Group items tagged

"Readers of e-books like to read in all formats, they favor print books for sharing and to read to children, and on average they read more books over all than print-only readers do."

Pew stats

"In my research about the work being done to make electronic reading a more organic experience, one that is suitable for the engaged reading required in the study of books, I have found that software designers are beginning to listen to voices like mine. While some are developing ways that active reading can become a social process, others are exploring ways technology can actually improve our ability to interact with and connect texts. Ultimately, technology is valuable in the ways it can move us beyond what we are already capable of doing. We should not embrace technology for technology's sake. After this experience, I feel strongly that the use of electronic versions for the active study of texts still lags behind the advantages of a physical book"

"digital book maker Kobo has created a social reading platform for the iPad that it says it will bring to all of its platforms. The platform allows readers to check in with characters and places on Facebook, earn badges and track reading traffics - sharing to social networks like Facebook at every step. No doubt there are many interesting directions Kno could take for approaching its social features from the basic app it launched on Wednesday."

Very cool idea. Would be interesting for a version of that to be given to a single campus population.

"OpenStax College, the nonprofit, open-access publisher out of Rice University, announced the launch of its first iBook text Monday, becoming the latest publisher to try to make the free-with-paid-options model sustainable. The interactive, iPad-based version of OpenStax's free-to-read online College Physics text is available through iTunes for $4.99."

"When Rowe, professor of English at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, and Elliott Visconsi, associate professor of English at Notre Dame, co-designed The Tempest iPad app, they did more than re-imagine a single play, they re-imagined reading."

Nice article. Into the next Future Trends it goes.

"Springer has released eBook Use and Acceptance in an Undergraduate Institution. Here's an excerpt : The survey finds high use of eBooks at Wellesley College, with 70% of the respondents indicating they have used eBooks. Other recent international surveys of eBook use have shown 52-64% of students or faculty responding that they have used eBooks (Figure 10). Within the general U.S. population 21% of adults reported having used eBooks in 2011. Some eBook use by Wellesley students and faculty may be non-academic, leisure reading, but half of Wellesley's eBook users report having used eBooks from the Wellesley College Library's collection."

stats on ebook reading & more from Pew study on future of libraries

"Having built, bought and partnered its way into the textbook distribution business, Chegg is launching a long-promised mobile web version today that lets readers easily read and mark up their textbooks. "

"Kno can do everything a physical textbook can do and more, with over 60 features that make reading, studying, note taking and organization a breeze."

"Students aren't going to "suddenly" want digital textbooks because they grew up reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar on an iPad. There'll need to be more than a Digital Playbook for schools -- both at the K-12 and higher ed level -- in convincing students to "give up loyalty to the printed book." "

"The new Student Monitor data are slightly more validating to the mobile computing trend, although the percentages of students who say they own Internet-enabled smartphones (56 percent) and those who say they own iPads (9 percent) are virtually unchanged from when the firm asked the same questions in May. Apple's tablet accounted for about half of overall wireless reading devices (17 percent); it was followed by Amazon's Kindle (4 percent) and a long tail of minor players."

Interesting to see how laptop/desktop-centric students remain.

Given that ebooks cannot be loaned, does the shift toward them increase the "digital divide"?

Good, deep question. A few thoughts: -device-specific ebooks certainly are a problem, esp when costs rise -Kindle books can be loaned -American racial minorities tend to make more use of phones (feature) than whites