Could children be better readers if we went “back to the future,” even in the era of e-books and calls for massive budget calls? I’ll share thoughts. But first let’s hear from Andy Strong, a children’s librarian at the library in Rockford, Illinois, during the 1990s: “When the library cut its hours, it drastically reduced storytime programming. In fact, service to parents and young children is a shadow of what it once was. “In its heyday, mothers and children would leave the library with armloads and tote bags full of books. Head Start would routinely bring busloads of children to dedicated storytimes weekly, introducing new families...

The Sun has an op-ed by “chick-lit writer” Adele Parks—another one of those conversion stories about e-book doubters who become e-book evangelists. In Parks’s case, she became curious enough to buy a Kindle after learning she was selling a huge number of e-books. After buying the Kindle, she discovered she liked it so much she has used it it constantly ever since—though mostly for travel and commuting, where a slim device that can replace a ton of books is most useful. She will “always choose a ‘proper’ book” for reading at home. Parks does not have an...

A couple of weeks ago I blogged a post by author Will Entrekin about why he felt Amazon’s Kindle Select program (in which authors give Amazon exclusivity over their work in return for getting paid for Kindle Prime subscriber e-library checkouts) was a very good deal. Now I see another post, by Christopher Wright on Eviscerati.org, about why self-publishing authors might want to stay far away. Wright compares Kindle Select to Michael Roberts’s MP3.com independent music distribution site, which allowed independent musicians (such as Wright) to upload mp3 tracks to catch the attention of the Internet audience. ...

Apropos of the HarperCollins v. Open Road lawsuit over the backlist e-book title Julie of the Wolves, legal blogger Passive Guy (aka contract lawyer David Vandagriff) has written a fairly lengthy post looking at the question of whether e-book rights are covered in pre-e-book contracts. Passive Guy writes: A fundamental legal question involved in construing a contract is what the parties intended at the time the contract was made. The intent must be manifest in some form in the written agreement. A secret intent by one party that the word tomato also includes avocado won’t bring...

Not ebook related, but this is so interesting that I just had to post it.  From Open Culture: The great French filmmaker François Truffaut would have turned 80 today, and to celebrate, we’re bringing back a wonderful series of audio recordings — Truffaut’s lengthy interview with another legendary director, Alfred Hitchcock. Back in 1962, François Truffaut, the inspiration behind French New Wave cinema, met with Hitchcock. And, assisted by a helpful translator, the two directors talked through Hitchcock’s life and vast filmography, moving from his early films shot it Britain (Blackmail, The 39 Steps, Secret Agent), to his later Hollywood productions – North by Northwest, Psycho and Vertigo....

Last week’s issue of Bloomberg’s Businessweek included an article titled Amazon’s Hitman. If you haven’t read it, you should. It is enlightening. The gist of the article is that Amazon is gearing up to challenge the publishing world on its own turf: the signing of and creation of big-name authors who sell hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of books. And this assault worries the Big 6 publishers — Hachette, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Random House, and Harper-Collins – with good reason: Amazon has more market value and disposable cash than they do combined. The article discusses the history of the relationship between...

The video was recorded during the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) Fall 2011 Membership Meeting. Title: “Preservation Status of e-Resources: A Potential Crisis in Electronic Journal Preservation” Direct to Video (59 minutes) Direct to Slides (.ppt) Presenters: Oya Y. Rieger Associate University Librarian Digital Scholarship Services Cornell University Robert Wolven Associate University Librarian Bibliographic Services and Collection Development Columbia University E-journals have replaced the majority of titles formerly produced in paper format. Academic libraries are increasingly dependent on commercially produced, born-digital content that is purchased or licensed. The purpose of this presentation is to share the findings of a 2CUL study that assesses the role of LOCKSS and PORTICO in preserving each institution’s...

From the press release: Copia, the interactive eBookstore, announced that music critic Will Hermes will answer reader questions inside his book, the acclaimed Love Goes to Buildings on Fire. Starting today, anyone who purchases a copy of Hermes's much-lauded book from Copia can use the site's free eReader app to post questions to the author in the margins of the eBook. Hermes will respond to the questions through Feb. 21, 2012. While users have always been able to create and share notes on any eBook purchased from Copia, thanks to the platform's app,...

From The Bookseller: Self-published crime writer Kerry Wilkinson claimed the top spot in the UK Kindle bestseller chart for the last quarter of 2011, Amazon has revealed, as speculation mounts that the online retailer is planning to open its own physical store to push its exclusive book sales. Wilkinson, from Lancashire, published his novel Locked In, one of a series featuring detective Jessica Daniel, using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing tool, and sold “hundred of thousands of copies” of it in the three months before Christmas, according to Amazon. The e-book is currently selling for 98p and...

Some blogs are making a big deal out of how the recent 200th-birthday Charles Dickens Google Doodle linked, not to a general Google search for its subject as other such doodles have in the past, but rather to the Google Books search for Charles Dickens. CNet’s Chris Matyszczyk (rather smarmily) calls it a “pure, straight-up piece of commercial communication.” You might not see today's Google Books-pointing doodle as a moneymaking effort. After all, these Dickens e-books are free. And yet, surely, the aim is gravitate your mind and habits over to the Google eBookstore, where money...

Genre fiction represents a weird dichotomy. On the one hand, literary critics absolutely abhor the stuff. On the other hand, the public eats it up. This is why the Guardian piece observing how much of e-book sales genre-fiction makes up is really hilarious from a genre fan’s point of view: snooty Guardian writer Antonia Senior confronts the fact that “downmarket genre fiction” is driving e-book sales. For example: The ebook world is driven by so-called genre fiction, categories such as horror or romance. It's not future classics that push digital sales, but more...

Remember the Humble Indie Bundle, the Humble Indie Bundle 2, and various successors? They applied the pay-what-you-want model to selling sets of popular independently-developed computer games, and have reportedly made a lot of money for the developers, as well as for the charities that they also support. Now a new site, StoryBundle.com, has sprung up that promises to do for e-books what the Humble Bundle does for games: select a few quality independent e-books and allow people to set their own price for the DRM-free bundle. It still seems to be in the planning stages—the site is taking the...