Balancing act 

At E-Pub's Davos, Balancing Print and Electronic, Hype and Backlash by Steven Zeitchik

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better barometer of electronic publishing than the University of Virginia's annual conference at the Library of Congress.

Knowledgeable but not insidery, the event can usually be counted on for two things. First, people who come here tend to know a lot about both technology and the book business. Second, they tend to know each another.

The gathering is normally intimate, and this year's was even smaller than usual. Yet despite the sector's problems, the mood seemed relaxed. It's almost as though participants were less worried about the storm now that they'd lived through its onset. In a culture that weathered a period first of hype and then of defensiveness, the temperature seems to have settled to just the right point, as issues like e-rights, distance-learning, customer acceptance and interoperability were discussed with a balance of optimism and realism. [read more]

Happy belated birthday, LC 

Library of Congress celebrates its 202nd birthday.

... On April 24, 1800, President John Adams approved the appropriation of $5,000 for the purchase of "such books as may be necessary for the use of congress."

The books, the first purchased for the Library of Congress, were ordered from London and arrived in 1801. The collection of 740 volumes and three maps was stored in the U.S. Capitol, the Library's first home. President Thomas Jefferson approved the first legislation defining the role and functions of the new institution on January 26, 1802.

In the almost two centuries since its founding, the Library has taken on the mission of making its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people, and sustaining and preserving a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations. The vast holdings of the Library now number well over 110 million items.

Statistics 

Preservation Statistics

The 1988-89 edition was the first formal presentation in this series, started as a pilot project in 1984. The latest edition includes data tables on personnel, expenditures, conservation treatment, preservation treatment, and preservation microfilming. An in-depth analysis of data by size of library is also provided.

Best of the Web 

Museums and the Web 2002

Beware 

Dangerous Klez worm could compromise sensitive data by John McCormick

Now in its third or fourth version, the initially innocuous Klez worm is turning nasty, as vandals tweak both the mode of attack and the payload. Most important, at least one security firm reports that the newest version of this worm will sometimes share your confidential files with others. [read more]

E-books -- they keep trying 

Forget Laptops, the Folding Screen Lands in Korea

A new paperback-sized computer screen that folds like a book will be ideal for Internet users reading online novels, its South Korean inventor said on Tuesday.

The 6.7 inch by 5 inch flat LCD screen folds along a central hinge and is much clearer than existing devices, display maker Samsung SDI said. [read more]

International eBook Association Launched in Europe

Microsoft Corp. today announced the launch of the International eBook Association (IeBA), a new eBook organization based in Europe that will support the worldwide eBook community and promote the growing opportunities and promise of eBooks.

The new association follows the pioneering work done by the International eBook Award Foundation (IeBAF), which will cease operations at the end of the month. While the new International eBook Association plans to announce its own set of eBook awards, the focus of the new association¼s work will be to address critical issues facing the electronic publishing community. Its principal goal will be to facilitate and accelerate the adoption of eBooks. [read more]

Digital Imaging 

TASI -- Technical Advisory Service for Images

What is TASI?

The Technical Advisory Service for Images is a service that has been set up to provide advice and guidance to the Further and Higher Education community on the issues of creating, delivering and using digital images together with managing digitisation projects.

The objectives of TASI are:

• To encourage the creation of high quality digital image collections
• To promote good practice in the creation, delivery and use of digital images and in the management of digitisation projects
• To promote and support the use of standards within digitisation projects
• To promote technical expertise within the FE/HE community by providing advice, guidance, support, training and consultancy
• To encourage networking and the building of an imaging community within FE and HE

History of the Book 

History of Books and Printing: A Research Guide

The New York Public Library has a world renowned collection of physical artifacts documenting the historical development of written forms of communication. While the General Research Division has a long standing tradition of collecting supporting material in the book arts that traces the evolution of the book and its production, the Division also concerns itself with the material that describes the intellectual, economic, and cultural impact of this evolution on the surrounding society. At present, the format and transmission of text is in the greatest period of flux since the invention of movable type and printing. At the same time, the study of the history of books is achieving legitimacy as a multi-disciplinary scholarly pursuit. The following guide will attempt to provide direction to the appropriate source material within the Division.

The Future of the Book 

The New Age of the Book by Robert Darnton

... Consider the book. It has extraordinary staying power. Ever since the invention of the codex in the third or fourth century AD, it has proven to be a marvelous machineãgreat for packaging information, convenient to thumb through, comfortable to curl up with, superb for storage, and remarkably resistant to damage. It does not need to be upgraded or downloaded, accessed or booted, plugged into circuits or extracted from webs. Its design makes it a delight to the eye. Its shape makes it a pleasure to hold in the hand. And its handiness has made it the basic tool of learning for thousands of years, even before the library of Alexandria was founded early in the fourth century BC. [read more]

E-Books: An Idea Whose Time Hasn't Come by David D. Kirkpatrick

In October 2000, Dick Brass, a vice president of Microsoft in charge of its efforts to promote electronic books, presided over the first annual Frankfurt eBook Awards, held at an opera house in Frankfurt. Financed mainly by Microsoft, the awards presented prizes of up to $50,000 to winning authors of books available in digital form.

"Someday, when electronic books replace print, these will just be called the book awards," Mr. Brass said in an interview then.

But the managers of the National Book Awards can rest easy for now. So far, demand for reading the texts of books on computer screens has been tepid at best, and last week the International eBook Award Foundation discontinued the awards and suspended its activities. "It has become increasingly difficult to raise the necessary funding," Alberto Vitale, the foundation's chairman, said in a statement. That is, Microsoft stopped paying. [read more]

(link via The Shifted Librarian)

"Free Mickey" 

Copyright law vs. innovation by Doug Bedell

Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig is waging a lonely fight to free Mickey Mouse.

Most of his audience last month at the SXSW Interactive Festival had no idea Mickey had even been trapped. But by the time Lessig finished with a 90-minute multimedia presentation on the future of copyright and intellectual property, images of the world-famous cartoon character behind bars were indelibly etched on their collective psyche.

Lessig repeatedly flashed images of the imprisoned rodent onto a nearby video screen to make his point: Corporations such as Walt Disney Co. have successfully pressed for extensions of copyright powers far beyond the intent of the Constitution's framers.

As a result, the ability of the Internet to provide the building blocks for innovation has been shackled, and the creative process that allowed Walt Disney to build his cartoon dynasty has been snuffed, Lessig said. Unless copyright laws are dramatically altered, Lessig told the Austin Convention Center audience, "There will be nobody who can do what Disney did, ever again." [read more]