Salon Magazine has an article on author Salman Rushdie, who 22 years ago was the subject of a Muslim fatwa for writing uncomplimentary things about Mohammed in his book The Satanic Verses. While the article’s headline focuses on Rushdie’s current situation with regard to the fatwa (he notes that it’s been ten years since there was “any real security issue”), most of the article is actually taken up by discussing Rushdie’s participation in the Booktrack e-book soundtrack program. Rushdie attended a dinner sponsored by Booktrack to commemorate publishing a Booktrack-enhanced Rushdie short story, “In the South”. He gave a...

Read an E-Book Week has updated its new website for 2012. Designed by myself, a longtime supporter of REBW (and why not? Web design is my day job), the REBW12 site provides the same great content about ebooks, plus an easier-to-navigate design and easier access to specials and freebies. This year's big news is, of course, the recognition of the Read an E-Book Program by the Canadian Parliament by passing a motion declaring the entire month of March Read an E-Book Month! Other parts of the site have been updated as well, including information about the ebook market, links leading to...

Do as I say, don’t do as I do. In response to the Phoenix editorial about the New York Times committing a copyright violation by posting a PDF of a 36-year-old newspaper article even as Op-Ed columnist Bill Keller blasts the copyright violations of others, Keller suggests that irony should be “[kept] out of the hands of the clueless,” but seems to be clueless that he’s committing a significant irony himself. Keller writes that since the paper the article came from was long defunct without digital archives, he assumes the author of the article felt reposting the article...

Does self-publishing represent a threat to traditional publishers, or perhaps an opportunity? A number of people in the publishing industry seem dismissive of self-publishing writers or their numbers. But Philip Jones of FutureBook thinks that this is a mistake. He notes that readers who buy cheap self-published books will be spending time reading them that they might otherwise have spent reading more expensive works from traditional publishers. What strikes me most about indie writers, however, is not what they write, but how they publish it. Konrath may be a 'downmarket' writer for some, but he is...

Analysts’ predictions are often not worth the electrons they’re printed on, but CNET reports Pacific Crest analyst Chad Bartley has said in a research note to investors that Amazon could launch an iPad-sized 9-inch Kindle Fire by the middle of the year. Such a device could increase expected Kindle Fire sales from 12.7 million to 14.9 million units this year. He based this information on his contacts with Amazon component suppliers, which does not necessarily mean it will be accurate. This is only the latest in a number of reports that have suggested a 9-inch Fire could launch sometime this year,...

Why did Penguin terminate their contract with OverDrive? Here’s what we’ve learned from an INFOdocket source. We are told that publisher contracts with OverDrive allow them to store and serve library end users ebooks. That’s it. OverDrive does NOT have permission to first authorize the lending of an ebook to a library end user and then forward the request for actual distribution and tracking of the title to Amazon.com or ANY other retailer. Similarly, in most situations*, publishers do not permit retailers to lend ebooks directly to end users. Finally, in November and again yesterday we noted an LJ article (November 23, 2011) that...

AllThingsD reports on information from anonymous sources who claim that the next Apple event will happen the first week in March, and will debut the next iPad. This one is supposed to do for the iPad’s large screen what the iPhone and iPod Touch 4 did for their small screen: a faster processor and double-resolution (in this case 2048x1536) Retina Display. If 2011 was the year of the iPad 2, will 2012 be the year of the iPad 3? Said a source familiar with the device: “What do you think?” Assuming it really does...

From TorrentFreak.  More in the article. With their unconditional support for SOPA, PIPA and ACTA, Hollywood is pressing hard for new legislation to curb piracy. The studios want ‘rogue’ websites to be censored and are calling on Google and Internet providers to take responsibility. However, a new study reveals that movie industry itself has the key to decreasing piracy, without passing any news laws. In a paper titled ‘Reel Piracy: The Effect of Online Film Piracy on International Box Office Sales’ researchers from the University of Minnesota and Wellesley College examine the link between BitTorrent piracy and box office returns. As hypothesized, they...

Kindle Fire vs. Nook Tablet from School Library Journal on Vimeo....

One of the giants of the book trade has unwittingly reinforced LibraryCity‘s argument that public libraries or a nonprofitshould buy the OverDrive distribution service. Penguin said it would stop selling new books to OverDrive‘s library side. In another OverDrive-related development, former librarian Andrew Strong, a library activist in Rockford, IL, told local officials they should consider advocating both an OverDrive purchase and a true national digital system. And he cited a current Rockford library manager’s enthusiasm for the OverDrive-related idea. Penguin’s dissing of OverDrive and public libraries is hardly alone among publisher, as you can see from this sign from Sarah “Librarian in Black” Houghton, the acting director of the San...

That's the take from this Toronto Star article: Mixed feelings about the loss of a bookstore at Ryerson University and the sequestering of its books, by the students... though not by the article's author. "Poor books. Snubbed yet again, this time by a university, an institution of learning." The article describes the closure of one campus bookstore, causing confusion by students who walked into the building to find it being repurposed as classroom and office space.  Some of the books were moved to the other campus bookstore; the remainder were put into a storage room, and some will be returned to the...

With yet another publisher announcing today that it’s dropping out of the library eBook market, I decided to put up a new sign in our library in a few different spots to raise public awareness.  The sign lists which publishers won’t do eBook business with libraries and provides contact information for the publishers in question.  I’ve posted about the issue on our library blog and pushed it out on our Twitter account and Facebook page.  And here’s a direct link to a downloadable copy of my sign on Google Docs. It’s not fancy, but feel free to take it, modify it, use...