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The insights in this article were interesting, given that they coming from a trade publication.   I do think Brantley is absolutely right, but I'm not sure what that means for libraries.  The fact still remains that a lot of bestsellers and popular works-- which are still associated with libraries-- are squarely in the hands of the Big Six (Apple, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillian, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster) and it's yet unclear how a large number of independent publishers will have any effect.

Two important new developments in access to public funded research, the FASTR Act that requires copies of articles done under NIH research to be deposited into PubMed, and a White House directive for federal agencies to develop public access policies for research and digital data.

"Since at least the 1990s, when personal computers first became commonplace, public policy experts have worried the ill effects of a Digital Divide. That is, a learning, socialization and economic gap across socio-economic status, race and gender caused by unequal access to computing resources."

A short article about privacy topics, in this case where a library's local privacy policy conflicted with state law regarding the disclosure of of a minor's library records to a custodial parent or legal guardian.

An article that revisits an older issue (Amazon wiping or removing a book from a Kindle), just this time it was an entire eBook collection and was deleted because of a problem with the user's account. It reinforces what copyright holders have always had but weren't able to enforce until the digital era, that users have only rights to access or use a work, not to actually own it, and those rights can be limited. Further, Amazon is a private company that can dictate policies; all the user knows is her account is "related" to a blocked account without knowing why or how.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers' Global Entertainment and Media Outlook predicts that E-books will make up 50 percent of the U.S. trade book market by 2016. Total book spending is predicted to be relatively flat, with the total spending on print books declining while e-books will grow fast enough by 2013 to offset the decline. E-book spending is predicted to skyrocket in North America, but will grow slower in Europe and Asia, with Japan and South Korea as notable exceptions.

In an ongoing court case that was filed by the DOJ last year Apple is alleged to have been a "ringmaster" in price fixing for eBooks, including an e-mail from Steve Jobs to Harper Collins, as part of an attempt to move Apple off of it's standard rate of $9.99 a book.

Now, this took place in the European Union, not the United States (where software is still "licensed" instead of actually sold), but what it means is that people who pay a fee to have software distributed to them now have right of first sale to that license-- that is, they can redistribute it to another person, just as I can give a book I purchased to someone else.

This is great - thanks for posting.

Interesting.  I wonder what an open-source textbook will be like, or what can be done with it.  Also, the article seems to assume that the information in the textbooks is under the same license.