Why eBooks? Why now? Because the
Fourth Annual World eBook Fair got underway July 4…which means you have free access to more than two million eBooks through August 4. Also, the
Kindle DX — with its larger screen format — just made its appearance…and apparently sold out quite rapidly.
Word from Michael Hart, the Founder of Project Gutenberg, that once
again this year the World e-Book Fair will take place from July
4th-August 4th. This is the 4th year of the annual book fair. It starts
on July 4th to celebrate the 38th anniversary of Project Gutenberg
which began on July 4th, 1971.
Once the event begins you’ll find FREE access to over 2.5 million full text eBooks that you can download to your computer. Some titles can also be downloaded and read on certain types mobile phones.
Book Sources include:
+ Project Gutenberg
+ Digital Pulp Publishing
+ Internet Archive
+ The World Public Library (normally a fee-based site)
+ E-Books About Everything
++ Direct to World eBook Fair Web Site and Database
Meanwhile, over on the other side of the pond…
From the Announcement
JISC has funded an ‘e-books for Further Education (FE)
project to make over 3000 e-books freely available to every college and
sixth form in the UK.
Over the next five years, the project, which also received funding
from the Learning Skills Council (LSC), will enable all students in FE
in the UK to access online course texts to support their studies.
E-books will be made available from the start of the next academic
year via the ebrary e-books platform E-books will be made available
from the start of the next academic year via the ebrary e-books platform.
Subjects will range from Fashion Design to Software Engineering, Health
and Social Care to Automobile Electronics, and Beauty Therapy to
Practical Lambing. Access will be available whether students are
studying in the college, at home or in an internet café.
See Also: UK National e-Book Survey (May 2008) (14 pages; PDF)
—–
Want to learn a little bit more about eBooks?
A new primer by Jane Lee from the California Digital Library.
The article includes the following sections:
+ Content vs. Delivery
+ Reading as an Experience
+ Why e-books now?
+ Control of Content, Control of Distribution
+ Standards and Protocols
+ Will e-books make printed books obsolete?
+ Issues to Consider
Direct to Complete Article (7 pages; PDF)
Do you use Google Book Search?
Seven new and updated features and tools from Google Books today. You can read about them here. Here are a few highlights:
Embeds and links - This new toolbar
option allows you to embed a preview of a full view or partner book in
any of your websites or blogs–all with a simple html snippet. It’s a
lot like the embed tag that makes it so easy to share YouTube videos.
Better search within each book - You’ve
always been able to search inside books you find on Google Book Search.
Now, for public domain and partner books, we’ve made it easier to see
exactly where your search term appears within the book by showing you
more context around the term, including an image from the part of the
page on which it appears.
Thumbnail view - Click on the thumbnail
view button in the toolbar to see an overview of all the pages in a
public domain book or in a magazine
Contents drop-down menu - Above the
book itself, you’ll find a Contents drop-down that allows you to jump
to chapters within the book–or articles within a magazine.
Page Turn Button and Animation - In
addition to scrolling through the book, you can now also click the page
turn button at the bottom of the screen, even if you haven’t yet
finished the page.
Improved Book Overview Page On the
Overview page you’ll find an assortment of useful data about the book,
including reviews, ratings, summaries, related books, key words and
phrases, references from the web, places mentioned in the book,
publisher information, etc.
Source: Inside Google Book Search
Hat Tip: Barry S.
And what about the hardware?
From the Blog Post:
The interest in e-readers, or e-books as they are called
now, has reached a fever pitch. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos fields nothing
but Kindle questions at the company’s shareholder meeting. Prime View
picks up E Ink, the company that supplies the screen to Amazon’s
Kindle, for $215 million. And companies ranging from Google to Interead
are aiming to upset Amazon’s early advantage.
The complete post contains a chart from a new report from Forrester Research laying out how they believe the market will develop.
Source: ZDNet
Do you use a Kindle? Are you thinking about buying one? Check out The Kindle Warehouse blog, which offers Kindle- and Kindle product-related news, tips, and reviews. Be sure not to miss the post about — Free Kindle eBooks.
User comments contain links to even more resources. Who knew there was
so much free stuff available for this popular — though proprietary —
device?
More worthwhile Kindle stuff:
+KindleBoards
+ Kindle Tips
+ Kindle Wiki
+ KindleTips - Ultimate Kindle 2 Shortcuts and Tricks (GeekTonic)
+ KindleMag (e-bookvine)
By Shirl Kennedy and Gary Price, From
The Resourceshelf