Intro
FAQ
Links
Updates
Gizmos
Why Amos
Bokros Wants Library Books to Go on the Internet
October
8-9 Conference on E-Book Hardware, (Sponsored by the
National Institute of Standards and
Technology)
300-Pound
Annual Fee Proposed for Users of British Library
U.S.
News & World Report
Article on TeleRead
TeleRead in the Washington
Post
TeleReaders aren't quite here yet--but the technology keeps getting better and better. Check out both the TeleRead site and eBookNet for new info. Also see Henry Lahore's Overview of E-Book Readers.
Other Gizmo Stuff
News
stories about the RocketBook and Rivals--NuvoMedia
The Joys
of Curling Up with a Good Digital Reading Device--Wired
The
Electronic Book Club--PC Magazine
Peanut Press
Software for the PalmPilot
Acorn's
NewsPAD...
More on
NewsPAD
Laptops
and Food Stamp Families--N.Y. Times
And You
Wondered Why Microsoft Hasn't Come Out for TeleRead Yet?
For more than a year now, I've been suggesting that Bill Gates buy up rights to The Great Gatsby and put one of his favorite books on the Net--rather than just admiring the collector's copies in the library of his $50-million mansion. Perhaps a sidekick, Nathan Myhrvold, can chip in. According to the July 20 issue of Fortune, Myhrvold said he probably spends $5,000 a month on the wares of the Amazon.com bookstore. "For instance, I'm going fly-fishing in Mongolia later this summer. I may not buy all the books on Amazon about Mongolia or fly-fishing, but a lot of them. I found a $240, 1,000-page chronicle of all things Mongolian by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences." Myhrvold is the father of twins, 9, and they never lack for good reads. When his boys wanted to learn about paper airplanes, he bought them 50 books. No, as an incorrigible capitalist, I'm not calling for the confiscation of Gates' wealth or Myhrvold's. Still, isn't it possible that a man splurging $60K a year on books for himself and his family is a little out of touch with the needs of ordinary schoolchildren and typical library users? It's something to think about when you remember that Myhrvold helped Gates write The Road Ahead--a book that is hardly brimming with helpful ideas for funding e-book for public libraries. Typical suggestion? "Authors may decide to forfeit some or all of the royalties for the 'copies' of their works that are to be used in a library." So far Nathan Myhrvold's boss has given perhaps .6% of his wealth to libraries; and I suspect that as a philanthropist Myhrvold himself isn't exactly in Carnegie territory. Let's hope that changes. The big irony is that, as noted elsewhere on this page, TeleRead could actually be very good for businesses, including Microsoft. Few corporations have as much a stake in e-forms. Here's a chance for Gates and Myhrvold to do both well and good.
The E-Forms Connection
Many educators and librarians love the idea of a national
digital library full of electronic
books. But they wonder if the business community would
object to the tax money spent.
The answer is: TeleRead would actually benefit business by massively popularizing the use of electronic forms--and driving down the cost of processing the paperwork of consumers. The same machines that were ideal for e-books could excel for e-forms. And business is starting to catch on to the benefits here.
A warm
reception for TeleRead has come
from Tom Brown, a consultant for Fortune 500
companies and a contributor 
to the Management Update Newsletter at
Harvard Business School. He is aware of the strong link between literacy and productivity; what's more, he himself has put electronic books on
the Net through his Management
General site. This month Tom's
site published an article about TeleRead
and the e-forms that would help cost-justify a good national digital library. You can also
read a longer
version of the column here on
the TeleRead site.
For years, William
F. Buckley, Jr., the conservative
columnist and perhaps the ultimate capitalist among
journalists, has been enthusiastic about TeleRead. The
old stereotypes about business people vs. educators just
won't fly in this case--not when Andrew Carnegie himself was the leading
advocate of free public libraries.
Librarians and educators need to forge alliances with
open-minded business people and conservatives and work
toward a well-stocked national digital library.
Yes, Hollywood and certain publishers have
lobbied against library interests and 
contributed millions to politicians to influence
copyright policy. But it would be utterly simplistic to confuse major copyright holders with the
business community at large. What's more, good publishers actually could
do quite well under TeleRead.
Remember, it would reduce distribution costs and fairly compensate publishers and writers by the number of
accesses--while making thousands of books free to the
public. Publishers
could add value through editing and promotion. And business people of all kinds would have an
opportunity to support online library collections through
philanthropy, not just tax money. Bill
Gates could finally be Carnegie for real.
Perhaps librarians and educators should spend less energy coming up with reasons why we can't have TeleRead--and more time fighting for a well-stocked national digital library. The old bugaboo about business being in the way just won't apply if librarians and teachers and writers and others--including parents of book-starved children--can reach out to members of the corporate community and remind them of the benefits here. Tom Brown is already on our side.
--David H. Rothman | rothman@clark.net | 703-370-6540
TeleRead is a nonpartisan plan to get electronic books into American homes--through a national digital library and small, sharp-screened computers--in an era of declining literacy.
Along the way TeleRead would help protect electronic books, the most vulnerable medium, by reducing the financial incentive for piracy. It's a net.friendly alternative to copyright Gestapos. You'd be able to dial up Tom Clancy or Joyce Carol Oates--read regular commercial books, not just works in the public domain--for free. A national library fund would pay writers and publishers according to the popularity of their material. They could gamble money up front to bypass librarians or qualify for higher payments.
Yes, a similar approach could eventually work in many other countries.
--David H. Rothman | rothman@clark.net | 703.370.6540
TeleRead Wins Friends in Connecticut: On May 22 the Connecticut Higher Education Technology Association held a good, enlightening seminar on the law and politics of the Net--including two overlapping issues: copyright and censorship. The TeleRead model drew favorable reaction as an alternative to the Draconian measures that the copyright lobby and its Washington friends want to inflict on schools, libraries and the public at large. Just as encouragingly, it turns out that John Perry Barlow, one of the other panelists, is open to the idea of a national digital library. -D.H.R.
Site News and odds and ends: The next TeleRead Update will come when writing deadlines allow. It will tell of a bold Pennsylvania entrepreneur who hopes to market a booklike device called an Everybook. The screen resolution actually exceeds that of SVGA, and he wants prices to drop eventually to less than $500... I described the Electronic Peace Corps and TeleRead proposals on February 25 at the XXIII Simposium Internacional de Sistemas Computacionales in Monterrey, Mexico...Check out an expanded version of the speech and read a related article by ex-Peace Corps volunteers Patrick and Jacqueline Duffy-Saenz...Too bad about Apple losing interest in the eMate, MessagePad and other Newton-type offerings (take a look at the Web site of the eMate Project started by dedicated parents and teachers in Little Falls, Minnesota). The good news is that equivalents with a Mac operating system are apparently on the way.-D.H.R.
TeleRead
Basics Education
and Libraries Technology
and the Net Copyright A Few Book-Related Sites
on the Web For
Writers TeleRead
Updates
TeleRead Forum Archive (a Newer, Better Forum
Is on the Way)
TeleRead Basics
TeleRead FAQ
TeleRead Op-Ed in Washington Post
12,000-Word TeleRead Proposal, a draft
of a chapter from Electronic Publishing: The
Scholarly Frontier (The MIT Press and the
American Society for Information Science). Keep in mind
that TeleRead has undergone many refinements since I
wrote the chapter in 1995.
TeleRead for Minorities, by William R. Murrell,
founder of the African-American Culture and Arts forum on
CompuServe
TeleRead for the Blind, by David Faucheux, a blind
grad student. In text and RealAudio 
The Cutting Edge: Lobbying
for a Digital Library--Computer-Mediated
Communication Magazine
Link
Policy for This Site
Education and
Libraries
Austin Learning Academy
Project.
The
philosophy in many ways is like TeleRead's. The project
is family-oriented, rather than keeping learning just in
the schoolhouse, and it promotes traditional
literacy--not just the computer kind.
Texas Schools May Go to
Laptops--C|Net.
The plan is for computers to
replace textbooks. But will Texas schools address copyright
issues adequately, and will children have the right books
to read--real books, not just Web sites and CD-ROMs?
Questions abound. If nothing else, what about the
limitations of present-day hardware for reading books?
Hooray for the Web, good CDs and the many-to-many model. But if plans like the
Texas one aren't implemented well, educators may
accidentally wean children off
books. The same issues may arise, of course, when
libraries accept software donations.
Microsoft's Page on the
Use of Laptops in Schools. Within "Anytime
Anywhere Learning," check out the Schools in Action page for actual
examples from Texas, California, Australia, South Carolina, Washington State and elsewhere.
Books vs. Bytes--the Online NewHour. A fascinating discussion
with a misleading title--given the promise of the Net for
transmitting books to people at home.
Can Too Much Technology Hurt
Kids and the Schools?, a
debate on the Wired site between Linda Roberts
of the U.S. Department of Education and Todd Oppenheimer, author
of an Atlantic Monthly article called The Computer Delusion. The debate is in RealAudio.
Two in Five Teachers Say Kids
Don't Have Enough Textbooks: Many Say They Can't Assign
Homework
and also California Voters Rank
Textbook Funding as #1 Education Priority. U.S. publishers warn of a serious textbook
shortage.
Microsoft Is No Carnegie,
Says Salon's Jan. 27, 1997, issue. The company boasts of huge
gifts of software to schools and libraries. But a
"$300" program may cost all of $30 or less to
donate on a disk. Besides, shouldn't Microsoft and Gates
give the Net some real books?
K-12 Web Guru Andy Carvin
Meets Bill Gates
Schoolhouse Tech--Feed
Cyber English--The Well-Connected Educator
NetDay, 1997 Revisited
NetDayWire
Donated PCs for Schools
(LINCT Coalition)
Clinton's $3-Billion Net Ed
Plan
Laptop Computers vs. Desktops
in Class
Town Buys Laptops for Entire
7th Grade--N.Y. Times
When Parents Instead Pay for
Students' Laptops--Times
From Now On, a K-12 journal whose editor
knows that today's Net is not
a true library.
EdWeb and
the related mailing list for Webbed educators and others
U.S.
Department of Education. Includes page on technological initiatives.
Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory, working in standards-based education. By making good books
ubiquitous, TeleRead would help the cause.
Education Week's
Report on Technology and the Schools
The Benton Foundation's report on Schools in the Information
Age--which,
among other things, warns of the need to add better content to the Net.
Benton's report on libraries and communities in
the digital era
Libraries
for the Future
American
Library Association
The
Gates Library Foundation
D-lib Magazine: The Magazine of Digital
Library Research
National Digital Library
Periodic Reports, from the Library
of Congress.
LOC's electronic program is a wonderful start, but
focuses less on books than on research materials and
multimedia in such efforts as the laudable American Memory Project. This NDL is not a
cost-justified, TeleRead-style library with an
accompanying hardware program to encourage the mass use
of optimal hardware for both e-books and e-forms. Nor
does the present NDL include an extensive collection of
contemporary, copyrighted books--an effort that would be
managed by many libraries in many cities. It also does
not offer a pay-to-play feature, which would let big
commercial publishers gamble money up front and along the
way in order to qualify for larger payments later on. A
TeleRead agency could work inside or alongside LOC.
Other resources of interest to educators,
librarians, writers and others who care about electronic
books. Includes more education links.
Technology and
the Net
Advanced Display Technology
Systems Project at the National Institute of
Standards
A Tablet in Every Hand--Wired News
New LCDs Expected to Be as
Easy to Read as Paper
Brighter Screens--PC Mag
$500 Computers Get Boost from
National Semiconductor-Cyrix Merger--ZDNet
N.Y. Times Says
$100 "REX" Organizer Shows Laser-Quality Text
and Has Extra-Long Battery Life. No, we haven't seen REX and
don't know if the laser comparison is accurate, but
displays are definitely getting better.
NetWorld! Page
NewsWorks, a free and powerful
searcher of online newspapers.
Rankdex Hyperlink Search Engine. This
hot new technology uses the number of links as a
criterion in guiding you to Web sites. The same wizardry
could be among the options that TeleRead offered readers.
More on Technology and the Net
Copyright
UCC 2B: A Stealth Lobbying
Campaign against Writers' Rights under State Laws
Los Angeles School
District Accused of Software Piracy--N.Y. Times
Copyright and K-12: Who
Pays in the Network Era?
Copyright Mogul Allegedly
Asked Clinton: "Can You Get Justice Off
My Back?" --AllPolitics
Will Copyright Push Send
Activists to Jail?
Christian Science Monitor
Op-Ed on Links Controversy
Link Kill at the Washington Post
Copyright and Global
Libraries: Going with the Information Flow--First Monday
Charging for Online Content--D-Lib Magazine
Fighting Costly Journals, Va.
Tech Tells Students to Post Theses and Dissertations on
Web--N.Y. Times
Liblicense: Licensing Digital
Information.
Tips, background and commentary. A service of the Yale University Library.
Commentary from Andy Oram, moderator of
the Cyber-Rights List
Publishers Start Campaign for
Protection on Internet--N.Y. Times
Electronic 'Branding'
Praised at Frankfurt Book Fair--N.Y. Times
How Bullies Can Use Copyright
Law against the First Amendment --NetWatch
White House Statement on electronic commerce,
including copyright issues
100+ Law Professors vs.
Clinton Copyright Policy
Copyright Bill Would Infringe
on the Internet's Real Promise, by Gary Chapman
Digital Future Coalition. Brings together Silicon
Valley and library interests.
Union for the Public Domain, another group fighting intellectual property grabs
Creative
Incentive Coalition. A site for the copyright industries.
The Copyright WebSite. Clear and even funny
explanations for lay people.
Copyright Information from
Institute of Learning Technologies
University of Texas Copyright
Info
U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright basics and a link
to pending legislation in the 105th Congress.
More Copyright Links
A Few
Book-Related Sites on the Web
Project Gutenberg. Probably the largest
collection of free books already on the Net.
Project Bartleby. Classics in glorious HTML.
American Literary Classics. "A chapter a
day."
The On-Line Books Page, which lets you search by author or title.
The Electric Book. "2,500 links to online
literature of all kinds."
The English Server. "Over 18,000
works" in the humanities--"covering a wide
range of interests."
Online Originals. Net-based publishing company
in the United Kingdom. Emphasizes good books (some free).
Half of revenue from orders goes to authors.
Boson Books. Commercial online publisher
of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama. Offers some freebies.
ReadToMe--free audio software that
reads out Web pages and hundreds of classics on the Net.
alt.books.electronic newsgroup. Basic-level
discussion.
eBook-List. More advanced
level of discussion. Newcomers may want to lurk, but save
their questions for alt-books.electronic.
E-Book mailing list and archive. From John Noring of OmniMedia Electronic Books.
New York Times
Book Review.
A
"must" visit. Requires password--free in the States. First chapters of scads of books.
Washington Post's Book World. Hundreds of first chapters.
Bookwire. Handy links to Publishers Weekly, the Book Industry Study Group and other sites from the
publishing industry.
Booknotes. This C-SPAN site offers RealAudio as well as transcripts of interviews with
writers
Yahoo's Guide to Bookstores
Online
Chapter One of The Book Lover's Guide to
the Internet,
by Evan Morris.
HotWire's Interview with Jeff Bezos of the Amazon.com store. This page will move
soon to another location, so check the magazine's archives.
For Writers
UCC 2B: A Stealth Lobbying
Campaign against Writers' Rights under State Laws
American Society of Journalists and Authors
National Writers Union
Writers
Guild of America. Scriptwriter-oriented
but of interest to many other writers.
Other Groups--from Write On Magazine
TeleRead Updates
We'll also be updating other
parts of
this page.
Update
#11: Why Amos Bokros Wants Library Books to Go on the
Internet
Update
#10: A Few Words about Butterflies, Puddles, Rainbow
Screens and Electronic Books
Update #9: Are Book-Writers
Going the Way of Neighborhood Pharmacists?
Update #8: Will Bill Gates
Buy The Great Gatsby for the Net--or
Just Fixate on Software and PCs?
Update #7: What Bill Clinton
Could Learn from Sue Smith
Update #6: Clinton's
Intellectual Property Czar Threatens Law Professor
Update #5: $730,000+ from
Net-Scared Copyright Lobby to U.S. Politicians
Update #4: Copyright Czar and
White Paper,
by Mark Vorhees
Update #3: The Robber Barons
of the Information Highway, by Josh Shenk
Update #2: Donald Duck
Schools vs. Literacy, by Michael Schrage
Update #1: Publisher Treats
Supreme Court Justices to Free Trips
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