but i digress. . . again

but not too far, me thinks. although the subject is handwriting. handwriting, you say, as you wring your hands. yes, handwriting. or, verily i say, the decline of handwriting. not the decline of penmanship, mind you (that's the subject of a future 'i digress . . .' handwriting is history. no, i didn't say it. anne trubek said it. in an article for miller-mccune. on a separate note, i had never heard of this miller-mccune magazine before, but apparently it's hot among the librarian set. who knew? well, i guess you did. and, apparently, have been keeping it to yourself.

anyway, i posted this article because while reading, i felt as though i could have replaced the word handwriting with books. some of the same arguments, it seems, have been put forth over generations of technological innovation. and it's a pretty good article. and so is the magazine, for that matter. i shall bookmark it. oops, that means i'll be reading it online, instead of as a printed monograph. shhhhhhhhh. don't tell anyone.

blame canada, blame CANADAAAAAA!!! eh!

remember the south park movie?? the song . . . blame canada. remember?

it seems as though there is a lot of e-reader and e-book activity involving our neighbor to the north (it is north, isn't it? geography was never my strong suit).

an article in the christian science monitor (yes???) is titled 'the e-book, the e-reader, and the future of reading. there's also a link to a previous article about the e-reader generation talking about e-books.

most academic libraries will be closed for winter breaks soon, if they aren't already. i wonder how many students and faculty will find e-readers in their stockings?? how many even want one?

future of the library? neither futurish or library-ish. discuss.

if you're an SNL fan (saturday night live, if you're not), there was a character played by mike myers named linda richman, host of coffee talk [insert jersey accent here]. she would throw random thoughts out, such as "rhode island is neither a road nor an island. discuss."

anyway, back to the lecture at hand. the future of the library. this time, an actual futurist weighs in. thomas frey, senior futurist at the davinci institute, is google's top rated futurist speaker. on his blog, futuristspeaker.com, he ponders the future of colleges and universities . . . IN THREE PARTS!

academics have a much longer attention span than i, so i give you . . . the future of colleges & universities, part one. venture further on your own.

oops, correction . . . FOUR PARTS! discuss. at your own risk.

and in this corner . . .

i wasn't planning on blogging about e-book copyright rights (copyright rights??) because i thought it would be a non-issue. once again, and probably not for the last time, i've been proven wrong.

the question is: who owns the digital e-book rights for backlist titles? you might think the author, since it's a format that technically didn't exist on a massive scale several years ago. you might think the publisher of the hardcover and/or paperback editions. and of course, foreign language rights (think harry potter-47 languages, oui?). but did you think about a third party owning those rights?? of course not. well, apparently, someone did.

start your journey with the new york times story on jane friedman's open road publishing house . then mosey on over to tele-read's article about random house vs. jane friedman and then leap to the future where author stephen covey decides amazon.com deserves exclusive rights to a couple of his titles, and maybe more.

historical note: steven covey is using RosettaBooks as his e-book distributor. never heard of RosettaBooks? not a legal eagle, eh? RosettaBooks was sued by Random House over digital publishing rights back in 2001!!! headline screams: random house claims digital rights to past books. should it also say . . . AGAIN??

okay, kids, time for a pbj, juice box and a nap. that post tuckered me out. zzzzz.

librarian = dodo?

hey, don't shoot the messenger! upon the news of the demise of kirkus reviews (check it out while you still can), david rothman over at the blog tele-read wonders if librarians are on the same path as the esteemed review magazine AND the fabled bird. he references project information literacy's recent paper which states that 8 of 10 college students who participated in their study "rarely" uses librarians for course-related assignments. should we get our helmets because the sky is falling?

is the nook undercooked?

according to tele-read's jean kaplansky, and the new york times david pogue (one of my favorite tech gurus), it is "a sluggish e-reader with confusing navigation," and "slower than an anesthetized slug in winter" respectively." Ouch!

for more in-depth reviews, check out end-gadget's barnes&noble nook review and wsj's walt mossberg's (another favorite tech guru) observation that the nook e-reader has potential but needs work. the resulting conclusions are pretty much the same. double ouch! or is that quadruple ouch? who's counting? hopefully, b&n is and will make the necessary changes before the apple tablet that doesn't exist *wink wink* comes out next year.

can't be funny all the time

yes, i know, that last post was lame. i was distracted yet still wanted to get the info out without taxing myself trying to be entertaining. my bad. i'll try to limit those "just fyi" posts.
now, back to today's link. publishers weekly refers to it as "a terribly written, but compelling, review of The Nook. From The Money Times." i thought that "mini-review" was funny in itself. i've read worse, heck, i've written worse, but i post it for your enlightenment, if not necessarily for your entertainment. and there you have it, and there it is.

oh, wait, i had to add this. normally i would link directly to the article, but you've GOT to read the tele-read intro first . then click through to opinion piece titled 'ode to books, or why e-book readers will never replace them.'

this should be all the literary entertainment you can stand for today.

back to the subject at hand

academia and e-books. and e-readers.

back in june, the chronicle published an article about northwest missouri state university's president, dean l hubbard, and his quest to integrate kindles into his college's textbook distribution system. six lessons one campus learned about e-textbooks, describe hubbard's idea to incorporate e-readers into campus life, seeing as he loved his kindle so much. why wouldn't everyone else?

meanwhile, the e-book skeptic asks, "when it comes to reading, is digital dumber? will higher education have to take this type of research into account when thinking about incorporating e-readers and e-books into their curriculum? hmmmmm??

the international federation

no, trekkies, not THAT federation. the international federation of library associations and institutions (IFLA). they have a journal. and in this month's journal is an article on electronic book collection development. page 9. okay, so it's electronic book collection development in academic libraries in italy! it does reference wayne state university's patron-driven access e-book collection development. wayne state being on this side of the pond, in detroit, michigan. WARNING: it's academic stuff. do not operate heavy machinery while reading, may cause drowsiness.