Interesting DIY project using simple, consumer-grade cameras and an ingenious box frame to hold them. The project website is at  www.bookliberator.com. According to their blog, they will be using two pieces of free software: scantailor for post-processing and djvubind for OCR, metadata and conversion to the djvu format.

BookLiberator

An example of a final page image:

The rumors are beginning to be convincing:

Book publishers have been in talks with Apple and are optimistic about being included as part of its new portable tablet-sized computer, which the computer giant hopes to launch in time for the Christmas shopping season, according to the FT.

The device is expected to be launched alongside new content deals, including some aimed at stimulating sales of CD-length music, according to people briefed on the project. The touch-sensitive computer will have a screen that may be up to 10 inches diagonally. It will connect to the internet like the iPod Touch – probably without phone capability but with access to the web, and to Apple’s online stores for software and entertainment.

According to the FT, the device could provide an alternative to Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader and a forthcoming device from Plastic Logic, recently allied with Barnes & Noble. “It would be a colour, flat-panel TV to the old-fashioned, black and white TV of the Kindle,” one publishing executive said.

Via The Centered Librarian here’s a roundup of the state of ePaper (which is not limited to Kindle clones apparently.)

State of ePaper

Amazon and the Kindle have the clear lead in the eReader wars. However, numerous competitors to Amazon’s Kindle are cropping up and it’s worth taking a moment to review the state of the art in ePaper. [...]

Here’s a bookmark to a good introduction to e-books by Jane Lee (via Charles Bailey):

E-books: Understanding the Basics

I especially like the bibliography, which I’m partially reprinting here:

Recommended Reading

Johnson, S. (Apr 20, 2009). How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write. WSJ.com. Retrieved Apr 21, 2009, from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123980920727621353.html

Lynch, C. (Jun 4, 2001). The Battle to Define the Future of the Book in the Digital World. First Monday, Volume 6, Number 6 – 4 June 2001. Retrieved Jan 8, 2009, from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/864/773

Pogue, D. (Oct 17, 2006). It’s the Latest in Breakthrough Technology: The BOOK – Pogue’s Posts Blog. NYTimes.com. Retrieved Mar 10, 2009, from http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/17pogues-posts2/?scp=48&sq=ebooks&st=cse

Rosso, S. (Mar 4, 2009). A Guide to Ebooks for Read an Ebook Week. When I Have Time. Retrieved Apr 14, 2009, from http://www.whenihavetime.com/a-guide-to-ebooks-for-read-an-ebook-week/

Siracusa, J. (Feb 1, 2009). The once and future e-book: on reading in the digital age. Ars Technica. Retrieved Feb 3, 2009, from http://arstechnica.com/features/2009/02/the-once-and-future-e-book.ars

Found via PC World, a new ebook reader is coming out for only $230: Foxit eSlick.

The new reader is identical to the Kindle and Sony readers aside from not being ready for wireless downloading. What caught my eye today is this memo from Random House saying their ebook sales have grown 400% in 2008. With that kind of growth, there will likely be lots of readers coming out to grab a slice of that pie.

Growing Digitally: More consumers every week are choosing to read books on a screen rather than on paper, making our considerable investments in digital-publishing development and resources vital and necessary. Our e-book publishing programs in the U.K., Germany, and Canada increased significantly in 2008, and we are budgeting for more such growth in ’09. In the U.S., the biggest electronic-publishing market, our e-book sales for 2008 have grown by 400% over last year. Our e-catalog will consist of more than 15,000 Random House, Inc. titles by mid-2009, some of which are now newly available on the iPhone.

• James Robertson writes about Practical Ways to Assess CMS Usability including the following:

1. Vendor demo
2. Involve end-users
3. End-user training
4. Demo sites
5. Reference sites
6. Proof of concept
7. Usability testing

• Gizmoto review of Sony’s PRS-700 ebook reader:

Unfortunately, the “improvements” have taken away the very essence of the Reader—the easy-on-the-eyes screen. … Seriously, this thing has a fatal design flaw. The translucent layer that adds both the touchscreen and sidelight functions picks up so much ambient light from every angle, it’s impossible to read with even the most lowly of night-stand lamps turned on.

• The Electronic Library journal has an article called Usability Study of Digital Institutional Repositories which I don’t have access to yet. I’m still waiting for this one to arrive.
• The WordPress blog reports the Results of Project Icon which placed several icon designs up to a vote by the community.                                          ==>
• The companion website to the upcoming book Designing Social Interfaces is working on a Social Pattern Library that shows promise. Included are links to other pattern libraries.

Karen Coyle has a fun and inciteful [blargh!] insightful take on the Google/AAP settlement, to wit:

This Google/AAP settlement has hit my brain like a steel ball in a pinball machine, careening around and setting off bells and lights in all directions. In other words, where do I start?

Reading the FAQ (not the full 140+ page document), it seems to go like this:

Google makes a copy of a book.
Google lets people search on words in the book.
Google lets people pay to see the book, perhaps buy the book, with some money going to the rights holder.
Google manages all of this with a registry of rights.

Now, replace the word “Google” above with “Kinko’s.”

Next, replace the word “Google” above with “A library.”

TILT! If Google is allowed to do this, shouldn’t anyone be allowed to do it?

As a follow-up to a recent post on self-publishing fiction, I just ran across this promising website called the Web Fiction Guide. Here’s a blurb from their about page:

It’s free.  It must suck.

Fortunately, that’s not true.  Web comics are free, but some of them are better than what you’d get in a newspaper.  Opinion blogs are free, but some are better than what you’d get in a magazine.

Quality and price seldom have much to do with each other, when it comes to creativity.

Pretty interesting.

Here’s a quick roundup of what’s happening with usability and libraries:

• University of Minnesota Library holds a Usability Lab Open House
• Springer releases a new study on eBook behavior at Universities which was conducted in conjunction with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,United States; University of Florida, United States; University Library of Turku, Finland; Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science Amsterdam, The Netherlands; University of Muenster, Germany; and Victoria University, Australia.
• A study conducted by a NCSU Psychology team will show that students are more concerned with getting rid of pop-ups than with checking what the pop-ups are saying. The study will be published in the Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
• Stephen’s Lighthouse releases the results of a reader poll on what to call library user communities.

I doubt this is the seminal instance, but I just heard an interesting On the Media podcast which talked to Cal Tech economics professor R. Preston McAfee about his textbook Introduction to Economic Analysis (ISBN 160049000X) which he has released using a creative commons license. This touches tangentially on a recent post I had on self-published fiction, but it makes me wonder about academic work. I do believe that this is the way to go (now and in the future) but there has to be a method somehow for this type of scholarly activity to be recognized in the tenure process.

On a side note, the ISBN is not represented in OCLC’s Worldcat under that number. The only way I could find it is via OCLC number 62280521. There are all kinds of problems involved in self-publishing.