TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘Library of the Future’ Category

By David Rothman

The adrenaline-pumper of the week? American Libraries has just run an article titled “The Elusive E-book,” by Stephen Sottong, former associate librarian at California State University, Los Angeles, whose faculty home page appears with the headline, “Retiring on September 26, 2003.”

Dissecting the Sottong piece, an information manager named Stephen Leary writes: “People won’t read entire books on these readers, Sottong assures us, yet that’s exactly what I have done myself. I’ve read dozens of books on my Sony reader, and on my desktop computer as well. Somehow I didn’t make it into Sottong’s academic research. Like other book lovers, I read many at one time. A reader is a great leap forward for many like me who don’t want to carry around a load of print books.” Exactly.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if librarians recognized the full potential of E and started worrying in a major way about e-book standards and the need to back off from an excessive reliance on DRM? Public libraries urgently need to consider new access and business models. Articles like Sottong’s, alas, steal time away from more useful efforts, including those by Isabelle Fetherston to educate the library world about the benefits of e-books for the elderly.

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By David Rothman

Oh how I’d hate it if TeleRead weren’t a global e-book blog. Where would we be without posts from Branko Collin in Amsterdam or others such as Carol Jurd in Adelaide or Ficbot in Toronto—or, now, Richard Herley, the prize-winning novelist whose essays reach us from a village in the Hampshire Downs in the U.K., an area shown in the photo?

But no course requirements, no academic details, bedevil us. What about institutions? How can degrees be more similar in a number of places—not just Europe or the United States but also cash-strapped developing countries? And can open source software and the right library resources, including, yes, well-stocked national digital library systems, help? Not to mention OLPC-style computers and variants that can display e-books well.

The World in Your Library conference

Such topics will come up Friday at an all-day conference called The World in Your Library: International Users and International Librarians: Enriching the Academic Experience, and I’ll be among the speakers along with another name familiar to TeleBlog regulars, Wayan Vota of OLPC News. If you’ll be attending and want to say hello, just shoot me an e-mail. Wayan and I will be part of a 3-4:30 p.m. program and demo XOs afterwards, although we’ll be there all day. Beyond the librarians, I’m also looking forward to meeting Josh Gay of the Free Software Foundation. The event is part of the LACUNY Institute series from the Library Association of the City University of New York.

Where the TeleBlog is weak: We need more contributors from developing countries, such as David Ajao, who wrote about e-books on mobile phones in Africa. E-mail me if you’re working to popularize e-books there and want to write about successes—or challenges.

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By David Rothman

“There’s no doubt that Yahoo! shareholders would delight in such a mega transaction. But what about the open source developers who built Zimbra? What about all the Zimbra customers who bought into the open source e-mail specifically because it was an alternative to Outlook and other proprietary offerings? Will Microsoft crush Zimbra into non-existence? Feed the Zimbra features into Outlook?” - Paula Rooney (shown with her blog collaborator, Dana Blankenhorn).

The TeleRead take: Oh, and how about the Open Content Alliance, which is working toward “a digital archive of global content for universal access”? Both Yahoo and Microsoft’s MSN are listed as supporters, but with the former swallowed up, would Microsoft be as inclined to help such efforts?

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By David Rothman

How ironic. What’s the Web but one huge database—used as such? The New York Times gets it, as shown by the unshackling of thousands of stories previously hidden behind a pay wall.

And yet some members of the supposed new media are stumbling in this area; they fail to grasp the importance of depth, permanence and/or trustworthiness.

Would you believe, the Technorati index has dropped items older than six months, including, ouch, TeleBlog-related ones? Although they might return, there’s no time given, according to a Techcrunch report. Richard Jalichandra, new Technorati CEO, should reverse course immediately.

Yes, you already know about the respective hassles of Beth Wellington and David Faucheux, whose blog-related efforts got dissed.

The library angle

If librarians are smart, they’ll team up with large research institutions and come up with archives and search engines—for the blogs, the Web, e-books, you name it—that are more trustworthy than commercial equivalents. Let’s also hope that the Internet Archive can get more serious about blog preservation.

Maybe it’s time for the archive and the library world—already collaborating on projects such as the Open Content Alliance—to grow much closer. And not just to counter Google for Power purposes. Look, aren’t libraries supposed to care about the long term? Perhaps they need to think about a Flickr-style service for easy storage of timely photos that in the future could be archival gems. Brewer and friends at the Archive ideally could receive the funds to provide the infrastructure. Hello, OCLC? Care to show a little more vision and less turf-fixation here

Related: Not that things are so great in the newspaper business.

Technorati Tags: Technorati , Internet Archive , OCLC , Brewster Kahle , Flickr , New York Times , NYT , OCA , Open Content Alliance , Beth Wellington , David Faucheux

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By David Rothman

We’ve griped about some public libraries splurging on movie DVDs when the money might better go for, ugh, books—both E and P.

But what of a future when video-filled, corporately owned “public” libraries are displacing the genuine ones?

I’ve just run across A.D. Nauman’s Scorch—free to U.S. readers at the ad-supported Wowio site—and will quote a review by the prolific Rick Kleffel:

“Scorch is set in a near-future America where the government has been subsumed into huge corporations. Arel Ashe is a rather plain 30-something woman who is going nowhere in the Adstories department of one of the three. Her second job is at a library, which bears more resemblance to a huge video store than what we think of as a library today. When she loses her job in the Adstories department, she begins a downhill slide towards poverty that can kill. Scorch becomes a race towards success in a society where consumption is mandatory and backstabbing your coworkers is an admirable trait.”

Promising. I’m swamped now, but have started Scorch and will see for myself if Kleffel was on target. Please note this book was written before Bush told us to shop to defeat bin Laden. The term “Scorch,” by the way, applies to malcontents too smart for their own good—fodder for ridicule in huckster-driven videos.

Other links of interest:

–A Norwegian school is experimenting with the use of the iLiad e-book reader, according to a newspaper article. A horrid, machine-generated translation appears here. Any humans care to pitch in with something better?

–Fake Steve Jobs has fantasized about an Apple e-reader—the “size of the Sony Reader but with a color multi-touch screen, plus the ability to surf the Web on WiFi, get email, make phone calls, listen to music and watch movies.”

Mike Cane wonders if it could use the same thin display technology as the Toshiba Portege R500 (scroll down), if the touch feature allowed.

“Jobs wouldn’t think E Ink to be good enough,” Mike writes. “He’d find the refresh annoying and aesthetically offensive. I think they’d go for the kinetic scroll of the iPhone, or at least a touchscreen with finger-flick paging.”

–Meanwhile, over at MobileRead, people are discussing what the new Sony Reader should have included. I’ll share the dream of a choice of fonts—especially typefaces that will stand out better against the background. The screen is noticeably better than the old Reader’s, but contrast issues remain.

Related: Kleffel’s take on sci-fi writer Ken Macleod, whose politics and worldview seem to overlap somewhat with Nauman’s.

And speaking of books vs. DVDs: My thoughts on Wal-Mart as a lit-promoter in reverse.

Technorati Tags: A.D. Nauman , April Nauman , Scorch , dystopias , sci-fi

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By David Rothman

"In ‘The Virtual Librarian,’ information technologist Keith Robertson keeps reminding himself that Lib is not a real person; she’s a virtual librarian—software, nothing more. Like the telephone voice that tells you whether your flight’s on time. But Lib’s software is evolutionary, designed to keep improving itself as it learns. So she is outgrowing her creators and developing a mind of her own. Keith’s whole future, including his job and his marriage, depends on Lib. And Lib is out of control." - Author Theordore Rockwell’s news release for The Virtual Librarian: A Tale of Alternative Realities.

The TeleRead take: Outgrowing creators and showing a "mind of her own," eh? Hmm. Professional dev issues? Perhaps some flesh-and-book people in the stacks will relate to the software. Actually this forthcoming first novel isn’t by a librarian of either the software or human variety–rather, by a nuclear scientist who goes back to the days of Admiral Hyman Rickover. Still, the mix of information-related issues and the HAL-ish premise might interest library geeks and hangers-on. Rockwell is known for such nonfiction as The Rickover Effect and Creating the New World.

Caveat: I have not read The Virtual Librarian and will be interested in people’s impressions after it appears. (Via LISNews.)

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By David Rothman

Having talked up the idea of a full-service world library, I’ll offer one example of how this could be a great contracting opportunity for the private sector.

Go here for a tryout of the Oxford Language Dictionaries offering "Millions of authoritative, accurate translations in French, German, Spanish, and Italian, into and out of English." The tryout lasts through October 21.

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By David Rothman

The multimedia, multicultural World Digital Library project is now stepping up promo in the wake of a new agreement with UNESCO. Shown here in an older video from December.

Might this someday be the ultimate add-on for the One Laptop per Child laptop—complete with displays of “artifacts ranging from a photo collection of a 19th-century Brazilian empress to a crackly recording of the 101-year-old grandson of a slave”?

Check out not just the video but also background at Wikipedia and articles in the New York Times (source of above quote), Washington Post and elsewhere,

The C factor—and the need to look beyond unencumbered items

Here’s hoping that copyright laws won’t get in the way more than I fear they will. At the same time I want fair compensation for writers and publishers. That means reason on everyone’s part. In existing digitization efforts, the U.S. Library of Congress, a prime mover of the project, has steered away from copyrighted books.

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By David Rothman

More kid’s e-books, please. While many young people favor screens over paper, the e-book industry is a long way from catching up.

As a bubble gum fan, until my evil dentist put a stop to it, I was happy to see Mr. Bubble Gum listed among the 216 children’s books at eBook Impressions. Gum may or may not figure heavily in the plot, but the title will do, thanks, and it’s good to see EI carrying some kid’s books.

Still, 216 is hardly a huge number, even by e-book standards, especially with 30,000 titles at EI.

Kid’s e-books at other stores

Fictionwise, a more established store, offers 276 children’s novels, 74 nonfiction books for kids and 668 novels for young adults. And Diesel eBooks sells hundreds of children’s books in well-organized categories.

Also check out the 947 titles within the Children’s & Young Adult Fiction list at eBooks.com, the 605 Juvenile Fiction listings at Mobipocket, and eBooks about Kids.

Still just drops in the bucket

Despite these stats, keep in mind the many thousands of paper books published each year for the young. The e-book industry needs to put out many more e-books for children and young adults, including members of minorities. (more…)

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By David Rothman

Mobipocket’s Web site is still down as I write this. Some old customers just might stop buying Mobi-format books in the future.

E-book software companies, publishers, distributors and e-stores, then, should consider social DRM as an alternative to traditional, Mobi-style DRM. Social DRM works by embedding names and/or other identifying information into files you buy, so P2Ping isn’t as tempting. It’s hardly perfect. But it isn’t the e-book toxin that Mobi-style DRM is. With social DRM, e-books can be much easier to buy and own than with the traditional variety.

Best protection is none, but…

The best protection is none in this era when pirates can so easily scan paper books. Fictionwise is smartly offering thousands of DRMfree books, in cases when publishers will allow. Mobi DRM, although actually gentler than many competitors, is still a hassle. Last I knew, Mobi wouldn’t even let you use a book on more than four devices at once—a barrier I’m constantly up against.

But many large publishers still hate the idea of using nothing. So social DRM could be a compromise. For software companies, stores and retailers alike, social DRM could be a way to get the jump on the competition.

Hello, Mobi? Social DRM would be one way of bouncing back from your debacle. Your owner, Amazon, is already experimenting with DRMfree music, which a far, far more radical step than social DRM.

Social DRM as a way to take e-books more seriously

At least with social DRM, buyers would never lose access, even temporarily, to already-bought books—no small concern when hard drives and the like may go south.

We could take e-books more seriously as a medium if we could truly buy them, especially for future use on new machines with different operating systems. Or present use on the cellphones, PDAs and other gizmos now proliferating in many households.

The result? We’d buy more e-books, probably lots more, especially with a standard format in use, such as the IDPF’s epub. No longer would our use of e-books be so closely tied to the competence or survival of the company behind a specific format and protection system. E-reader companies could compete in such areas as ergonomics and features. (more…)

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By David Rothman

Gimmicks like educational CDs and DVDs may actually dumb down children. But how about turning kids loose with read-aloud books from toy companies? Are they really a substitute for intensive parent-child talk? Or human readings of books? Can technology, in the form of either a stranger’s digitized voice or voice synthesis, really be the same as Mom and Dad? I’m skeptical.

But how about parents doing the reading themselves? I’m wonder how many e-book- and child-savvy parents are reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and other classics to their children. Advantages and disadvantages compared to reading from paper books? I can think of a major negative. Many kids’ classics on the Net don’t come with pictures. On the other hand, e-books are free or cost less than paper books, and you can blow up the type and point by hand to the words you’re reading. (more…)

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By Robert Nagle

AquaBrowser, which hundreds of library systems use for graphically-oriented browsing of catalogs, has teamed up with LibraryThing to create a My Discoveries feature.

The Thingology blog says AquaBrowser will now be integrating LibraryThing’s tags and social networking knowledge (ratings, reviews, lists, etc.) from LibraryThing into a catalog browser.

“My Discoveries is the new Social Library Experience found in AquaBrowser, by Medialab Solutions,” says a press release. “My Discoveries gives the user space to contribute their own knowledge and opinions on library materials and services. This experience is beneficial for patrons and librarians alike; by reviewing, tagging and networking the user takes an active role in the catalog. Everyone in the community can contribute and share their knowledge through AquaBrowser. The mission of AquaBrowser is to assist the library attain its role as the epicenter and sole institution to provide and safeguard knowledge. That mission is incomplete without a truly defined web identity, one which the public relates instinctively with finding information. My Discoveries was created to take the next step: to give a role and a voice to the community, and to connect the people who create, organize and use the library’s resources, inside and outside the library.”

Fun fact from AquaBrowser’s press release: Over 245,000 LibraryThing members have added more than 21 million tags and 2 million ratings to almost 17 million books. Here are some screenshots from the AquaBrowser. You can test the visual browser display on the Queen’s library page (note that My Discoveries is not visible). (more…)

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