wireless.

Details: Sample links within Jew Watch: Jewish-Zionist-Soviet Anti-American Spies and Jewish Communist Rulers & Killers and Jewish Terrorists and Jewish Controlled Press.

(Holocaust photo from Wikipedia.)
posted by David Rothman at 11:21 AM | permanent link

"The Burlington County Library System is offering a new service that allows patrons to check out books without ever leaving home. Patrons can download their choice of e-books--or electronic books--onto their personal computer or personal digital assistants by accessing the library's Web site..." - Courier Post in Camden, N.J.

The TeleRead take: "Skip the bricks," the headline in the local paper, would scare many a clueless librarian; but actually it should reassure them. If public libraries don't adapt, then they will indeed be Amazoned and Googlized out of existence. Electronic access counts, mouse clicks, not just turnstile clicks, can be used to justify library budgets.

Friends group pitches in

"Anyone with a valid library card," the news story goes on, "can check out an e-book for 14 days after downloading special reader software. And there are never any overdue charges because the e-book automatically returns itself when it's due. Within the next two weeks, the library will also start allowing patrons to sign out personal digital assistants, or PDAs. The Friends of the Burlington County Library donated $1,000 for the purchase of five of the hand-held devices. The library also invested $15,000 for the purchase of 600 e-books and its Web site to access them."

Great-looking site--and Mobipocket is on the way

Kudos to both the library and the Friends group for keeping up with the times. What's more, OverDrive Digital Libraries, in character, has heped Burlington come up with a great-looking site with bookstore-level polish. Soon, via OverDrive, Burlington, along with other sites, will even offer e-books in Mobipocket, the best proprietary format for onscreen reading.

The concerns: I remain worried that OverDrive will jack up prices on electronic library books, just as it changed the terms on small publishers.

What's more, I was saddened, not just pleased, to see the cover of George Orwell's 1984 shown on a PDA, as example of the library's electronic offerings. Remember, if U.S. copyright law were more balanced, 1984 could be on the Net for free to anyone to download, with or without a library card. Not everyone lives in a district offering the same mavels as the Burlington system does. For the moment at least, before the copyright interests get their way, 1984 is still legally downloadable by Australians via a local version of Project Gutenberg.

Libraries and public domain titles: Even if public domain books are available without library cards, libraries still have a role to play. What better places for book clubs and other ways to help people digest the books? Plus, libraries can forge alliances with local computer clubs to help provide tech support for students book-loving PDA owners. Furthermore, Friends groups can get into the act by serving as a source of PDAs, with a small markup.

(Spotted via eBookAd.)
posted by David Rothman at 9:50 AM | permanent link

Too many e-book publishers have set up catalogue-style Web sites that never change except for different titles.

One solution comes from our resourceful friends over at eBookAd distributors. They created a headline service, which, by the way, is available to publishers and others. (An aside: we can help interested sites pick up TeleRead headlines automatically, at no charge).

But there is another approach, too, a blog. Older readers may recall the commentaries that the pseudonymous "L.L. Day" over at Doubleday--do I have his/her name right?--used to write to about new books to convey excitement. If memory serves, there was a mix of witty and upbeat comments on books and authors alike, material that went beyond mere ballyhoo. How about a revival of the same for the e-book world? At the Doubleday level, why not fresh tidbits by or about John Gresham? Or even better, blog items by or about new writers? RSS feeds could to go book-oriented sites, including, of course, e-stores and interested libraries.

The L.L. Day approach vs. an individual one

Different editors could write the blog(s) under their own names--or under a common LL Dayishlike one and in a common style. Meanwhile, over at smaller publishers, the owners could wrte on individuals books and authors, and on news in the e-book world.

At any rate, if electronic publishers want to stand apart from the crowd, this is one way to do it, promoting their house brands along with their e-books.

Look, it wouldn't be that revolutionary a step. Even the lumbering entertainment industry giants have blogs about individual bands. James Linden, TeleRead CTO, recently ran across a blog the other day from Columbia Records to promote Pantom Planet.

This is one area, by the way, in which librarians are ahead of publishers, as Jenny Levine and Steve Cohen can tell you.

An existing blog over at Blackmask

Not that blogs don't exist from e-book publishers. One of my favorite blogs--even if we disgree on plenty--is over at Blackmask where publishers David Moynihan passes on news and and commentary. But that's not entirely what I have in mind. I'd like to see publishers' blogs used to put the spotlight on individual books and writers.

Needless to say, the same concept would apply to retailers. Be interesting if Scott and crew at Fictionwise, for example, will come out reguarly with personal recommendations for individual books. A blog would be a natural way to do this.

With e-book sales a pathetic $20 million or so globally, it's time for e-publishers to promote their wares more imaginatively, and well-done blogs would be a natural. Comments, anyone? If you're a publisher already doing a blog, pass on the URL, and I'll take a look for possible mention in the TeleRead Web Log.
posted by David Rothman at 8:31 AM | permanent link

From The Adventures of Daniel Boone to Tales of Shipwrecks and Other Disasters at Sea, the Literature for Children Site looked intriguing at first glance--with its list of 559 titles. Problem is that the site, recommended just the other day in LISNews, wasn't working when I dropped by.

Whenever I tried the "Bookbag" to retrieve full text, I got an error message, as did e-book enthusiast Mike Cane. Even worse, my mail bounced back to me when I followed instructions and wrote umdl-help@umich.edu to complain.

Multi-institution effort

Too bad. As described on the home page, the site includes "a collection of the treasures of children's literature published largely in the United States and Great Britain from before 1850 to beyond 1950. At the core of this Collection are books from the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature, housed in the Department of Special Collections and Area Studies at the University of Florida. Books from the Departments of Special Collections at the Florida Atlantic University, Florida State University, and the University of South Florida join volumes from the Baldwin Library to complete the Collection."

Nice, but what's the sense of it all if I can't even read the full texts. Yo, help desk?

NIH-aided

Our federal tax dollars helped pay for this collection. If I were a 'crat at the National Endowment for the Humanities, I'd complain about the mess if the problem goes on. Another argument for a TeleRead-style approach--with true pros dealing with the technical side?

For a working site for kids, check out the International Children's Digital Library--looking better and better. Maybe ICDL needs to take over the kaput Literature for Children site.
posted by David Rothman at 6:42 AM | permanent link

Even the best publishers should not be relied on to preserve e-books for the ages. Their business models just aren't right for that kind of activity. Ditto even for certain library projects without genuinely permanent funding. For some standards for sustainabilty and in other key areas, check out A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections from the National Information Standards Organization. (Thank to James Linden for spotting that one.)
posted by David Rothman at 1:23 PM | permanent link

Earlier I noted that you could buy an Otterbox protector to waterproof your PDA and thereby render obsolete the statement by Arthur C. Clarke that you can't read e-books in the tub (see photo).

Now there's a more expensive solution written up in Slashdot--a high-priced but extra-rugged PDA fit for the beach and much more. Price: $1,600. Thank you, I'll take the Otterbox instead. Price: $50 or so. Oh, and, yes, it's said to be "crushproof" as well as waterproof.
posted by David Rothman at 12:49 AM | permanent link

Earlier many complained that Free Culture debuted in the Adobe PDF format, not any others. I myself am of the PDF-sucks school, given this proprietary format's bloat and the horrors of reading PDF books on PDAs.

But now Larry Lessig has now addressed his format issue with a download page directing people to alternatives at Blackmask and elsewhere. Here's hoping he'll next come out for a consumer version of the XML-based format spec developed by the techie volunteers with the Open eBook Forum. Proprietary formats associated with DRM favor software companies at the expense of readers, writers and publishers.
posted by David Rothman at 12:19 AM | permanent link