I'd like to introduce you to my friend Alexander Christou. Xander, as he likes to be called, is eleven years old and one of the smartest kids I know. He’s a passionate reader, a great soccer player, speaks Greek (his father is from Greece), and is a more engaging, interesting conversationalist than some adults I know! Xander blogs about what he reads from his home in Austin, Texas, where he lives with his parents: Karen, an artist, and Christos, a designer. He’s a huge fan and supporter of Austin’s great indie bookstore, BookPeople, and he's in touch with Topher Bradfield, their Children's Outreach Coordinator...

Amazon last week announced plans to open three new fulfillment centers in the state of Texas, creating more than 1,000 jobs. The sites, which will utilize advanced technology to help fulfill customer orders, will be located in the cities of Coppell, Haslet and Schertz.  Coppell and Haslet are both located north of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, while Schertz is located just outside San Antonio. According to a release, Amazon fulfillment center jobs pay on average 30 percent more than traditional retail jobs, not including the stock grants that full-time employees receive, which over the past five years have added an average of 9 percent...

People in Bexar County, Texas, should be excited about the 10,000-e-book “BiblioTech” library system that the country is starting from scratch—without paper books. This is reportedly the first U.S. public library system to shun paper, cardboard and ink, except for computer printouts. Any books are better than none, and besides, the 10K figure encompasses only copyrighted books, not the tens of thousands of free classics that library patrons will be able to read electronically. What’s more, Bexar will add to the 10,000. County Judge Nelson W. Wolff, the main brain behind the plan, deserves praise for his open-mindedness about e-books, their cost-saving potential and other advantages. Many people, especially dyslectic Americans and...

We knew it would come this ... eventually. Did we not? Honestly, I figured we had a good five years ahead of us before libraries began opening their doors with nary a physical book in sight. Shows what I know. From Gizmodo this afternoon comes the fifty percent shocking, fifty percent predictable news that the Bexar County satellite office, which sits about seven miles south the Alamo, will soon become one of the nation's first bookless libraries. A Bexar County judge by the name of Nelson Wolff is the self-described book lover who came up with the idea, which isn't actually limited to...

From the press release: Florida and Texas led a major push for digital materials in the classroom in 2011, strengthening the foundation for the use of technology intextbook adoption states. According to a recent report from publishing forecast firm Simba Information, sales generated from state textbook adoption programs totaled $660 million in 2011. Texas provided a snapshot of the digital trend in K-12 schools when it called for all submissions in supplemental science in grades 5-12 to be digital. In addition, Texas included digital materials for the language arts; however the uptake was slight, with teachers preferring their own materials in digital formats, rather...

From the press release: Benetech today announced that it was recently awarded a contract with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to conduct training and outreach on the benefits of accessible instructional materials (AIM) for K-12 students with disabilities in Texas and to ensure availability of AIM through a dedicated conversion effort on a specific set of adopted materials. Under the terms of the contract, Benetech will help K-12 educators in Texas gain a broader understanding of what digital accessible books are, how they can help students to succeed and how to obtain and use the accessible materials. Benetech has named this project...

From the press release: XanEdu, the leading faculty-preferred provider of custom course materials and textbooks, has partnered with Barnes & Noble and Texas A&M to conduct research on the efficacy of accessing and studying custom course materials within NookStudy. Students at Texas A&M will access their XanEdu course materials in NookStudy and provide valuable feedback on usability, accessibility and feature preferences of both the application itself, and the digital content provided. NookStudy enables students to manage all of their digital content – eTextbooks, class materials, and notes within one application – and is available for any student to download free...

Sharp-eyed TeleReader Aaron Pressman noticed this article yesterday, though it didn’t show up in my Google Reader until today. Though he mentioned it in his comment, and we did link a video earlier today, we never actually linked this rather informative article from the Wall Street Journal which sets the issues down in print. The Connecticut Attorney General has followed in the footsteps of the Texas Attorney General in investigating the possible anticompetitive ramifications of Apple’s and five of the Big Six publishers’ agency pricing scheme, which they have forced on Amazon and every other e-book seller. ...

Many people are unaware that most, if not all, states have their own antitrust laws that they can enforce. These laws are separate and distinct from Federal antitrust laws. If the Federal Government won't bring an antitrust case there is nothing from stopping a state from doing so. Well, Publishers Lunch is reporting that the Texas Attorney General's office is engaged in preliminary questioning regarding pricing of ebooks and Apple's entry into the market. Publishers Lunch is reporting that the investigation began in early April. No more details are available....

In today’s newspapers were articles about how the conservatives are gearing up to attack President Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. The grounds were the usual — too liberal, too activist, too outspoken, too quiet, too something. Similarly, the liberals were gearing up to defend. Role reversals from the Bush years. As the articles noted, a mainstay of conservative judicial thinking is a return to original intent. And that got me thinking — no, not about judicial appointments, well yes, about judicial appointments, but no, not for this article — about who I will vote for in the November elections,...