This JISC report describes all the stages and issues that occurred during a mass newspaper digitization project. The project digitized 192,000 issues and 1,157,349 pages and was a public/private partnership between Gale Cengage Learning, CCS and the British Library. An internal British Library department creates new microfilms from print for 90% of the content and another department scans from originals for 10% of the content. The digitization supplier then scans the microfilm to create master images and produces xml and METS files. Fascinating stuff. The executive summary is here and the complete PDF report, 57 pages, is...

E-books, alas, are not among the most popular apps in the Android Market. Let’s hope that changes. Get ready for an Android invasion over the next year----not just phones with that operating system, but also tablets and other devices. Android has attracted its share of gung-ho fans, with Windows Mobile under serious siege. In the Android world, the top free e-book reader is apparently WordPlayer Art of War, from Andrew Sacher. Here’s what the Market listing says: “WordPlayer is a book reader that allows you to add to your library from amongst thousands of instantly downloadable books or load epub books....

Sue Polanka, from No Shelf Required, will be part of the conference in Charleston on November 4. Unlike most programs I've seen this one is aimed at librarians. The session will discuss: eBook standards eBooks and libraries: workflow and cataloging issues eBook readers in libraries eBook economics eBook discoverability and visibility Wish I had an excuse to go! Full details of the program are here....

Another edition of this fascinating report has been issued. You can find the full report here. Here are some highlights: • Although Java devices continue to be the most popular mobile ebook devices, the usage gap between Java devices and iPhone is shrinking. Fewer than 50% of ebook consumption was on Java devices while 42% of was on iPhone, this compares to 63% for Java devices and 33% for iPhone in Q2 2009. BlackBerry usage has grown almost 160% compared to Q2. • US replaced Indonesia as the leading country in mobile ebook consumption in this quarter. Its...

[caption id="attachment_31206" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Cushing Academy headmaster Jim Tracy- does this look like a Nazi to you?"][/caption] This USA Today article describes the trials of a Massachusettes academy that has decided to switch to a digital library. Students will be able to use laptops or one of the 65 Kindles the school will circulate to read texts. Unfortunately, Boston Globe commenters and bloggers latched on the announcement and have been calling headmaster Jim Tracy a snob and a "book burner," and actually comparing him to Hitler! All very curious when you meet Tracy, a soft-spoken, painfully polite guy who's a...

This is a great little post that has a lot of truth, sadly, to it. Susan Glinert, who says Hi! to David, put me on to it. Fleegle's is a knitting blog, so you wouldn't expect to find it there. I can't quote it because of copyright problems, nor do I want to criticize parts of it, libel you know, and I wasn't paid to do this post....

That's what the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting. According to the Herald, Apple has been discussing the tablet with media in Australia in order to get their content included on the device. The Herald says that Apple has sent actual specs of the device to the Media but they are being kept close to the vest. As the Herald points out, the Kindle flopped with Australian media because Amazon wanted 70% of the revenue. The paper reports that Apple's model is just the reverse, keep 30% and give media 70%. No timing has been released. Thanks to Chris Bates...

I remain opposed to DRMed e-books, at least for nonlibrary purposes; but in the interest of fairness, here are thoughts from Adobe’s Bill McCoy, adapted with permission from a Reading 2.0 post. Civil replies, please. I myself liked a blog post Bill did where he personally championed social DRM. Let’s hope that Adobe will officially give the SDRM idea a shot---I see a little hope. – D.R. Adobe's interests are far more aligned with the adoption of open formats that we can address with our authoring tools and services. We see e-book DRM as an enabler for a...

Each B&N store will get a demo Nook, but PaidContent reports that “only certain stores will carry the Nook for on-the-spot sales.” Gee, I thought B&N would get behind this one. The brick factor is the big advantage that B&N could enjoy over Amazon. People are much less likely to make impulse buys if they can’t take home a unit now. Hmm. Could the analysts be right after all in downgrading the stock? It’s great for B&N to have a digital strategy. But that isn’t necessarily the same as a well-executed strategy....

That’s what happened to Jim Fallows, the Atlantic writer, who was shelling out 15-cent payments for PDF conversions. The brain-dead credit card computers thought Jim was a card thief testing his account with small charges. Result? Visa unplugged his card until he protested (at least I assume he has). Has this happened to you, with Visa or another company---or to anyone you know? Any measures you can take against it? I can just imagine the card conking out at the very moment you need it the most. “I can't be the first person to use...

With the pending release of the new Robert Jordan Wheel of Time installment, I have been thinking about re-reading all the previous volumes. I've been deterred, however, by the size and weight of them - a lot of them are really uncomfortable to hold or carry around. No ebook versions have been available. Now, reader asphalt sent me an email to let me know that the first volume, He found out about it from theArtDepartment blog. The Eye of the World, will be available on Tuesday in Kindle format. I checked with Amazon and this is indeed correct....

Was Bill Keller spilling inside stuff or just repeating existing speculation?...