In this article we present the methodology and initial results from qualitative research into the usage and communication of digital information. It considers the motivation for the research and the methodologies adopted, including Contextual Design and Cultural Probes. The article describes the preliminary studies conducted to test the approach, highlighting the strengths and limitations of the techniques applied. Finally, it outlines proposals for refinement in subsequent iterations and the future research activities planned. The research is carried out as part of the Planets (Preservation and Long-term Access through NETworked Services) project.

critique of Google Books

It seems that Amazon.com's Kindle is not the flop that many predicted when the e-book reader debuted last year. Citibank's Mark Mahaney has just doubled his forecast of Kindle sales for the year to 380,000. He figures that Amazon's sales of Kindle hardware and software will hit $1 billion by 2010.

The JISC/CNI Meeting: Transforming the User Experience

Caricatures media transition, but has some good quotations from O'Reilly, etc.

issue focused on digital collections

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.

In an information world in which Google apparently offers us everything, what place is there for the traditional, and even the digital, library? In a library environment which is increasingly moving to the delivery of online rather than print resources, what of the academic library's traditional place at the heart of campus life?

The national e-books observatory project is about exploring impacts, observing behaviours and developing new models to stimulate the e-books market, and to do all this in a managed environment.

The Bookless Future: What the Internet is Doing to Scholarship

A Book Publisher's Manifesto for the Twenty-first Century: How Traditional Publishers Can Position Themselves in the Changing Media Flows of a Networked Era Sara Lloyd

economics of ebooks