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"After all we (as a society not libraries) did not get the first sale doctrine out of the goodness of someone's heart, it came from a court case. Maybe we need to stop asking. It wouldn't be the first time."

A good summary of the state of the ebook business and libraries.

In 2009, JISC Collections commenced a new study to explore in more detail the e-textbook landscape in the UK and to work collaboratively with publishers and libraries to identify and pilot four potential e-textbook business models. The results and reports of this study are available to all. In addition to the reports, there are a number of case studies available from the university libraries that participated in the e-textbook trials which make excellent reading.

"Textbooks on ScienceDirect offer today's libraries an exciting opportunity to provide new and highly valuable service to their patrons. Faculty can finally assign a textbook and/or various text/references and provide all students with easy access, giving them equal chance at succeeding because they have the assigned and recommended course content with no financial pressure to find or buy!"

Academic libraries are increasingly collecting e-books, but little research has investigated how students use e-books compared to print texts. This study used a prompted think-aloud method to gain an understanding of the information retrieval behavior of students in both formats. Qualitative analysis identified themes that will inform instruction and collection practices.

"Today we're please to announce that Google Docs has been integrated into Edmodo. This highly requested feature allows you to sync your Google Docs with your Edmodo Library so you can easily access and share your Google Docs with your Edmodo groups."

"Our application provides real-time copyright clearance and an ever-expanding content library along with the ability to add your own materials and articles from the web. And - peer recommendations from colleagues in your discipline can present new possibilities to enrich your courses. "

This is basically a course pack builder. It takes care of copyright clearance and offers the option for students to download as a digital file or get a print-on-demand.

The partnership will expand the reach of the McGraw-Hill Campus service, which was first rolled out last July as a means of offering universal, single sign-on access to McGraw-Hill offerings to students and educators from within a school's existing LMS at no cost. With the service, the entire library of McGraw-Hill resources can be accessed with the service with a single click for browsing of test banks, e-books, PowerPoint slides and other offerings.

Disrupting Ourselves, The Problem of Learning in Higher Education

Great article by Randy Bass. There is a reference to the eportfolio model that C2L is starting to create. He also aligns eportfolios and PLE's. [E-portfolios, or Personal Learning Environments (PLEs), or whatever they are named-as something that enables students to weave these connections back and forth across the formal and experiential curricula-will be an essential element of our response to this disruptive moment. Randy also mentions the emerging discussions about learning analytics.

ComETS is an Iowa State University community that promotes dialog and events focused on technology in learning & teaching. ComETS is a university-wide community where ideas and resources can be shared, and debate can occur on future technology directions at ISU.

See the eText Panel Discussion.

Slides from a guy who's very active on the etexts list.