As part of the work of ALA’s Digital Content and Libraries Working Group of ALA (which is tackling our many ebook-related issues), we are seeking some focused feedback before the 2012 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim next month. If you are experimenting with the creation, publication, and preservation of digital content, we need to hear from you by June 1.

If you give something away for free, why then would anyone buy it? And yet people pay for free every single day. We go to restaurants and order bottled water, or drive our cars instead of riding public transportation. People are willing to pay a premium for a higher quality item (or the perception therein) or for convenience.

Dear Amazon:

I hate reading on the Kindle Fire, and that has bothered me enough to lead to this plea. As someone who is regularly asked to recommend e-readers, it distressed me that I felt such animosity towards the Fire without an obvious reason for it.

Do you want DRM on your ebooks? I certainly don’t, and I would guess that most of you would much rather not have to deal with the security theater of DRM either. So who really wants to lock down your content?