Mike Cane, source of many a tip for the TeleBlog, has a Nokia 770 blog continuing his work elsewhere--check it out. Correction: That "Light a Candle" recommendation came from Roger Sperberg. What happened is that I thought Roger was passing on Mike's rec. Adding to the injury, I confused Citzen Cane and Citizen Kane. Mea culpa. Sorry, Mike. I encourage others to follow Mike's example and give our knuckles a good rapping when we sin. - David Rothman...

Are the planets aligning for e-books to finally break out of the doldrums? Could be....

LibraryCity, which we described last week, made the LibraryJournal.com site over the weekend. Like OurMedia, with which we'll be working, we're voluntary at this point. We're especially keen on volunteers with collection development skills, reference skills, Web-related skills of all kinds (including familiarity with PHP, MySQL and Drupal), and an appreciation of interactivity. But don't hesitate to contact us even if your talents are in other areas. Send us your resume or an equivalent, along with any relevant Web addresses. Check out librarycity.org for further details. This is a chance to...

Our Tip of the Day is surely from Bill Christie, who pointed to a BBC item headlined Kenya pilots Pocket PC education. Dubbed "e-slates," Pocket PCs are serving as textbook-substitutes in an experiment in Kenya, the work of a nonprofit called Eduvision. The photo on the left vividly reminds us of the textbook shortage in that country. And now the details: "The e-slates contain all the sorts of information you'd find in a textbook and a lot more," said Eduvision co-founder Maciej Sudra. "They contain textual information, visual information and questions. Within visual information we can have audio files, we can have...

Roger Sperberg and other bylined names--we're always looking for good contributors--aren't the only people pitching in on the TeleBlog. Some of the best information comes from readers with tips. The item above this one, based on reader Bill Christie's pointer to a BBC article on Pocket PCs in Kenya, is a great example. I'm especially grateful to Mike Cane for all the tips he's sent in. Not to mention all the comments fron Branko Collin and Dan Jackson. Yep, the commenters do their share as well. Branko asked about copyright recently, and the deal is this. Unless people specify otherwise, everything...

Details from ars technia and the Zodiac Web site and the Inquirer. Related: Zodiac 1: $199 for new 480X320 handheld. Too bad. From afar, the Zodiac struck me as one hellva e-book machine. With the Palm OS, you very likely could have used Mobipocket, not just PalmReader. Could have? Wait. If you're willing to risk possible support problems with an orphaned machine, you can shop for a Zodiac on eBay....

"We should try to waste very little time on fiction, or entertainment, or television." - Sir John Marks Templeton, as quoted in the New York Times. Let's hope that Sir John will amend his remarks. If spirituality can be a life-enricher as he asserts, can't fiction as well? In both p- and e-incarnations, libraries mustn't slight fiction. Besides, fiction has its value in communicating facts and emotions. Where would the legal profession be without judges quoting Shakespeare? And how about writers who reflect spiritual influences? I'd have felt better if Sir John at least had said "trashy fction." But even then,...

Details via New York Times. Oh, the glories of the U.S. patent system for terrorizing smaller competitors and funneling money from innovators to lawyers!...

An e-book-biz insider maintains that librarians are among the biggest fans of strict DRM for e-books--because they don't want their libraries used for illegal copying. The liability and morality issues are obvious. So what's the lowdown here? I'd welcome thoughts from librarians and lawyers, which we'll consider in the development of OpenReader. Coincidentally, in the Shifted Librarian blog, Jenny Levine got a little into this territory a few months ago. Among other things, while mentioning the audiobook/DRM/format controversy and wondering about a possible DMCA exception for libraries, she said: I'm not a fan of DRM, but I...

Details from DigiTimes via Alex at MobileRead. This is a great overview of e-paper technology....

"You might be interested in writing a blog entry about a controversial new advertising campaign by Apple computers," Neologize emails me. "Some Apple computer stores have a large display showing several book cases filled with books and a half-dozen Apple computers. The message of the display is encapsulated in a motto that refers to the computers and says: 'The Only Books You'll Need." Way to go, Steve J! Just a fraction all books have ever been digitized, and yet the hype artists are suggesting that we ignore the rest. OK. Hyperbole alert! I know. Trouble is, more than a few...

What's wrong with PDA's? They're too small. They're too business-oriented. The good, light, powerful ones are too expensive. The cheap ones don't have WiFi or good speakers. They don't use a desktop OS. We e-book readers need a computer we can use standing up....