Annotated Bibliography on the ebook,

Here is a bit more research, just begun, on ebooks from the popular press. What I have here is an annotated bibliography.

1. Blount, Roy Jr. "The Kindle Swindle" The New York Times February 25, 2009.

This article first defines and then discusses functions of the Kindle. The Kindle, it seems, not only provides the text of a book, it also always provides an audio version of the book. Blount argues that the problem with the Kindle is that it is refusing to pay writers for the audio form of their books. Authors and publishers have long foregone royalties for audio books for the blind, but the audio version available to everyone is another matter.

This is one of the question about copyright that the Kindle raises. Generally the Kindle makes copyright law much more prone to favor the publisher of the electronic version of the text over those who do lion's share of creation--i.e., authors and publishers. This will raise issues about lending practices. It may be that Kindle will require to be paid each time a patron uses an item, rather than buying the item once for as many uses as the book would bear.

2. Darlin, Damon. ”First Impression of the New Kindle DX" The New York Times May 6, 2009.

Darlin suggests that the new Kindle is still small and so it is not yet able to replicate the full page of a newspaper, but that experience of use is generally pleasant. He notes that the Post, Times and Globe are available on the Kindle. It also makes it easy to read sheet music and look up words.

This moves the Kindle merely from questions of books and publishing issues to the questions facing the newspapers. How will librarians begin to incorporate this technology into the library? It most certainly will be arriving there. It seems that we will need to avoid the kind of monopoly of the digital academic journals that we face.

3. Darnton, Robert. "Google and the Future of Books" New York Review of Books 56:2 February 12, 2009.

In this essay, Darnton reflects upon the court settlement between Google and others about copyright. Darnton argues that while Google's present leadership means well, the company now has an effective monopoly over all books that it has digitized from research libraries across the country. He argues that while librarians at Library of Congress missed the boat to create the universal library, that universal library is now in the hands of a for profit organization. He suggests that is certainly possible that this monopoly will go the way of academic journals--benefitting neither the producers of the knowledge, i.e. professors, nor users, the public. Primarily the way this academic journal publishing is set up, benefits publishers.

I believe that Darnton's fears may indeed be well-founded. After all, many slaves had great masters only to be replaced by less scrupulous ones later. There is no reason to trust a profit driven monopoly. What I wonder, is whether or not anti-trust laws might come into play here. After all, copyright is not the only law that can have an effect.

Darnton also doubts that there is much to be done now. Well, there is a great deal still that has not been digitized. And Google doesn't own it. It seems to me that it is not too late to be thinking about that great Library in the Sky here and creating a publically held version of it.

4. Florin, Hector. "Podcasting your Novel: Publishing's Next Wave?" Time Saturday January 31, 2009.

This essay follows the successful launching of podcasts of novels by J.C. Hutchins and Scott Sigler. Both of these writers, unable to land a book deal, arranged to have their works recorded and made available for free on the internet. Their success on the podcasts has led to book contracts. They argue that nay sayers just don't want things to change, while others argue that this is a very small group that can have success in this way.


5. Grossman, Lev. "Books Gone Wild: The Digital Age Reshapes Literature" Time January 21, 2009.

Grossman discusses the history of the novel, suggesting that its rise was in business and that as business changes, so will the novel. While publishing is meant to be the gatekeeper, perhaps its gates are too and audiences are not being served. Furthermore, the way publishing is being done is too costly. Paper and shipping and editing and advances are too expensive. Authors can publish their own work for virtually nothing. He points to Kindle, Sony Reader, cell phones and Google as part of the future. Publishing is changing: Grossman expects it to be much less orderly, less careful of copyright, of longer and more mutable texts. He suggests that medium the novel comes in will not be stable, may be digital, may be paper.

The differences Grossman suggests that will take place in publishing will change dramatically the standard resources that we will use to choose books. The publishing world has in many ways created the structure by which librarians review and choose books. We will need to find new resources to make choices. Cottage industries are harder to keep abreast of.

6. Rich, Motoko. "Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab" The New York Times January 28, 2009.

This is an article about self-publishing. Rich reports that the only segment of the publishing industry that is growing is the self-publishing segment. This segment is growing because author who want to see their writing in print can now do so at a fraction of the cost that it would have cost in the past because there is a print on demand technology that allows only one or two copies of a book to be published. Occasionally, one of these books makes it big. But says an industry insider, "For every thousand titles that get self-published, maybe there's two that should have been published."

Reading this essay makes one feel that until something dramatic changes, librarians may still rely on traditional collection tools.

8. Stone, Brad. "Is this the Future of the Digital Book?" The New York Times April 5, 2009.

This article tries to imagine what is going to happen to books in the future. Bradley Inman suggests that with Kindle and the Sony Reader, laptops and Iphones, reading in the future will be seamlessly mixed with video and music. All of which will need to avoid looking contrived.