Ebooks and the Big Six publishers was the first topic addressed at the ALA Executive Board spring meeting, held April 21–22. Because the board fully appreciates the importance of this issue to ALA members, we had planned one hour and 45 minutes for the discussion—an unusually long amount of time for the board to devote to any topic.

Reading, a social activity. How could that be? Isn’t reading all about sitting quietly with some material and taking in the words and the style and the voice?

One of the interesting conversations that has emerged from ALA’s Digital Content and Libraries Working Group (DCWG) is a comparison of Publishing with a capital P and publishing with a lowercase p. Or, to be blunt, commercial Publishing vs. self-publishing. But is there something in the middle? Something between a capital P and a lowercase p?

Today the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project will begin surveying public library staff and patrons to learn more about their experiences with ebooks.