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It's clear that the recession is accelerating the shift to digital publishing. "With the economy shaping up as it seems to be," one astute observer of trends in the university press world told me last summer, "we're going to see a 15 year leap in publishing in the next two years." And that was well before trillions of dollars started vanishing into the ether.

"Frankfurt, 13/10/2008 - The organisers of the Frankfurt Book Fair - the global meeting place for the book world - have conducted a major survey to find out how digitisation will influence the future of the publishing industry, and who will be the driving force behind it. Over 1,000 industry professionals from over 30 countries responded to the survey, issued via the Frankfurt Book Fair Newsletter. The most interesting results: * China's digital influence in international publishing predicted to increase threefold in next five years * consumers, Amazon, Google believed to drive the digitisation process * e-content will overtake traditional books in sales by 2018"

"To keep track of it all, we here at TechFlash have mapped out the known universe of e-books -- spanning content, devices, mobile apps, wireless providers, acquisitions, and more. We invite you to take a look, give us feedback, and let us know if we've missed anything. We'll be updating this chart on a regular basis."

Peter Brantley on book server

"After years of library membership declining and fears that the public no longer wanted to borrow books, some institutions are reporting a spike in interest since they started to offer e-books. Only a handful of libraries have started to offer the service, but many in the library world are hopeful that the revolution in digital reading can help transform libraries' fortunes, and that the majority of libraries will soon offer downloads as a matter of course, alongside the latest Dan Brown paperback. " [UK focus]