Published by rwatstein September 27th, 2008
in education and e-books.
Initial observations from the UK’s national e-book observatory are already challenging assumptions about how students use e-books. According to Lorraine Estelle CEO of JISC Collections, in the first user survey, which received over 22,000 responses, 62 per cent of students reported that they read online whilst only 6 per cent said that they print to read. The survey also indicated that interactivity may not be as important to students as anticipated. ‘Students say that the main attraction is that e-books within an academic setting, are more accessible than print books, meaning that users can get at them wherever they are and at whatever time they like,’ explained Estelle
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Published by rwatstein September 27th, 2008
in books, publishing and e-books.
Bloomsbury Publishing this week announced that is launching an academic imprint with a radical new open access model: all titles will be made available free of charge online, “with free downloads, for non-commercial purposes immediately upon publication.
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Published by rwatstein September 27th, 2008
in online resources, technology and e-books.
Freebookcentre.net contains links to thousands of free online technical books. These Include core computer science, networking, programming languages, Systems Programming books, Linux books and many more.
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Published by rwatstein September 14th, 2008
in web sites and e-books.
August 2008 annotated list of websites where you can download books for free. Some sites listed focus on computer programming, Shakespeare, government texts, technology, and other subjects. Reader comments provide suggestions of additional sources. From a blog with tips for tech users, designers, and bloggers.
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Published by rwatstein August 31st, 2008
in digital, Kindle and e-books.
Michael Bhaskar writes: “Over the past few months there has been much discussion of an impending digital revolution in the way we read books. While much of this is hyperbole, there has been incredulity in many quarters that anyone would ever want to read from a screen. We are all attached to books, and the idea seems at first glance anachronistic. However there are some good reasons why it might not go away as quickly as you’d think. Here’s why.”
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Published by rwatstein August 31st, 2008
in Amazon, Kindle and e-books.
Michael Arrington writes: “More rumors about the new Kindle are emerging. The first device will have a similar-sized screen as the existing model but will have a much enhanced form factor. The second will be a large-screen device aimed at students and will come later. Somewhere around a quarter of a million Kindles have been sold to date and Amazon is clearly pushing out the last of the current units via a credit-card promotion on their site that drops $100 off the $359 device.”
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Imagine waking up to find your morning newspaper on the night stand each day without ever having to get out of bed. Or say you want another book to read while soaking up some sun on the beach. And voila! Michael Connelly’s latest book appears in the palm of your hand. Amazon.com wants consumers to go even more digital with their reading habits with its 8-month-old Kindle reading device. Visit Amazon.com, and it’s the first thing you see.
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Published by rwatstein July 26th, 2008
in technology, publishing and e-books.
With the market for electronics books still relatively sleepy, Sony Corp. is trying a new tack: untethering the latest model of its e-book reading device from its own online bookstore. On Thursday, Sony will provide a software update to the Reader, a thin slab with a 6-inch screen, so the device can display books encoded in a format being adopted by several large publishers. That means Reader owners will be able to buy electronic books from stores other than Sony’s.
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Published by rwatstein July 19th, 2008
in Kindle and e-books.
Though electronic reading devices may come and go, ebooks and downloadable audio are here to stay, just another piece of the library’s arsenal of offerings and services. Their adoption is one more example that librarians are quick responders to new technologies and formats. What’s the worry?
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Published by rwatstein July 12th, 2008
in e-books.
Paula J. Hane writes, “Two years ago I wrote about the debut of the World eBook Fair (www.worldebookfair.org; http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbReader.asp?ArticleId=18231). The collaborative project promised to bring free ebooks to the public from July 4 through Aug. 4 each year from 2006 to 2009. Sponsored by the oldest and largest free ebook source on the internet, Project Gutenberg—with the assistance of the World eBook Library and a number of other ebook efforts—the month-long celebration offered one-third of a million ebooks to the public for free downloading. In 2007 it offered twice that number. This year, the theme of the fair is Own Your Own Library and it promises 1 million-plus books free for the taking.”
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Published by rwatstein June 29th, 2008
in libraries, education and e-books.
Ebook provider ebrary this week released its third survey in two years of attitudes toward ebooks, this one measuring students’ perception and use of the emerging medium. Completed this May, the survey reveals few major surprises for librarians, confirming the continuing rise of web-based resources in students’ lives—and also suggests that the book on the book is not closed when it comes to print. “Print books still command respect,” noted Allen McKiel, dean of library and media services at Western Oregon University. In fact, a passion for print books emerged from the survey. That surprised McKiel, who has analyzed all of the recent ebrary surveys. “Lack of interest is perhaps too mild a characterization for the reaction that some students have to ebooks,” McKiel noted in his analysis. “The loss of print books is personal. Books are loved. Ebooks threaten them. I think it is important to acknowledge that for many students, faculty, and librarians, perhaps most acutely for librarians, e-books threaten the loss of something approximating the loss of a personal friend.”
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Published by rwatstein June 29th, 2008
in education, digital, publishing and e-books.
Digital content services provider Ingram Digital has announced a new survey of e-book users conducted by its Education Solutions unit. The survey is seen to confirm the top three factors driving a surge in adoption of digital textbooks that led Ingram’s January-May sales to surpass 2007 results by more than 400 percent. Data from the survey’s 680 respondents revealed that when deciding whether to purchase a digital title, 47 percent believe that ‘cost in relation to print copies’ is very important. A similar proportion of respondents identified the convenience of e-books and interactive features as also being very important.
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Published by rwatstein June 21st, 2008
in publishing, open access and e-books.
Seventeen years ago people said “maybe” they would use computer networks for short pieces like journal articles, but books, never! In this issue two authors write about electronically publishing books. Colin Steele, former university librarian at Australian National University, looks at open access monograph publishing arrangements between libraries and publishers in Australia, the U.S., and Europe
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