A first take on the talks held between ALA leaders and New York publishing houses
Here’s a first take on the talks held this week between American Library Association leaders and the senior management of several New York–based publishers:
Dear Colleagues:
Here is a brief report on our meeting with publishers in New York on January 30–February 1. Others participating in these talks besides myself were:
As reported to ALA Council and at other venues during the 2012 Midwinter Meeting, I will be leading an ALA delegation next week to meet separately with Penguin, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. I am now pleased to announce that Random House has invited ALA leadership to meet with them as well.
Though the Gale booth at Midwinter had all the trappings of the 21st century, their new products are going old school with a 19th-century focus. The Nineteenth Century Collection offers a broad look at everything from the 1800s, including newspapers, books, maps, and more.
This E-Content blog is your exclusive, inside source to the workings of the new ALA Digital Content and Libraries Working Group (DCWG). In addition to general updates I will be writing as a member of the DCWG, other section/division representatives will share their takes on the many issues surrounding digital content.
Boing Boing is one of the coolest places on the internet. It’s edgy, irreverent, collaborative, and hugely popular. And guess what—Boing Boing has agreed to partner with ALA to help promote libraries.
Being a school librarian, I am not as familiar with Elsevier's resources, but it was interesting to see some of the updates they are making to SciVerse ScienceDirect. The big news is the redesign to the article-page highlight at http://articleofthefuture.com. So that is the scholarly news … now on to the fun. Elsevier has a new game!
OITP (Office of Information Technology Policy) is receiving an update this morning from BilBary founder Tim Coates on the upcoming ebook service. In brief, the service will create an international marketplace for ebooks with some twists. Coates wants to lend books in addition to selling them.
This weekend is ALA’s Midwinter Meeting. In addition to news from the Digital Content and Libraries Working Group and others associated with e-content, this is a also a great opportunity to gather updates from the vendor floor. So what are you most interested in? Can’t make it to the conference … what questions can I ask for you?
In 2011, the consumer market drove digital content. The Nook Tablet, Kindle Fire, and too many other Android tablets to mention all sought to replicate the astounding success of the Apple iPad line. E Ink-based readers finally dropped below the $100 price point, and two strong holiday seasons greatly increased the percentage of households reading electronically.
There was a moment in ebook history when things could have gone either way. The Amazon Kindle was flying off the shelf, the Nook was just getting started, and everyone was pretty happy about $9.99 ebooks … and then Steve Jobs came along with iBookstore and the iPad. And really, all this mess that we are in now was kind of his fault.
