Tag Archives: epub

OverDrive’s Gutenberg Project now LIVE

Big news fom the Digital Library blog at OverDrive about their pilot project with Project Gutenberg records – it’s live and available for libraries. Â From the blog post: Â OverDriveâ€™sÂ Project Gutenberg eBook collection, featuring over 15,000 EPUB titles that are free to your library and to your customers, is out of beta and available on more than 125 â€˜Virtual Branchâ€™ websites. Since we launched this feature in August, library customers have downloaded 100,000 eBooks from the collection. Thatâ€™s great news for all libraries with these free EPUB eBooks because each download can count as a circulation for your library, even though no authentication is needed to access these â€˜always availableâ€™ titles.

More information, including instructions on viewing the “Gutenberg Report” within one’s Content Reserve account, is in the post.

Charleston Conference – Open Textbooks Model & Library Involvement

Jeff Shelstad, Founder and CEO ofÂ FlatWorld Knowledge spoke first.

Jeff provided some stats on higher education:

  • 19.1 million students in 2010 in college
  • $850 avg spent on textbook
  • so, itâ€™s about a 10billion industry
  • Cengage, Pearson, McGraw-Hill are the big 3 publishers along with many other small ones

Problem is that the industry has outworn their value proposition and is not willing to pay for the product the industry is offering.Â  Affordability is a huge problem.

36% of community college student in a study said that the cost of textbooks had caused them to leave/dropout Continue reading Charleston Conference – Open Textbooks Model & Library Involvement

50 Benefits of eBooks – New Edition

Michael Pastore has released a revised and expanded edition of his book – 50 Benefits of eBooks.Â  It is packed with information about how to understand, and enjoy, the digital reading revolution. The book, soon to be released as a 368-page paperback, is now available in ebook editions which contain all the same information as the paperback â€” yet sell for less than four dollars.

Published by Zorba Press (in Ithaca, New York), ==50 Benefits of Ebooks== is a lively introduction to the brave new worlds of ebooks and electronic publishing. This revised edition (now 66,000 words) is 25% larger than the September 2009 edition, and contains ten new chapters. The ebook â€” now available in PDF and EPUB â€” is priced at $3.99.

To buy the ebook, visit the ebook’s web page: http://www.zorba.us/?page_id=142

Full News Release is here: http://www.zorba.us/?page_id=318
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Accessibility and eBooks – Resources and an Interview

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with Ken Petri, the Director of the Web Accessibility Center at The Ohio State University, about the accessibility of eBooks and eBook readers.Â  Ken is incredibly knowledgeable on the topic and offered a great deal of information during the interview.Â  It’s about 25 minutes in length, so I strongly encourage you to download the file before listening due to it’s size.Â  Ken provided us with a great list of resources for various aspects of eBook accessibility, which are below.Â  Thanks Ken!

NSR offers monthly interviews with librarians, publishers, and others involved in the eBook industry.Â  Have a listen from the interviews page. Continue reading Accessibility and eBooks – Resources and an Interview

Much awaited blio reader to launch Windows version on September 28th

The wait is finally over, well only if you own a Windows based device, for the blio reader from K-NFB and it’s partner Baker and Taylor.Â  There is a full story in Business Wire, but the highlights include:

O’Reilly Media offers DAISY formats in ebook bundles

From an O’Reilly Media press release:

For years O’Reilly Media has supplied digital files of our books to Bookshare, a non-profit that provides accessible reading material to the print disabled. For qualifying readers, these ebooks are made available worldwide. And now, through a collaboration with Bookshare, we’ve started making the easy-access DAISY (Digital Accessible Information Systems) formats available within our ebook bundles on oreilly.com for more than 800 titles. Continue reading O’Reilly Media offers DAISY formats in ebook bundles

Articles of Interest

Hot reads this week.Â  Here’s a list of some good ones:

New from Bowker: Selection of Statistics from Consumer-Focused Research Report for Book Industry Â« ResourceShelf

The digital era has not made publishers defunct

Kobo Now Supports ePub and PDF files

Google Book Search beneficial to publishing industry, study shows

The ABC’s of E-Reading – Wall Street Journal

Virginia State University Business School Buys E-textbooks for Students

Ebook market share at B&N tops their print book share

EPUB Straight to the Point – Book Review

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a new book by Elizabeth Castro called EPUB Straight to the Point, which was brought to my attention by Michael Pastore of Zorba Press and Epublishers Weekly.Â  Michael, author of 50 Benefits of Ebooks, just completed a full review of this new EPUB title and emailed the link to me.Â  His conclusion:Â  Publishers, authors, book designers â€” everyone interested in making EPUB ebooks â€” can buy Castro’s book with complete confidence; the book will teach you to build a better ebook than you’ve ever built before.Â  Thanks, Michael.

Get Your Gutenberg in Your OverDrive

Last Friday, the Boston Public Library added 15,000 Project Gutenberg books to it’s virtual library, supported by OverDrive.Â  This new project between OverDrive and Project Gutenberg is currently in beta and allows libraries to provide access to these public domain titles at no charge.Â  The titles are DRM free EPub books and users will not run into holds, checkouts, or authentication.

The full press release from OverDrive is available and current OverDrive customers who are interested in adding the Gutenberg titles to their own virtual library should contact OverDrive’s partner services group at partnerservices@overdrive.com.

New Book About eBooks in Libraries – Release in August

I’m thrilled to inform you that No Shelf Required: E-books in Libraries will be released in late August.Â  This edited book, published by ALA Editions, discusses a variety of eBook topics for school, public, and academic libraries.Â  Since I have a bit of clout with the publisher, I’m able to release the TOC and introduction for your review and consideration.Â  It is below.Â  Of course, it will be available in a variety of eBook formats, and print too. Continue reading New Book About eBooks in Libraries – Release in August

How do you make an EPUB Book?

Michael Pastore, author of 50 Benefits of eBooks, provides a review of a new book – EPUB, Straight to the Point by Elizabeth Castro.Â  Michael states, “Castro’s book fills an immense gap in this field, as an essential guide for publishers, designers and authors who need to produce books in the EPUB format.”Â  Better yet, he read it on his iPad using his iBooks app.Â  As a new author who worked with a traditional publisher, I’ll be anxious to take a look at this to see the steps involved in creating an EPUB book.Â  Who knows, maybe self-publishing will be easier than I thought.

Webinar Summary eBooks vs. Apps: Pros, Cons, and Possibilities

I attended the Digital Book World/Aptara webinar today -eBooks vs. Apps:Â  The Pros, Cons, and Possibilities.Â  My notes are below, summarizing the content.Â  Very interesting webinar and some really good content, eye opening for a librarian to see what features are being discussed for enhanced ebooks, brings back memories of interfaces past and present.Â  Slides are available – definitely look at the comparison chart, discussed below.

Speakers: Eric Freese, Pablo Defendini and Peter Costanzo; Moderator:Â  Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

enhanced ebooks – are easier to develop because it the preparation of a data file, usually less expensive,Â  based on a standard,Â  interoperable because they are built on EPUB, but some vendors will wrap DRM around them making them slightly inoperable.

apps – are programs specifically written for a platform and interoperability cannot be guaranteed; easier for the functionality to be successful by it required custom development expertise. Continue reading Webinar Summary eBooks vs. Apps: Pros, Cons, and Possibilities

Google Editions: What We Know (and Don’t Know)

Eric Freese, and Aptara Solutions Architect, wrote an article for the Digital Book World blog yesterday, “Google Editions:Â  what we know and don’t know.”Â  In this article he discusses content, platforms, partners, EPUB, price, and the possibility of a “gpad” type tablet in the future.Â  Unfortunately, as the title suggests, there is much we don’t know about Google Editions, but the article is still a great summary.

Free WebCast – eBooks vs. Apps: The Pros, the Cons, the Possibilities

eBooks vs. Apps: The Pros, the Cons, the Possibilities – a free webcast sponsored by Aptara, a community partner of Digital Book World.

Between the overwhelming popularity of the iPad and the increased adoption and continuing evolution of ePub, the opportunities and sales channels for digital books have exploded over the past 12 months.Â  Most publishers agree that some ebook titles justify the extra investment for enhancement, but determining the degree of interactivity and technical approach best-suited to the book and your budget can be daunting.Â  In this free WEBcast, Ebooks vs. Apps: The Pros, Cons, and Possibilities, we will explore the production and budgetary benefits and pitfalls of developing applications versus enhancing ebooks. Continue reading Free WebCast – eBooks vs. Apps: The Pros, the Cons, the Possibilities

Digital Book 2010 Presentations online

I’m a bit late with this post, but the IDPFs Digital Book 2010 Conference presentations are now online (have been since June 3rd – alas I had a vacation).Â  There are some interesting ones out there on:

  • the eBook revolution
  • ePUB
  • DRM, copyright protectionÂ  and biz models of the future
  • marketing and selling eBooks
  • digital magazines and newspapers

Some of these include the audio as well. Enjoy!Â  Lots of food for thought.

Mad World of eBooks, part two – ALA discussion

For the introductory material on the session, please see part one of this blog post.

Second group – Lenny Allen, OUP, Erin Igoe, Cambridge UP, Tony Horava, OCUL, Joy Kirchner, COPPUL

  • Lenny – budget and workflow are concerns, always looking a year in advance.
  • Erin – CBO general ebook platform focused on perpetual access of titles; forthcoming developments – digital collections from Cambridge Libary, New Cambridge history of Islam; discussing the best use of delivering print materials in a digital format that will be most useful, relevant and user friendly. Â Always looking at discoverability and functionality, they really want to be at the simultaneous release of p and e, it’s the workflow issue that is holding things up. Â Lots of opportunities for ILL, PDA, metadata (better and more consistent fashion), use reports. Suggests that librarians keep pushing the envelope with publishers. Continue reading Mad World of eBooks, part two – ALA discussion

EPUB logo is here

The new ePUB logo is here.Â  Considering the camel text, I guess I will now start typing ePUB instead of EPUB. The logo is available in color, black/white, and gray scale versions from the IDPF site.Â  The IDPF held a contest for the logo design and it was won by Ralph Burkhardt of Stuttgart, Germany.Â  The contest gleaned 203 entries from 18 countries.

Open Letter to E-Book Creators and Sellers from Library Customers

Reposting this open letter from an LJ article, thanks to @mlharper for the tweet.

An Open Letter to E-Book Creators and Sellers from Library Customers

Libraries and their customers have a long and mutually beneficial relationship with authors, publishers, and vendors, based on the printed word â€“ books. Now, with the emergence of popular e-books and e-book readers, libraries are positioned to continue that partnership with these exciting new products.
Libraries have much to offer e-book sellers as you work to establish a new successful business model around the e-book format. At the same time libraries need e-book providers to offer e-pub materials in ways that enable and support use by libraries and library users. Here is the deal. Continue reading Open Letter to E-Book Creators and Sellers from Library Customers

Patron Driven Acquisition – Librarian Survey

I had the opportunity to work with Publishers Communication Group to present the hot-off-the-press results of their study of library deployment ofÂ  e-book patron driven acquisition (PDA) programs.Â  The study was conducted by PCG’s Head of Research Emilie Delquie.Â  She is still looking for survey respondents so please contact her if your library has a PDA program in place or if you plan to implement in 2010.

The results were presented at the Spring Conference of the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) which was held in Cambridge, MA this week.Â  The conference was attended primarily by publishing executives, and the theme was “Users, customers, practitioners & librarians talk – Publishers are you listening?”

The key messages I tried to convey to publishers were: include your titles in the aggregator e-book services; release the electronic copy the same day as the print copy; and make the content available in epub format for download to handheld readers.

The survey shows tremendous rapid adoption of patron driven acquisition.Â  Two hundred and fifty libraries were contacted.Â  From that sample: 32 have PDA programs deployed; 42 planned to have a program deployed within the next year; and an additional 90 plan to deploy aÂ  program within the next three years.Â  Of the 32 libraries that currently have PDA programs 47% began their program in the past six months.

Thank you to all of you who have already participated in the survey!

Slides are attached for your viewing pleasure: PDA Survey Spring 2010

Ingram to provide publishers with access to Apple’s iBookstore

Ingram announced that it will provide publisher content to Apple’s new iBookstore.Â  Using their CoreSourceÂ® program, Ingram’s solution for the storage, management, and distribution of digital content, publishers will be able to submit eBooks to iBookstore for availability on Apple’s new iPad.Â  Ingram will help manage the relationship between publishers and Apple.Â  This will enable a publisher’s catalog to be ingested, converted into ePub, Apple’s required format, and submitted to the iBookstore.Â Â  To learn more about Ingram’s Apple Referral Program and CoreSource, visit: www.ingramcontent.com/apple.
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