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This is pretty darn huge.  Keep in mind that Tor says nothing about whether piracy is bad, or whether or not electronic books should be cheaper, or more expensive.  But they do concede with this decision that DRM is more a hindrance than a help.

Do you need some help finding something to read for professional development? This blog lists current journals and features one article from each.

An interesting although perhaps idealistic view of what could happen. The author contends that Google faltered in paying and making arrangements with publishers rather than defending Book Search as fair use, although I'd argue it led directly to the Google Play store for selling media including books. Libraries cooperating to make a Digital Public Library is to me a much more agreeable plan than getting materials digitized and put online by means of a corporation.

Publishes critical reviews of online resources for libraries.

I'm going to use it also.

Great!

A federal judge released a 350 page ruling that largely vindicated Georgia State University's use of materials in an Electronic Reserves system called ERES. at issue was how full chapters of books were made available among other material. In 74 cases of alleged infringement only 5 were proven valid as GSU did not place any limit on the amount copied or provided guidance to professors. Provided the ruling stands and is not appealed this could be a landmark decision in fair use. I found it interesting the suit was financially backed by not only the Association of American Publisher but also the Copyright Clearance Center, which provides authorization to use copyrighted materials in electronic reserves, among other things.

On the one hand this is nothing new, several entertainment industries are using deep analytics to see how customers use their products. However, many Ebook readers may not be aware that how long they take to read a book or what they read is being tracked. Customers may avoid books on controversial or personal subjects out of privacy concerns, and publishing may being taking a by-the-numbers approach where they depend more on analytics than market experience and become less willing to try new ideas and authors.

"Today publishers are spending as much as $20,000 a pop to create book trailers-30- to 90-second teasers, à la movie trailers, designed to generate virtual and word-of-mouth buzz and, of course, to sell titles."

"Starting this fall, the 220-member library cooperative Califa Library Group will begin rolling out a $325,000 project with the goal of buying from the smaller publishing companies thousands of e-books that the libraries will own forever."

In the past, publishers and authors had no way of knowing what happens when a reader sits down with a book. Does the reader quit after three pages, or finish it in a single sitting? Do most readers skip over the introduction, or read it closely, underlining passages and scrawling notes in the margins? Now, e-books are providing a glimpse into the story behind the sales figures, revealing not only how many people buy particular books, but how intensely they read them.

I realize I should probably be bothered by this some a privacy point of view, but I kind of like the idea that my reading habits are offering concrete feedback. "Dear publisher, this is where the book got boring and I gave up."

"The consequences many libraries have feared-loud objections from faculty members and financial penalties from publishers-have not come to pass."

A look at the logistics how an open access journal may be set up-- as you can see, it's both cheap and easy, which which may give pause to some people who would otherwise submit articles.  For that reason, the first thing that Eve stresses is to place high priority on the quality of your board and reviewers, to give your new title some legitimacy.

An interesting article about drumming up interest and using a response and feedback to refine a book before it is published, a process that libraries could help authors with.

LendInk was a site that facilitated legitimate ebook lending by putting people with books to lend in touch with people looking to borrow. This was all done at Amazon and Barnes & Noble's websites LendInk merely put the people in touch. The site was shut down because of their host receiving hundreds of Cease and Desist letters from ebook publishers who didn't even take the time to see what the site actually did or who didn't understand that their books were even lendable. 

This was a fairly interesting article about how, Amazon's Jeff Bezos wants to eliminate the "gatekeepers" by empowering as now anyone can become a publisher, producer, or editor of content. Ultimately I agree with the article's assertion that librarian's should be opening doors and resources, but feel that is essentially what the role has been the whole time. A "gatekeeper" is not so much a barrier to people but a barrier to wasted time and effort, and serves as a resource and authority to what people are searching for.

I would say this is still more of a niche interest than an "antidote," but it does say something that people would still prefer to use the Espresso Book Machine and publish a physical copy of a book and it still sells rather than create it as an eBook on Amazon or Google Books. Probably the most useful aspect is for small independent booksellers to maintain a large accessible inventory but only keep and produce a small physical supply as needed, which could also apply to libraries--however not mention in the the articles is these units also have a hefty price tag of over $100,000.

"Approximately 400 to 600 libraries worldwide have switched to a patron-driven system for purchasing new works, and that number is likely to double over the next year and a half, according to Joseph Esposito, a digital publishing consultant who has spent the last nine months studying the implications of PDA with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation."

A heartening story about how the libraries of Douglas County, CO are bucking the current trend of leasing music from services like OverDrive.  As a result, they negotiate directly with publishers, actually own their electronic books, and are able to display said electronic books directly in their catalog, not just in a ebook-only ghetto (a source of irritation to me).  The author suggests this could start a new trend that might culminate in a loosely-organized, nation-wide system that allows smaller libraries to benefit from the expertise and work from larger systems with more resources, like Douglas County.

The city of New York has been investigating ways to reuse obsolete or underused phone booths. The number of phone booths nationwide has dropped by more than half from 1999 to 2007, and 13,000 booths will likely be unused when contracts expire in 2014. Ideas that have been tested include wireless hotspots, touch screen maps, and bolt in bookcases to make a small library. However, unlike other lending libraries that are community supported by an honor system where a book is donated for one removed, the New York libraries tend to disappear within days to weeks. Despite this some publishers and some neighborhoods have been interested in contributing books.

The ALA Digital Content and Libraries Working Group published an "Ebook Business Models for Public Libraries" report August 8. You can read more about the process, or jump right to a PDF download of the report.

A fairly interesting read how copyright has diminished the availability of books from 1923 (the start of copyright protections for titles), so there is a large gap of material from before then that is out of copyright and widely available, and currently published material. However, material in between those times is scarce. However numbers can be deceiving as these are books in current publication, not available used copies, and it would make sense that copyrighted material not widely in demand would have low publication numbers.