Digital Public Library Raises Questions of Ownership, Permanence, Access (Media Shift) Why would anyone want to attend a party to celebrate the opening of a virtual repository of metadata? A better question might be — what is a virtual repository of metadata? --- The Web Giants Are Rising Above Humans and Their Petty Rules, and that Worries Me (GigaOM) The titans of the web are rebels, playing by their own rules. That is to be applauded at times, but we should also be thinking about the wider, long-term implications for society and fair competition. --- Report: Kids Tend to Read More Digital Than Print (Good e-Reader) The...

Are We in a Rut? Explaining the Increasing Homogenization of Scholarly & Scientific Publishing (Scholarly Kitchen) When the Internet stormed onto the scene, all bets were off — this revolutionary technology with limitless potential would generate all sorts of creativity, from new article presentations, new forms of peer review, new capabilities, and an end to the status quo. Fast-forward a decade and a half, and it seems little has changed when it comes to our intellectual outputs as well as the general business environment. --- Digital Signings Help Authors Grow Careers (Digital Book World) Book signings are an age-old tradition, but is it really...

I've had an object lesson this week in the perils of newer, easier information-sharing, via two news articles which came my way through different means. The first was a write-up in the local paper featuring a colleague of mine who had decorated her house in celebration of the Maple Leaf's glorious but ultimately short-lived playoff victories. The Beloved saw the picture, recognized her name and tore out the page to bring it home for me. The second story was a write-up at Techdirt by Timothy Geigner about a 'bug' in a recent Nintendo release which allowed Sims-like characters to marry same-sex...

I wrote previously about Star Dispatches, an e-book subscription service being produced by the Toronto Star. According to this article on The Star's website, they're being recognized for this series with two Online Media Awards. The service has an intriguing set-up where, for a nominal fee, subscribers get a new e-book sent to them every week. There is no à la carte purchase, but the weekly fee is so affordable that subscriber retention has been high. From the admittedly self-congratulatory write-up: "We’re extremely proud of the stories being told in our weekly eRead format, our subscribers are highly satisfied and the business model has...

The Real Costs of Publishing a Book (Media Shift) At every writers conference or self-publishing panel the question that almost always inevitably comes up is: “How much will self-publishing really cost me?” --- New Bookstats Report Shows Spectacular Growth of eBook Market Since 2008 (The Digital Reader) The American Association of Publishers announced their latest annual BookStats report today, and while the full report won’t be up for sale for another week or so, I got an early look at some of the data. --- eInk Announces New e-Paper Technology Called Mobius (Good e-Reader) E Ink has just unveiled a new large screen e-paper display screen that will soon...

Futurebook is reporting that Pottermore, JK Rowling's portal for all things Harry Potter, was a big winner at The Bookseller Industry Awards. As author Philip Jones explains, the thrust of the message they are hearing now is that there is no longer such a thing as 'digital strategy.' It's all just strategy now. So, what do they think Pottermore is doing right? They identify four things Pottermore did incredibly well "for which the words 'game changer'" apply: 1. They created a commercial e-book platform that was at least as good as Amazon's 2. They set their own prices, and sustained them in the face...

'Unbundling' in the Book Business: The Fourth Big Trend (Shatzkin Files) A few weeks ago, I wrote that there are three big forces driving the future of publishing: scale, verticalization, and atomization. I was wrong. eBook Spending on the Rise (Digital Book World) In 2012 ebooks accounted for 11% of all book spending, according to a recap in Publishers Weekly... OverDrive Unveils Big Library Read Pilot Project (Good e-Reader) Overdrive has gained the support of over 3,000 libraries for a new pilot project to take ebook accessibility to an entirely new level. The intention behind this new initiative is to create a global “library book club.” Amazon Acquires Samsung Colour...

What News Organizations are Learning from their eBook Efforts (Poynter) News organizations have responded to changes in readers’ habits by moving beyond the newsstand and toward the bookshelf, zeroing in on ebooks as a new revenue source and a way to explore genres not typically found on front pages or home pages. Back to the Future: What if the Mass Media Era was Just an Accident of History? (Paid Content) We are used to thinking of a “mass media” market made up of large newspapers and TV networks as the normal state of affairs in media, but what if that was just a...

There have been a lot of stories lately about government attempts to increasingly lock down data rather than letting it open up—in Canada, Bill C-11 granted users a host of new rights and then negated them all with its digital locks provisions; in the U.S., the president himself had to weigh in on the issue of cell phone unlocking before an overly restrictive bill got fixed. Lost in all the 'content must be protected!' rhetoric is the tiny detail that sometimes data aggregation can be a good thing. Two stories crossed my inbox this morning which are highlighted how. Case Study 1:...

An image has been making the rounds on Reddit of this clever bookshop sign, spotted on the door of The Albion Beatnik in Oxford. Reaction seems to be mixed; some people see such gimmicks as incredibly pretentious. Others are more sanguine and feel, as I do, that it's meant to be a little tongue in cheek, and that if it works, more power to them. Buried amongst the comments are some other gems, including this bookmark giveaway that another reader reported spotting: "Please use this free bookmark wisely. Do not leave it in the rain, nor throw it at your enemy. Eschew...

Is it the Best of Times or the Worst of Times for Journalism? Yes (GigaOM) Library eBooks: The Role of Libraries in the Book Discovery Process (Sourcebooks) The Cover That Launced a Thousand iBookstore Sales (GalleyCat) In Nook, Microsoft Sees a Chance to Compete Against Amazon and Apple (Paid Content) Kindle Daily Deals: The House of Rumour by Jake Arnott (and 3 others)   ...

From Boing Boing comes news of this year's Locus nominees, shared there because one of its editors, Cory Doctorow, is nominated. I am not a huge SF reader, so most of these have stayed off my radar. But if you go for that stuff, enjoy this list of good books! SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL • The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (Orbit US; Orbit UK) • Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen) • Caliban’s War, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK) • 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK) • Redshirts, John Scalzi (Tor; Gollancz) FANTASY NOVEL • The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK) • The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan...