Do it yourself 

Cornell Professor Offers a Guide to Producing Handsome Books on Home Computers Scott Carlson interviews Douglas Holleley

Douglas Holleley, an educator and photographer, is the author of Digital Book Design and Publishing, recently released by the Cary Graphic Arts Press of the Rochester Institute of Technology and Mr. Holleley's own press, Clarellen. Mr. Holleley's manual details the ways that modern technologies and software can help aspiring authors or artists produce their own books at home, taking the power that has belonged to publishers for centuries and putting it instead in the hands of the people. Mr. Holleley is currently a visiting professor of art at Cornell University. [read more]

Digital Book Design and Publishing by Dr. Douglas Holleley

If you are thinking of self-publishing, please consider Acme for you short run printing and binding.

But, how many are out there? 

London Bookseller Pays $14,000 for Harry Potter Book

According to Reuters, a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone sold for almost $14000 at London action house Bonhams Tuesday. Purchaser Adrian Harrington, who dubbed the book "probably the most important children's book since The Lord of the Rings," said he will offer the volume for sale at his London bookstore.

What if they won? 

Company says it owns hyperlinks patent

A British company claimed in federal court Monday that it owns the patent on hyperlinks -- the single-click conveniences that take a Web surfer from one Internet page to another -- and should get paid for their daily use by millions of people.

But a federal judge with a laptop on her desk warned that it may be difficult to prove that a patent filed in 1976, more than a decade before the World Wide Web was created, applies to modern computers. [read more]

What might be taken for granted here, is good news 

For Women in Kabul, This Test Is Welcome by John F. Burns

Afghanistan since the collapse of the Taliban has made many an ordinary event seem extraordinary, and few more so than the task that had Dr. Aziz Ahmad Rahmand, a professor of contemporary Afghan history, bursting with pride, joy and not a little gloating as he hurried about Kabul University on Wednesday.

Dr. Rahmand, 45, was supervising entry examinations, the kind of duty senior professors in most other countries might shun. But not in Afghanistan, where the source of the professor's bliss lay in the fact that row upon row of women were taking the exam beside men in the library and in many another unheated hall across the bitingly cold campus. ...

... Books, too, are in short supply. Years of no acquisitions, along with theft and book burning -- and that novelty of Taliban literary criticism, book shooting -- have left many shelves in the library empty.

The chief librarian, Muhammad Sadiq Wadid, 40, came running after the visitors to make a special request. "We say hello to the educated people in the Western countries," he said, "and we ask them, kindly, if you have any books about the technical and scientific world, engineering, literature -- anything! -- please send them to us.

"The Afghan people are in darkness, and we ask the Western countries to help us shine some light," he said. [read more]

For many US libraries, the disposition of duplicates is a major problem. Maybe some of them could be sent to Kabul?

Digital Copyright 

DMCA Revision to Get New Push

In a sign that the library community's pleas on at least one issue are not falling on deaf ears, Congressman Rick Boucher (D-VA) has editorialized for rewriting the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Writing for the popular computer web site C-NET, he said that initial warnings by the library and university communities that the DMCA would threaten access to information are proving true...

New Digital Copyright Discussion List Surges

As digital copyright issues grow in prominence, librarians at the University of Maryland's Center for Intellectual Property and Copyright in the Digital Age (CIP) have established a new electronic discussion list. In three days, the list gained over 1500 subscribers...

Digital Publishing 

(Mostly) Good E-Publishing News by Calvin Reid

Despite the recent spate of high-profile e-publishing bankruptcies and failures, a number of e-book publishers and distributors contacted by PW were mostly optimistic and, with one exception, quick to report rising sales and even profits. E-book publishers Palm Digital Media, Gemstar eBooks and Fictionwise.com not only report growing customer bases, but told PW that they are scrambling to offer a wider variety of electronic reading material. [read more]

Harvard launches new digital publishing system

Harvard Business School Publishing (HBSP) has partnered with Dimension Data Holdings to develop a digital publishing system. Dimension Data is a technology company providing infrastructure and multi-channel solutions to global corporations...

HBSP believes that the new system will enable it to open an expanded channel for sales and distribution that provides new products to a broader customer base. It also foresees opportunities to bring additional value to its current customer base. [read more]

When was the last time you used one of these? 

The Virtual Typewriter Museum

The typewriter is one of the great inventions of 19th Century communications technology. Between the 1860s and 1920s engineers, inventors and even carpenters invested all their creativity in the development of the ultimate writing machine. This virtual museum, that is based on private collections from around the world, is a tribute to their ingenuity.