Are public libraries necessary? So ask some in publishing, They even wonder if the new tech shouldn’t nuke the old business models. Why not jut have private rental plans? Or just let children and families use online bookstores? Because, dear publishers, free library books are among your best marketing tools. Hook ‘em while they’re young. Bookless libraries ahead? In fact, publishers should worry less about competition from libraries and more about a less-than-happy trend that CNN discusses in a piece headlined The Future of libraries, with or without books. Excerpt: “Books...

The recent post about book scanners that can process 3,000 pages per minute reminded me (and at least one other person) of the Vernor Vinge novel Rainbows End. Since it had been a while since I had read that novel, I decided to take another look. For a while, the novel was posted free in its entirety on Vernor Vinge’s website. It has since been taken down; however, the Internet Archive still has it available in its entirety in the Wayback Machine’s archive of the page. I’m actually surprised nobody reviewed it here back when it was newly published, but I...

PcketLint has a few tips, most of which will seem familiar to American readers (via booktrade.info)....

Some people seem to think so. On the one hand, we have Rupert Murdoch railing against Google and Yahoo for “stealing news.” On the other, a number of groups are getting ready to file briefs objecting to various aspects of the Google Books/Authors Guild settlement. Rupert Murdoch Murdoch, whom we have mentioned within only the last couple of days as a possible investor in Plastic Logic e-readers, made the remarks at an industry trade show in Washington. “People reading news for free on the web, that’s got to change,” Murdoch said. However, as the Wired...

Taiwan has teamed up with Ingram Digital to digitize the nation's libraries. From the press release: The Taiwan Library Consortium, in conjunction with the government of Taiwan, has selected Ingram Digital, an Ingram content company focused on solutions for digital content management, hosting and distribution, to provide e-books and audio books to a majority of the nation’s libraries. The Taiwan Library Consortium will provide 88, or about 75 percent, of the country’s libraries with access to e-books through this agreement. E-book titles will be accessible to member libraries via Ingram Digital’s e-content aggregation platform, MyiLibrary®. Under the terms of the...

Over on Time Magazine, Lev Grossman has written an article looking at the future of the publishing industry in the new "digital age." Grossman touches on and ties together a number of related topics. He discusses the way that vanity publishing has largely lost its stigma over the last few years, going from the last refuge of the talentless to just another way to get books noticed. He talks about the outdated advance and consignment systems that have constrained traditional publishing since the Great Depression, and how e-books might represent a way to bypass some of those constraints. And...

Novelists, Inc. wants used bookstores to pay fees to publishers. The group frets that novelists are missing out on royalties. And now the shocker of the day! A study cited in Parade Magazine says a family of four can save up to $2,500 a year by borrowing just 10 items a month from the public library. That's 120 items a year, averaging $20.83 each. Significantly, public libraries are godsends to students and job-hunters. But Philadelphia and San Diego may shut down some branches, and library budgets are tight in many other cities. So what would Novelists, Inc....

Thanks to Robert Martinengo for providing me with the link to this important press release. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today announced its agreement with the Alternative Media Access Center (AMAC), an initiative of the Georgia Board of Regents and the University of Georgia, to develop and launch the AccessText Network, a comprehensive, national online system that will make it easier and quicker for students with print-related disabilities, such as blindness, to obtain the textbooks they need for their college courses. "Many college students with disabilities are struggling to use required or recommended print textbooks that are essential to their course...

In a project that I am sure is close to David's heart, Europeana opened on November 20. Here is the object of the site, as stated on its Web site: Europeana – the European digital library, museum and archive – is a 2-year project that began in July 2007. It will produce a prototype website giving users direct access to some 2 million digital objects, including film material, photos, paintings, sounds, maps, manuscripts, books, newspapers and archival papers. The prototype will be launched in November 2008 by Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media....

As reported on Slashdot, Google and the Authors Guild have settled their litigation over Google Books nee Print's unauthorized scanning of copyrighted books. This appears to be a classic case of a compromise that benefits all sides. If it is approved by the courts, Google will pay $125 million in legal fees, settlement of claims by scanned authors, and to establish a "Book Rights Registry" that will keep track of known rightsholders and work on locating unknown ones. This could lead to more than just snippets of books being available. One of the press releases breaks it down so:...

One idea that libraries have been experimenting with for a while is lending a collection of e-books under the same kind of restrictions as paper books—no more than one patron using a given "copy" at one time, each copy being "returned" after a set checkout period. (For a while, eReader was owned by a company that offered e-book lending collections to libraries.) I have learned that both Fictionwise and my local public library now offer e-book lending collections—Fictionwise through its Libwise division, and my library through Overdrive. Today, I decided to take a look at both e-libraries and see...

Yes, we've run items on print-on-demand technology and the Espresso machine. But here's a nice overview. Thanks, Chris! - D.R. Who says e-reading is the only way to enjoy digitally stored text? Publishers can now turn digital files into single copies of a professional-quality printed book without requiring a full-fledged production run on a printing press. In the most advanced form, the technology even allows printing at the exact location it is needed. This is worlds apart from the traditional publishing method of printing centrally and shipping to stores. Traditional Publishing vs. the Vanity Press Affordable, consumer-friendly print-on-demand technology has been a sought-after grail of...