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"One Big Six publisher is, to its credit, on the record saying it is granting ownership. That bears repeating: a Big Six publisher says it is granting ownership. Librarians should do everything possible to test the limits of this ownership and to identify specific vendor practices (or clauses) that may undermine it."

I love reading Bobbi's blogs and I follow her on twitter. She brings up some great points about e-books. This is a really complex issue and I don't think its going to get any easier. Coming from a retail background where I sold e-books and e-readers its interesting to hear the librarians' point of view. I think we've still got a long way to go be for anything will be settled in this big debate.

A video from French publisher Editis, with an inspiring vision of what ebooks and tablets might be able to do.

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.

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.

For those of you that enjoy TED videos...

So awesome. I'm not sure I'll pay $3 for many of these, but it's cool just the same. I'm actually kinda surprised they are directly monetizing their old content.

The Project Gutenberg Text Encoding Initiative is intended to create a machine readable (not intended for human eyes) file that encodes markup and formatting data. When processed by a conversion script it outputs usable formats including PDF and UTF-8, keeping the same formatting across all. While an interesting idea I've heard little about it, and there doesn't seem to be a converted effort to make PGTEI a standard for eBooks.

In 2000 Microsoft made a series of predictions about ebooks over the following 20 years. The prediction for 2012 includes an ad campaign by the logging industry that says, "Buy the real thing - real books printed on real paper.

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.

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.

An article that addresses a problem which has come up before, namely "junk" books made from electronic files, in this case physical copies as opposed to eBooks, but with the same problems. Material in the text is missing, as well as the publisher and print date, edition, the notation about original language or any information about the author. Such information, separated from the original work, means that the context and in some cases documentation for the book are lost, which could harm research and preservation in the long run.

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.

Okay, this is pretty darn cool. Thanks, NASA!

An article I have some mixed feelings about, seeming a little too much of a cheering section for print books. However, some good points have been made, that eBooks have begin some declines in sales and e-readers and tablets may not be well suited for all reading applications, ultimately complementing print books the same as audio books rather than replacing them.

A generally positive article, notable that reading is a prominent part of the 16-29 age groups lives. Further, over half have used a library in the past year and consider eBooks not as a replacement for print but a supplement to their general reading habits.

Interesting graphic on ebook usage in the US.

A more doom-and-gloom article, although I note that while eBook sales have increased, so have those of hardbooks.

An article from 1992 about the of books to be replaced by the then-new technology of hypertext. I find it an interesting contrast that back then the change was a new method of reading and access, while today's eBooks are more typically a print book repackaged for an electronic device.

This seems like a really cool concept (almost makes me want to go back to school . . .almost). The only problems I saw with this article was that the textbooks can be accessed through Blackboard, which is a great tool if professors know how to use it or it can be a nightmare for students if they have a professor who doesn't know how. Also I think its really funny that they stated "periodically" a revised edition of a textbooks come out, but I think most of my undergrad professors only assigned newest editions just so you couldn't buy used textbooks! But I digress. Anyways really neat concept and I'm anxious to see how it all works out.

Weird.

I think Scott has it on the nose. It's depressing that not even print format can save us from temporary content!

I think this highlights the ridiculousness of the ebook issue, but I actually think it's a great idea as it's being presented. "The book that cannot wait" just seems cool to me. Probably not as cool as the book of Snoop Dogg lyrics made out of rolling papers but hey - we can't all be as cool as the D-O-Double-G.