TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘digital libraries’ Category

By Aaron S. Miller, CTO of BookGlutton, a Web-based community of readers

Tim O’Reilly is a publisher and web entrepreneur who has proved himself in both worlds, and I always admire his dead-on observations of Web technology and its possibilities for entrepreneurship. Before this last Web 2.0 Expo, he did some nice checks and balances on the hype. It’s always bittersweet to have someone reminding us that we have a long way to go. As an entrepreneur, this is the constant joy and lament.

In the interest of getting past both hype and disdain, we should all take a minute to speculate about what Web 2.0 means for books.

Some might say we missed the boat, but let’s be more hopeful than that. And set aside, for a moment, privacy concerns. Those revolve around critical issues, but they require sustained metaphysical wrangling, and for our purposes, as representatives of the big medium which definitely missed the 7:32 express, it’s better to learn something from the innovation that has already taken place. As O’Reilly wisely points out, we’re not at 3.0 yet.

Looking past the “distractions” issue

How about the “interruptions” and “distractions” that Web 2.0 supposedly brings to books: advertising, twitters, chat, graffiti, or other 2.0 trappings? These things are actually part of the hype, and therefore also objects of disdain. We need to look past both.

The book/screen device/laptop convergence is an imminent catalyst. We need to realize that first. And the Kindle embodies the first major dilemma on the path to the really big changes. Will locked-down architecture and content be the industry standard, or will there be a Book 2.0 approach to things? For most book-lovers, both of these choices are reprehensible, yet one must be chosen.

Apple to break into E?

Don’t equate the Kindle with other e-book devices. The Kindle is a product of a company which came into the world proclaiming “Earth’s Biggest” Web catalog. This device comes to us from a Web company, founded on Web technologies, fed by Web communities and Web shoppers. There’s no doubt Kindle is going to evolve faster than those jellyfish from hardware manufacturers with relatively undeveloped Web properties. For Amazon to step into the hardware space is huge–so huge that I don’t need to spend many more keystrokes on it. The next huge thing would be for Apple to step into the e-book space, something more imaginable now, given Amazon’s monopolistic decrees to publishers and Apple’s good relationships with content distributors. The arena for the big battle will be the Web.

And while much of what we think of as Web right now consists of so-called “social networks,” many of which may seem to have nothing to do with books (or when they do, nothing to do with the actual texts of the books), the core innovations of these properties can still be applied to our own enterprises. And being at the back of the pack, we have the advantage of foresight for the pitfalls.

Here’s a brief map of where “Web 2.0″ is taking us:

• E-book devices will be web-enabled. They’ll be using modern browser engines, like Webkit. They will be open, so that book authors and vendors can reach people the way they want to. They will be on-line as much as we need them to be. They will function offline, even when accessing web content. They will, by default, offer access to the whole Web, not just one vendor’s content.

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By David Rothman

I’m baffled why Amazon readers are giving just three out of five stars to An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England. Not everyone will love the Guide’s quirks, but I do. A bumbler named Sam Pulsifer accidentally burns down the Emily Dickinson house, killing two and bringing out the inner arsonist in other losers.

National Public Radio called the Guide “captivating”—read an excerpt, to to get a quick feel for Brock Clarke’s blend of charm and mirth—and I agree despite major issues with characterizations.

Many memorable novels abound with flaws, and yet you still might regard them as keepers. I’ve just finished a paper copy from the Alexandria, VA, library and need to get it back before I draw a fine, but oh how I’d love to be able to read the Guide whenever I wanted.

What, however, if I could legally keep an e-book edition of Guide and other library items I liked, up to a certain number per month or year? And suppose that the quotas favored books over other media, one way to promote literacy? That’s the “permanent checkout” concept, a way to wean libraries off an overdependence on the Rube Goldbergish approach of Digital Rights Management that besets patrons today, especially those with limited technical skills.

I could not sell a permanent checkout of the Guide or other book or video or audio. But perhaps I could share it with my family, and I could at least point friends to the same item for them to access from their libraries—under these terms or others.

A mix of access and financial models, please

Permanent checkouts are just one of a mix of business models and related technologies that I’ll discuss here as a way to help public libraries survive the digital age. Books are my main interest, although the models in one form or another could apply to other content.

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By David Rothman

So when will Amazon switch over to ePub for the Kindle and Mobipocket software, and also abandon DRM lock-ins? Fat chance—at least without pressure from the rest of the book industry.

But then do mere publishers count anyway? Remember, Amazon wants vertical integration in the Standard Oil tradition, even at the expense of its suppliers: publishing houses.

An alarum from O’Reilly Media

Check out Publishers beware, Amazon has you in their sights, a post from Tim O’Reilly (photo), who says, “Amazon has, so far, created huge value for the publishing ecosystem. Now, as they become more powerful, they need to be especially watchful that they don’t irreparably damage an industry on which they too depend.”  Publishers aren’t the only ones taking notices. So is the library world as shown by items in LISNews and Jessamyn West’s blog.

Suspicious inconsistency

I just hope people will connect the dots. There is a reason, as I see it, why Jeff Bezos favors nonDRMed music (as part of his war with Apple) but not unshackled books (given Amazon’s investment in the Kindle and Mobipocket). DRM is a politer electronic version of the lawyers and thugs that the old Rockefeller interests used against competitors. Meanwhile, in the POD area, aren’t Jeff’s humans bullying clients on the phone?

And one way you can help

If you have things to say, whether e-book- or POD-related, why not catch up with the Washington State Attorney Genera’s officel?

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By Branko Collin

Copyright is not fit for this digital age, and needs to be changed; so said two representatives of the Dutch national library in a letter to daily NRC yesterday. In their epistle (Dutch) Martin Bossenbroek and Hans Jansen, managers Collections & Service and E-strategy respectively of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library), the Dutch national library, explain how difficult it can be to run large-scale digitization programs when for a large number of books it simply is not clear whether they have returned to the public domain or not:

Copyright is a good thing, but the code that enshrines this right is too much of a good thing in its current form. In the digital age, it misses its targets. For hundreds of thousands of 20th century rights holders, it offers no protection, recognition and reward, but only the prospect of oblivion. An adaption of copyright law to the demands of the 21st century is needed urgently, otherwise the building of a digital library of any serious proportion will remain an illusion.

[Because of the difficulty of locating the heirs of long-dead authors, you cannot safely re-publish works that came out a 100 years ago.]

Both institutions and companies are keeping a safe distance from this copyright danger zone, and this will result in unbalanced digital collections. The digital library of the 21st century will have a gaping hole where works of that age should be. Hundreds of thousands of authors will never be found again. For them the chance of an epiphanous find followed by a second, digital life will definitely be gone.

This scenario can hardly be the meaning of a law that should protect an author’s rights. Before anything else, an author has the right to be read. That is why it is high time for an Internet exception for non-commercial use in the Dutch copyright law, one better thought through than the changes of 2004. Since then, heritage institutions are allowed to offer their collections electronically to the general public, but only from within their own building, using an intranet. That’s just not how the Internet works.

The authors continue discussing orphaned works, and how a mixture of Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon orphan works law could produce a best of both worlds: mixing extended collective licenses with the opt-out principle. Collective licenses, also known as levies, are funds paid by the public into one big pot, and redistributed to the copyright holders. In a lot of jurisdictions radio is paid for this way. This makes radio possible: if there were no collective licenses, each radio broadcaster would have to negotiate separate contracts with artists for each track they play. At least, so the theory goes. Opt-out means the author or their heirs has to state explicitly not to want to participate. Copyright law is opt-in by default, but stops functioning in areas where the rights holders cannot be traced, or only with immense difficulty. Something authors seem to have brought upon themselves with their support of the Berne Convention, which outlaws any sensible scheme for tracking authors and their works.

See also: The printed book as a preservation device.

Next week the Amsterdam public library will organise a conference on the meaning of copyright for libraries, where Ernst Hirsch Ballin, the Dutch Minister of Justice, will be one of the speakers.

(Entry first published at 24 Oranges.)

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By Branko Collin

The organisation of (UNESCO’s) Amsterdam World Book Capital will hold a symposium called “The Book in the Internet Era: Copyright and the Future for Authors, Publishers and Libraries” on the 21st and 22nd of April 2008 at the new central Public Library of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The language of the symposium will be English. The entrance fee will be 350 euro, though some authors, and some citizens from economically disadvantaged countries are eligible for a discount.

Among the invited speakers are Dr. Ernst Hirsch Ballin (Dutch Minister of Justice), Paul Goldstein (Professor of Law at Stanford University), Richard Charkin (thief), and James Boyle (Professor of Law at Duke University).

Of these I find Hirsch Ballin and James Boyle the most remarkable. The Dutch Department of Justice rarely concerns itself with copyright (mostly only with the Windows-CDs-from-car-boots stuff); what is a cop doing in a kindergarten? James Boyle is one of those rare copyright scholars who believe that there must be actual reasons for having a copyright law, and that the effects of copyright should be measured where possible. I know—what a nutter!

Moderator’s note: Fascinating post. But the above reference to Richard Charkin is Branko’s personal opinion and might even be even libelous if presented as a fact without the full background. Richard Charkin is a reputable publishing executive who “stole” Google laptops to make a point about copyright. See my comment. - David Rothman

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By David Rothman

“I used to get library e-books but since my computer crashed and was repaired I can no longer get the PDF library e-books. Something to do with Adobe Digital Editions—they say version 1.5 should be coming out soon, which will fix the problem.” - Linda Pettit, in West Virginia—writing in PalmAddicts.

The TeleRead take: But how long until something else will introduce an incompatibility—such as Linda Pettit’s moving on to a new system. Not to mention all the unknowns of DRM. Will IDPF members be able to agree on an “open” DRM system?

Related: Ficbot’s Public library eBabel redux: Isn’t there a better way than Mobi vs. Adobe e-book Deathmatches and chaotic user menus?

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By David Rothman

I grew up across the Potomac from Washington and the Library of Congress, not the most kid-friendly place. Strict rules—I don’t recall the specifics—guarded against various services of the Library from being swamped by the pimple-faced hordes slaving on term papers. To what extent did William Randolph Hearst’s jingoist press cause the Spanish-American War? Such was my fixation for Ronald Savage’s history class, or maybe Bert Cohen’s; and unhappy with the pickings at my local public library, I talked the librarycrats into making me an exception.

But wouldn’t it be nice if the the Library were less aloof, not just from high school kids but from the Net as a whole? And so I’m delighted to learn that the acrobat image and some 3,000 others from the place will be available on Flickr—there to be enjoyed, picked up for other Web sites, and maybe even tagged and captioned in ways that bring new facts to light. That’s just a speck of the 14 million images at the Library, in part due to copyright restrictions, but it’s still a good start. Bravo! Would that even recent books from the library be online, too—something that would be possible, with compensation for writers and publishers, under a TeleRead-style approach.

Bookish truancy

With my high school episode in mind, I was amused early this morning to run across a somewhat similar tale, from an old school friend of my sister, Beth Wellington, the journalist-poet-activist whom Yahoo 360 dissed. Beth’s LOC item, however, provides twists going beyond my own, and here’s an excerpt from her post, which also passes on some disturbing details from the FlickR-LOC story:

“The Library of Congress is one of my favorite haunts. The first time I had to sneak in because I was still in high school. I confess this, hoping that the statute of limitations has expired. While other folks ditched classes to cruise the mall, I transgressed once by riding with Dad into the District to research a senior term paper, ‘The Effects of The Great Depression on Communist Party Membership in the United States.’ I had already tried the Richard Byrd branch library. Its only book—a 1958 tome by J. Edgar Hoover—warned that the shoe salesman peeking up my skirt might be a communist…The college libraries weren’t much better” in their selections. The truant office caught up with Mrs. Wellington, who later revealed that Beth was lucky in the wording of his question. “He asked whether I knew you were not in school and I said yes. If he had asked me if I knew you were skipping school I would have told him the same thing.”

‘Remnants of the McCarthy era’

“The shortage of books,” Beth recalls, “was my first experience with the remnants of the McCarthy era. Imagine, instead, a library where everything in print was available!”

Exactly. Or how about most everything available electronically—whether from the Library or from local systems or from the private sector, with ways to bypass the censorship that Washington might well try to impose?

The more things change…

Now, here’s the disturbing aspect of Beth’s post, something you may also see in a few other accounts of the Library-FlickR alliance. The Children’s Internet Protection Act, a godsend for vendors of filtering software, prevents certain school or library computers from accessing FlickR.

One fix could be for the Library site to mirror only “safe” parts of FlickR. A better one, though, as many have observed, would be to mitigate the legislation.

Will this happen soon? We’re not back in the McCarthy era, but the urge to repress is alive and well among no small number of voters and politicians. It’s not as if we should have kids gazing hour after hour at  porn—better for library bats to fixate instead on the causes of the Spanish-American War. But surely the act can be made less burdensome.

Donning white globes to gaze at the art of Blake

Meanwhile, three other points. First I agree with Beth that E can’t replace everything library, whether as a social gathering sport or a place to see artifacts close up. Remember Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti’s post mentioning her visit to the Morgan Collection, where she told time off Lewis Carroll’s watch? Well, Beth has her own memories—of, for example, donning white gloves “to wonder at William Blake’s original illustrations”  at the Library of Congress.

Second, how can I conclude without direct links to 1,615 color transparencies, taken in the 1920s and ’40s by the U.S. Farm Security Administration and the 1,500 black and white shots on the sometimes-overlapping topics of politics, crime, sports, and theater (as well as shots of strikes and disasters)?

Third, isn’t it ironic that the FlickR end of Yahoo is laudably helping to preserve history, while the Yahoo 360 end is doing just the opposite—by shutting down 360 without promptly providing Beth and other bloggers with the tools they need to make smooth transitions to other hosts? I suspect I’m not the only Washington-area library fan who can relate to Beth’s recollections. Same for other people who follow the blogs of friends and acquaintances, in other locations and on other topics. There is no such thing as a generic blogger, at least among those who do more than rewrite the big news stories, and Beth’s latest item is a handy reminder to me to follow up with Yahoo’s “social networking guru” on the data portability issue. One Marc Davis—that’s Mr. Guru’s real name—has been by the TeleBlog if you go by a MyBlogLog image displayed publicly, courtesy yet another Yahoo service. Same guy? Either way, I’m hoping Marc has had time to reflect on the transition problem and can get his employer to make a serious pledge to help Beth and others chroniclers of history-in-the-making. Come on, Marc. We’re rooting for Yahoo to do the right thing, just as it has in its cooperation with the Library of Congress.

(”Ruth the Acrobat” image found via Beth’s blog.)

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By Jon Noring

Moderator’s note: Great timing, Jon. I’ve just posted The Triumph of social sites: Publishers, listen up! Annotation-style capabilities, of course, will make in-book communities possible. - D.R.

David Rothman recently called on IDPF to develop an open standard, third-party annotation and linking format. I’ve previously written about the need for such a standard in two TeleRead articles [1, 2]. Hopefully the third time will be a charm!

The need for such a standard is pretty obvious. Various companies are already implementing their own proprietary standards for third-party annotation of, and linking between, digital media such as books, music, video, etc. Annotation and linking of content (no matter the type of content) is rapidly becoming a vital and fundamental component of interactivity with content, being of great value to business, academia, education, libraries and archives, social networking, etc.

Thus it is important for interoperability (that is, to prevent another Tower of eBabel) to have a single, well-designed, open standard format for third-party annotation and linking. From my research in this area, I have not yet found a developed standard suitable for this purpose (but if one exists, let me know, please!)

“Real-World” example: Annotating an e-book

Because the above introduction is a tad theoretical, let me give a fun “real-world” example to better illustrate what I’m discussing:

Mary is sitting on the beach reading a steamy romance novel on her e-book reading device (e.g., laptop computer, or dedicated e-book reader.) In a particular scene of the story, she is introduced to a character named “Charles,” about whom she really would like to share her thoughts with others. For example, she might want to share something relatively academic like “Charles reminds me of a character right out of a 19th century English novel,” or maybe something a little more earthy and personal like “Wow, Charles is a real hunk!” (I’m not sure if “Charles” can be both!)

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By Jon Noring

(This article announces the launch of the Digital Text Community, a new mailing list for serious discussion on the digitization of “ink-on-paper” texts, such as books, periodicals, documents, etc. Please join our community!)

Like many of you, I daily follow and contribute to dozens of blogs, mailing lists and forums to keep abreast of digital publication related news, opinions, and developments.

David Rothman should be happy to know that the TeleRead blog is the first place I go to every day to stay up-to-the-minute on digital publishing news and views.

Considering the vast number of blogs, mailing lists, and forums on the Internet, one wonders if there’s any topic which is not somehow covered in some way, including topics in digital publishing.

“Digital Text Community” launched

Recently, it became clear that for one topic, the digitization of “ink-on-paper” texts, there indeed was a void. Certainly there are discussion forums associated with specific projects to digitize texts (e.g., Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders.) However, these forums tend to be for in-house project planning and not intended to be neutral meeting places for the many independent projects (both non-profit and commercial) which are digitizing “ink-on-paper” texts. (Yes, Martha, there’s a LOT more going on than just Project Gutenberg and Distributed Proofreaders!)

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By Paul Biba

Just some things that came to my attention this morning:

1. Silk Pagoda is running a sale for the Sony Reader. 10,000 books in lrf format for $9.95. This is a pretty good deal. Here is the blurb from the site:

"1 DVD containing 10,000 books in .lrf format, searchable, sorted by category, and specially configured to fit perfectly on your Sony PRS-500 (Sony Reader), device. This is the legendary Blackmask DVD, albeit without the zipped HTML backup (the .lrf files take up all the space), and of course without those other titles."

2. Over at Fictionwise I just noticed the stats counter at the bottom of their page. They have served up 485.5 billion words and have 43,195 titles available. Wow!

3. Project Gutenberg has regional sites—for example, in Canada and Australia. Here are some details.

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By Garson O'Toole

A disturbing report in the Washington Post indicates that millions of items are missing or misplaced at the Library of Congress.

Maybe it is time to digitize the collection and make multiple distributed copies. LOC has some digitization efforts going on, but obviously it could stand more.

Moderator’s note: I wonder if any libraries are threatened by the California fires. Katrina was hell on New Orleans’ collections. - DR

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By David Rothman

"Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies want to place on the new digital collections." - New York Times.

Related: Google’s Purchase of Jaiku Raises New Privacy Issues, in the Times.

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