Category Archives: Big Six

Articles of Interest

E-Books Drive Revenue Growth Across Book Trade in January 2012 – Digital Book World

JK Rowling’s Pottermore Breaks eBook Lockdown, Might Change eBooks Forever – Huffington Post

LG Begins Mass Production of first flexible , plastic eInk displays – Extreme Tech

An Academic Spring – American Libraries

A Look at Students using eTextbooks (Infographic) – eBOOKNEWSER

Bringing up a Young Reader on E-Books – New York Times

Will Hatchette Be The First Big-6 Publisher toDrop DRM on E-books? – paidcontent.org

Going Digital Does Not Lower Textbook Prices – Inside Higher Education

Articles of Interest

Library Publishing Report Suggests Partnerships, Creating Positions   – Library Journal

Aloha Encyclopaedia Britannica Print Edition – Information Today

Thinking more about ebooks and libraries and what big publishers should do – The Shatzkin Files

Libraries as Community Publishers:  How to Turn the Tables – Publishers Weekly

How to Protect Copyright Is Key Topic at Publishers’ Meeting – Chronicle of Higher Education

The Portal Problem, Part 1: The Plight of the Britannica - Scholarly Kitchen

Jetbook Color Now Deployed to NYC’s Largest High School – eBook Newser

Speed and Retention — Are e-Readers more Slower and More Forgetful – Scholarly Kitchen

Articles of Interest – PLA version

Ebook Talks Continued:  ALA Meets with Distributors – eContent blog

Boopsie Approaches Integration in Its Own Way; New Competitor Emerges at PLA | Digital Shift

Ebook Providers, ILS Vendors Move Rapidly to Remove Friction From E-Lending; OverDrive APIs Coming in April Digital Shift

OverDrive’s Library eReader is Better Than 3M’s Library eReader – The Digital Reader

3M Cloud Library Integrates with Polaris ILS Digital Shift

3M Cloud Library – an Interview with Matt Tempelis from 3M

The Great Library Roadshow Facebook Page

The Great Library Roadshow on Storify

Should Libraries Get Out of the Ebook Business by Bobbi Newman

Bobbi Newman, who blogs at Librarian by Day, has an excellent editorial post about current Ebook conditions in public libraries.  She questions whether libraries should step back and wait for better options, quoting several other prominent bloggers on the subject.  It’s an interesting thought piece from a public library perspective.  The comments are just as interesting.

Here is a brief clip from the post – Should Libraries Get Out of the Ebook Business?

Or get out at least until there is a better system? I know what you are going to say, I can hear it already – “We can’t! Our patrons demand ebooks!” Except the truth is our patrons want a lot of things we can’t give them – to always be first on the waiting list for the new James Patterson, to not pay fines when their books are late, for the library to be open earlier or later, or to have a system besides Dewey because despite using it their entire lives they still cannot figure it out. When it comes to ebooks, we cannot give them what they want, not really, we cannot give them books from Simon and Schuster or MacMillian or new books from Penguin or Hatchet, and not more than 26 times from HarperCollins, and probably not many books from Random House. What we can do, what maybe we should do, is spend their tax money wisely, and I am no longer convinced that spending it on the current ebook system is a wise move.

Articles of Interest – Random House edition

Librarians Feel Sticker Shock as Price for Random House Ebooks Rises as Much as 300 Percent – The Digital Shift

ALA Issues Statement Asking Random House to Reconsider eBook Increase – INFODocket

ALA calls on Random House to reconsider major ebook price increase – ALA

Random House Not So Random with Library Ebook Price Increases – Agnostic Maybe

Necessary Evil? Random House Triples Prices Of Library E-Books – TechCrunch

Rich Books, Poor Society: Random House’s Price Spike – Publisher’s Weekly

Added later:

Random Houses Price Hikes Are GOOD For Libraries, IF… – Go To Hellman

Articles of Interest: Penguin, OverDrive, and libraries

It’s been coming for months.  Today Penguin announced it has ended its relationship with OverDrive.  Starting tomorrow, it will no longer sell e-books and audiobooks to OverDrive for library lending.  Interestingly, ALA and Big Six publishers met last week to discuss library e-book lending.  In an article in paidcontent.org, Laura Hazard Owen points out ALA’s concern about statements publishers made regarding “friction.”  Publishers felt a degree of friction existed with physical book checkout – involving 2 trips to the library.  They felt the online availability would alter the friction calculation.  My response to that….clearly they have never tried to download an e-book from the public library.  According to Library Journal’s patron profiles, 23% of ebook patrons reported being unsuccessful in borrowing ebooks because of technical difficulty, while almost 44% could not do so because of title unavailability.”  That’s a lot of friction.

Here are some articles with more of the story:

Penguin ends E-book Library Lending and Relationship with OverDrive, Paidcontent.org

Penguin Group Terminating Its Contract with OverDrive, The Digital Shift

Penguin Unfriends Libraries, Agnostic Maybe

Penguin Cuts Off All Library Ebooks, The Digital Reader

And others added after the original post:

ALA, Author’s Guild, and 3M weigh in on Penguin-OverDrive Dispute, The Digital Shift

E-Book Lending Library Rises, Publishing Industry Grapples with Change – Digital Book World

ALA President and delegation meet with publishers

Yesterday, ALA released a press release summarizing the meetings between ALA President Molly Raphael, an ALA delegation and representatives from publishers Penguin, Macmillan, Random House, Simon & Schuster and Perseus.  It’s a great summary of the meeting.  The discussions show promise!  Here is the text, copied in full from the ALA press release:

American Library Association (ALA) President Molly Raphael led an ALA delegation to New York last week to meet separately with representatives from publishers Penguin, Macmillan, Random House, Simon & Schuster and Perseus.

The representatives at these meetings included CEOs, division presidents and other executives. Continue reading
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