That's the title of an Ars Technica article today. The article discusses, at length, the problem with Google's metadata and says: Google's counting method relies entirely on its enormous metadata collection—almost one billion records—which it winnows down by throwing out duplicates and non-book items like CDs. The result is a book count that's arrived at by a kind of process of elimination. It's not so much that Google starts with a fixed definition of "book" and then combs its records to identify objects with those characteristics; rather, the GBS algorithm seeks to identify everything that is clearly not a book,...

David Rothman pointed me to an article in the Wall Street Journal about Openlibrary.org, a new cooperative initiative between the Internet Archive and a number of public and other libraries. They are creating a digital library containing “more than a million scanned public domain books and a catalog of thousands of contemporary e-book titles” that will be available at member libraries. And a couple of libraries are contributing scans of a few hundred older works that are still under copyright—which is what got Google in trouble. For books that are still under copyright, the library will treat a...

While many libraries, both public and academic, have implemented digital resources for their patrons in bits and pieces, I would argue that now is the time for libraries to work on putting together a comprehensive digital branch approach, offering millions of books, millions of newspapers and magazines, and open acess 24/7.   Given the facts of mass digitization of titles, free-to-use API's,  and social sharing of resources, the digital library branch is a reality that can be implemented.  Here's how.... Every library needs a place to start, so our digital branch will be created on a branch of the current library web...

Here is a new, free service called RetroRead that is sponsored by BLTC Press. I think is is a great idea, as Calibre is not very easy for a novice to use and there is a real need for a simple, free service for those who are not computer gurus. I will even use it myself, as it is certainly much easier to stay in my browser, rather than to go through the whole download and conversion process with Calibre. RetroRead is a FREE publishing service that allows you to automatically convert any of the hundreds of thousands of...

While many of us are aware of the legal wrangling going on with the Google Books settlement, this doesn't take away from the virtual cornucopia of materials available for your reading device.  Through their mobile version, http://books.google.com/googlebooks/mobile/, or regular ePub/PDF download, there are lots of options to consider.  However, there might be too many options if you don't get your saved resources organized....   What I'm talking about is customizing your Google Books materials for your device via the My Library and Bookshelves options.  Recently reworked and updated, this can prove a great way to customize and sort your saved books by subject, type,...

The New Yorker has a great in-depth piece on the three-way power struggle involving Amazon, Apple, and Google around the “big six” publishers. There may not be much new to people who closely followed the last several months of e-book news, but there is a certain value in seeing all that history together in one place. It makes a good primer for those who might not have been paying that much attention. The article covers publishers’ discomfiture with Amazon’s $9.99 price point, the institution of agency pricing and Amazon’s temper tantrum, and the launch of the iPod and...

Back in December, David Rothman speculated that a tablet might be a good next move for Google. In February, Google showed some conceptual images of what a Google tablet might look like. Now the New York Times reports that a Google tablet is imminent: Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google, told friends at a recent party in Los Angeles about the new device, which would exclusively run the Android operating system. People with direct knowledge of the project — who did not want to be named because they said they were unauthorized...

The Financial Times (registration required) is reporting that photographers and illustrators are preparing to file a class action copyright infringement suit against Google over the images used in the publications Google has been digitizing. “Google is scanning in books and publications with visual images, which impedes the rights of the copyright holders of those images. We are seeking compensation for that,” said James McGuire, founding partner of the New York office of law firm Mishcon de Reya, who is leading the case. ... Mr McGuire said losses to photographers and illustrators were likely to be “quite substantial” although it was hard...

It may seem odd given that Barnes & Noble is the company that added Google Books to its e-book reader’s on-line store, and given that Amazon and Google are on opposite sides of the Google Books scanning and settlement issue, but apparently the FTC has investigated “close ties between Amazon and Google”. The New York Times “Bits” blog reports, based on unnamed sources, that a venture capitalist John Doerr, who sat on both Amazon’s and Google’s boards of directors, has chosen to resign from Amazon’s board in the wake of an FTC investigation similar to the one that...

Remember how I mentioned the other day that Korean researchers have developed a system for creating 3D e-books? It appears Google Books has beaten them to the punch. Announced on the “Inside Google Books” blog this morning, Google Books has added anaglyphic (red-blue) 3D capability to its e-books, in the form of a “View in 3D” button at the top of the page. This holds true not just for the example book linked in the blog post, but for any public-domain e-book on which I happened to search. Kudos to Google for coming out with such...

On the E-Book Community mailing list, Brenna Lyons has announced that Smashwords has made a deal with Apple for inclusion on the iPad: There are hoops to jump through to be included but nothing outrageous. Among them...a unique ISBN (they have a free option that shows SW as the publisher and a $10 version that doesn't, which they will allow you to run a credit balance to get), acceptance into the premium catalog, and cover art loaded of at least 600 pixels high. More details here. Whether bestsellers on iBooks will be...

From the Google Books blog: Got a question about using Google Books, or curious about promoting your books on Google for free? The Google Books Help Forum is now available for questions of all shapes and sizes. With so many readers and partners out there, we wanted to provide a place for folks to help one another use Google Books. The Help Forum is also a place for our team to share tips and answer questions, as well as a great way for us to receive feedback and suggestions for improving Google Books. Don’t understand a feature? Want to ask for help...