Could children be better readers if we went “back to the future,” even in the era of e-books and calls for massive budget calls? I’ll share thoughts. But first let’s hear from Andy Strong, a children’s librarian at the library in Rockford, Illinois, during the 1990s: “When the library cut its hours, it drastically reduced storytime programming. In fact, service to parents and young children is a shadow of what it once was. “In its heyday, mothers and children would leave the library with armloads and tote bags full of books. Head Start would routinely bring busloads of children to dedicated storytimes weekly, introducing new families...

The Rockford (Illinois) Register Star, the local daily, has just published LibraryCity’s guest column: How to Make Rockford an E-Book Leader. Rockford’s library planners are right that e-books deserve a higher percentage of their budget than now. But the city should take care to digitize properly before going on a major e-book spree. How about such issues as access for low-income people? Or serious questions about the sustainability of current e-lending models—which a well-stocked national digital library system could help address? LibraryCity’s article in the Register Star also suggests the creation of an open-membership citizens advisory group. It could offer advice on a...

Libraries will lose out to profit-crazed publishers and other content-providers unless they can offer something back—beyond their current audiences. Penguin‘s refusal to provide new audiobooks to libraries is just part of an ugly pattern of bullying from the commercial side. Another, of course, is HarperCollins’ requirement that libraries loan an e-book no more than 26 times without paying for more reads. TheVerge’s Josuah Topolsky on Amazon’s Fire How to respond? Earlier I proposed alibrary-friendly ecosystem for the creation, distribution, and popularization of e-books and other content of value to both the general public and specialists. I want library items for typical patrons to be...

Both at LibraryJournal.com and LibraryCity.org, I’ve reminded the Digital Public Library of America that it needs to serve public library users well, not just the academic variety. That’s been my goal since the early 1990s when I first proposed a national digital library system well integrated with local schools and public libraries. Nowadays I actually favor two separate but tightly intertwined systems, one public, one academic, since many of their priorities so starkly differ. Over the weekend, the Washington Post published a must-read for DPLA leaders and others: As demand for e-books soars, libraries struggle to stock their virtual shelves. “Want to take...

How long would I keep my Kindle Fire tablet? I’d bought it mostly just to stay in touch with popular e-book tech. The Fire is hobbled with onerous digital rights management, favors a proprietary e-book format, and in certain ways is just a cash register for Amazon.Regardless of the millions of Kindles purchased over the holidays, many reviewers hate it. Amazon’s actual hardware isn’t that great for the money if you compare the Fire with the not-so-locked wares from my favorite Chinese tablet store. I sold my Fire on eBay to a telecommunications engineer in Belarus. But guess what? Having suffered a soul-wrenching case of seller’s...

Our founder David Rothman wrote an interesting column on how to use e-books as part of an educational strategy for encouraging children to read. He suggests that parents should aim for a mix of electronic and paper books, using paper books as “gateway drugs” to get kids interested and e-books for times when paper books are not available or appropriate. He also suggests that developers should look into different ways of using e-book content to make it more effective for learning. The effectiveness of the actual books for children is just one issue. As part of...

  In my series on e-books for family literacy, I’ve emphasized the glories of human contact—as opposed to parents simply using e-books as babysitters. Here’s a somewhat related example of the possibilities of E. In-person book clubs for kids. Recording a promotional YouTube for Sony, author Lori Gottlieb offered generic tips such as the need to round up kids with similar interests and then focus on those topics in the club. But she also threw in some e-book specific idea such as use of the built-in dictionaries and annotation tools. I can see young students using paper equivalents, too, if they prefer—choices...

More ammunition for a national digital library system playing up early childhood education and a family literacy approach. Thanks, Messrs. Kristoff and Friedman!: Priority One of a national digital library system should be early childhood education, bolstered by family literacy. I  made the point last week. Other areas also count, but early childhood ed is dearest to me and among those especially likely to give the taxpayers the most for their investment. We could use tablet computers and good old-fashioned tutoring and mentoring from librarians, educators, and volunteers to help the disadvantaged—parents as well as children. Hello, Nicholas Kristof and Tom Friedman?...

A small-town public librarian has been missing from thesteering committee of the Digital Public Library of America—a troubling omission we’ve noted several times since the DPLA’s founding last year. But now the Harvard-based DPLA has filled in the gap with the appointment of Dwight McInvaill, Director of theGeorgetown County Library in a rural and costal area of South Carolina. Great move. McInvaill has won national recognition for working with other cultural agencies todigitally preserve old photos, maps and other local content, including newspapers. A press release from the Carnegie Corporation also mentions his interest in literacy issues: "To combat at its roots a county illiteracy rate approaching...

Occasional TeleRead contributor Robert Nagle passed me a link to a review he lately posted of our founder David Rothman’s small-press-published novel, The Solomon Scandals, which recounts a journalist’s investigation of a scandal in 1970s Washington. Nagle quite liked the book, giving it four stars, though noting that the tone could get a little preachy at times. Ars Technica reports that Google will release the first e-ink reader optimized for Google Books in about a week. The iRiver Story HD, apparently a revision of iRiver’s 2009 Story e-reader, will include wifi and a qwerty keyboard, and cost $139.99 suggested retail when...

A fashionable line in the media these days is, “Elections have consequences.” So does governance, whether of the local Rotary Club, the United States of America, or a Harvard-hosted group serving as a quasi-shaper of national digital library policy. Alas, the so-called Digital “Public” Library of America has refused to live up to the P word. It would not let me attend a meeting across the Potomac from me even though the financial cost to the group would have been zilch and my library views have appeared in publications ranging from the Washington Post to the Chronicle of Higher Education and LibraryJournal.com. I couldn’t even be a...

A National Digital Public Library that Harvard Library Director, Professor Robert Darnton has been talking and writing about for many months and others (for example, TeleRead Founder David Rothman have been talking and writing about for years) will soon be the topic of a research and planning initiative that will be hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard University Law School. From the Berkman Center Web Site: With funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Berkman will convene a large and diverse group of stakeholders in a planning program to define the scope, architecture, costs and administration...