Group items tagged

Of course, the key questions are: What is the reality with respect to e-books? Does print really have an anticipated life span of five more years? Will e-books finally take off? After nearly two decades of talking about how e-books are right around the corner, have we finally reached the corner? This research bulletin looks at some of the hype and the reality of e-books in higher education.

Drexel University's W. W. Hagerty Library received funding [1] in the Fall of 2000 from the U.S. Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to study the impact of a library's shift to electronic journals on staff and costs. The goals were to perform a comparative analysis for Drexel's library (a case study) and to develop a model for use by other libraries. The results suggest that, when all costs are considered, electronic journals are more cost effective on a per use basis. Storage space for low use bound journals is a major expense. A readership survey shows that the library's electronic collection is widely accepted and extensively used. Since there are methodological difficulties with the data available to make the analyses, this study should be viewed as a single first step to address an issue of critical importance to academic libraries.

This article investigates readers' requirements regarding fiction electronic books, as compared to electronic textbooks. The EBONI Project, which defined a set of best practice guidelines for designing electronic textbooks, provided the methodology to support an exploration of the usability of fiction ebooks in a recent study. It was found that the general guidelines for the design of textbooks on the Internet can also be applied to the design of fiction ebooks. Additionally, in terms of the electronic production of fiction ebooks, the same study suggested that concentrating on the appearance of text, rather than the technology itself, can lead to better quality publications to rival the print versions of fiction books. This article discusses these results together with some from similar studies in order to draw a picture of what readers expect from fiction ebooks.

Stephen R. Lawrence

The abstract for this article reads, "This exploratory study asked eleven Association of Research Libraries (ARL) librarians to identify the resources needed for the transition of an all-paper library to the all-digital library. Although the results cannot be generalized, the study identifies functions and resources associated with the provision of paper and electronic materials that can be used for further investigation of library resource allocations." Connaway, L., Lawrence, S.

U Mich president's talk on the benefits of participating in Google Books

A pro-Google-Book Search speech, given by the head librarian at the University of Michigan.

Europeana

This can be deleted. At least one more thorough article is bookmarked and tagged.

This is also saved under another bookmark. We will have to find a print version of this article for review. North Texas does not carry this journal.

Scholarly Publishing The Electronic Frontier Robin P. Peek and Gregory B. Newby Scholarly publishing is changing and the changes will have an impact on all members of the academic community and on how they will go about creating and maintaining scholarship. Scholarly Publishing: The Electronic Frontier examines the critical issues facing universities, academics, libraries, and scholarly presses in the turbulent time when publishing is likely moving from a print to an electronic paradigm. The essays by all of the major participants in this "electronic revolution" explore the technical, social, and organizational impact of computer-mediated communication. They examine both ends of the continuum and everything in between-from how the system might be completely overhauled to a gradual retrenching where much remains the same but paper is no longer the communication medium. Some of the subjects, implicit in the various possible futures for scholarly publishing and covered here, include the role of the library with respect to electronic publications, protection of intellectual and economic property, and plagiarism.

CIBER projects Live projects Digital Lives for the Arts & Humanities Research Council (September 2007 to April 2009). Evaluating the Usage and Impact of E-Journals in the UK for the Research Information Network (January to November 2008). UK National E-Books Observatory for JISC Collections (January 2008 to April 2009). Recently completed projects MaxData for the US Institute of Museum & Library Studies. Completed December 2007. SuperBook for a consortium of publishers. Completed December 2007. The Impact of Open Access Journal Publishing II for Oxford University Press. Completed November 2007. The Researcher of the Future for the British Library and JISC. Completed November 2007.

This page features the results of the collaboration between Google and the LOC to digitize Congressional hearings. I tried the Immigration collection, and found it easy to download and search the .pdf document. This is a great resource for researchers.

"the main point of the conference was that electronic resources have become the most significant part of our work and our collections, but that we have yet to fully mainstream and normalize processes and procedures for these materials."

ER&L provides a forum for information professionals to explore ideas, trends, and technologies related to electronic resources and digital services.

"The new report examines the "unbundling of content" from traditional containers (books, journals, CDs) and distribution methods (postal mail, resource sharing). As the boundaries blur between content, technology and the information consumer, the report shows how format now matters less than the information within the container."

Imagining the future of libraries.

Argues that scholars must shape development of tools. On Stanford Library plan: "The Stanford faculty recommendations are telling for several reasons, which is why I've bothered to begin my discussion there (or, here, as I enjoy the hospitality of the Stanford Humanities Center as a digital humanities fellow). The faculty committee has made a series of highly reasonable and well-argued proposals. Guiding them is a belief, correct in my opinion and that of most humanists, that books aren't going away, we need them and shall continue to do so for a long time to come, and we cannot pit digital tools against book culture. We must accept the hybrid world of scholarly work and earnestly endeavor to support it."

"The idea behind the symposium was to begin shaping a strategy for the future of academic research libraries. We invited some of the best minds in the field and representatives from leading institutions to explore the future of the research library and new developments in scholarly communication." Cliff Lynhch, Lorcan Dempsey, Kevin Guthrie, etc

"Five-Year Information Format Trends, released in early 2003, provides a snapshot look at how trends and innovation in information formats (e.g. Web pages, electronic books, MP3 audio) are creating new challenges and opportunities for librarians, who must integrate these with existing formats and build new information management processes all while balancing resource allocation."