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Tag Archives: ebook

The Role of the Library in the Future of Reading

A popular topic coming across my radar screen is the future of reading, and more specifically the role of libraries in the future of reading. Much of commentary seems to have been inspired by the announcement of the Apple iPad device, but it isn’t necessarily limited to that. Here are three exemplars, in no particular order, followed by some of my own comments.

Joshua Kim, senior learning technologist and an adjunct in sociology at Dartmouth College, posted a commentary called Popular Nonfiction, Academic Libraries, and Audiobooks at Inside Higher Ed. Joshua does an interesting comparison of the availability of “popular nonfiction” in paper and audio book format. He took his list of 197 audiobooks from Audible and cross-referenced them with availability of paper copies in his academic library. To his delight, he found that the library had paper copies of nearly three-quarters of them. It was his second question, though, that got me thinking: “Should academic libraries supply borrowers with the book format that matches their preferences and learning styles (paper, e-paper, or audio)?”

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2010 02 11 Comments (1)

A Glimpse into the Internet Archive’s Scanning and Print-on-Demand Operations

Wired magazine published a brief story and online photo gallery of the book scanning and print-on-demand projects at the Internet Archive. It is a fascinating glimpse into their vision and processes. Included below are cropped thumbnails and part of the text captions that accompanied the pictures in the Wired online gallery.

The book to be scanned sits in front of a technician underneath a V-shaped glass platter. Two opposing cameras angled at each page take photos of the book. On screen is the multipage view that the operator uses to verify the quality of the scans and the book’s pagination.
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2008 03 20 Comments (0)

New Blog for Ebooks in Libraries: “No Shelf Required”

Sue Polanka, head of reference and instruction at the main library of Wright State University, sent a message to the OhioLINK membership today about a new blog she is moderating called No Shelf Required:

No Shelf Required provides a forum for discussion among librarians, publishers, distributors, aggregators, and others interested in the publishing and information industry. The discussion will focus on the issues, concepts, current and future practices of Ebook publishing including: finding, selecting, licensing, policies, business models, usage (tracking), best practices, and promotion/marketing. The concept of the blog is to have open discussion, propose ideas, and provide feedback on the best ways to implement Ebooks in library settings. The blog will be a moderated discussion with timely feature articles and product reviews available for discussion and comment.

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2008 02 22 Comments (1)
From the Disruptive Library Technology Jester (http://dltj.org/), printed on Thursday the 2nd of September 2010 at 7:49:28 PM UTC (+0000). The URL to this page is http://dltj.org/tag/ebook/

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