Above Infographic created by: HackCollege (@hackcollege)
NPR’s (@NPR) The Diane Rehm Show (@drshow) recently focused on the complexities of public libraries lending ebooks.
In the past year, libraries have seen a sharp growth in ebook borrowing. That trend is transforming the relationship between libraries and publishers. Some publishers worry lending ebooks will lead to piracy and loss of sales. Two of the big 6 publishers license their ebooks to libraries. Others are exploring pilot programs or have declined to participate. Many library patrons are frustrated with the limited availability of titles and long waiting lists. And some buy a copy of the ebook anyway.
More than three-quarters of the nation's public libraries lend books electronically, a fact that's not widely known among the reading public. Some publishers worry that ebook borrowers don't buy books. But a recent study suggests that among those who read books electronically, 41% of those who borrow them from the library purchased their most recent ebook. Guest host Frank Sesno (@franksesno) and his guests discuss the current and future role of ebooks at our nation's libraries.
The guests are:
· Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid), editorial director of F+W Media's Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld).
· Carrie Russell, director of the Program for Public Access to Information, Office of Information Technology, the American Library Association (@ALALibrary).
· Allan Adler vice president of legal and government affairs at the Association of American Publishers (@AmericanPublish).
· Vailey Oehlke director of libraries at Multnomah County Library (@MultCoLib) in Portland, Ore.
Listen to the program in full.
See our previous blogposts, “Many Ebook Borrowers Buy, Too, Says New Study” and “The Digital Bookmobile.”
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish (and market) your brand content in pbook, ebook, and audiobook formats.
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Floatingsheep.org (@floating_sheep), a website that maps the geographies of user-generated online content, has created the pdf booklet “Geographies of the World’s Knowledge,” a joint venture between Convoco and the Oxford Internet Institute (@oiioxford). Through creative maps, it visualizes the distribution of the world’s knowledge through 10 categories
1. Literacy and Gender
2. Internet Penetration
3. The World’s Newspapers
4. The Location of Academic Knowledge
5. Academic Knowledge and Language
6. Academic Knowledge and Publishers
7. Mapping Flickr
8. The Distribution of all Wikipedia Articles
9. Time-series of the Distribution of Biographies on Wikipedia over the Last Five Centuries
10. User-generated Content in Google
Data, evaluated in an unprecedented way, shows the current distribution of knowledge in the different parts of the globe. Some of the implications of this are surprising, others are worrying. The maps visualize where the foci of knowledge — and, thus, the forces of innovation and economic growth — are located. Thanks to this scientific visualization the most important factors involved can be grasped at a glance.
The booklet is also available in interactive format for iPads.
Consider how this information should influence your publishing strategy.
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you plan, execute, and analyze market research for your brand.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.
Since August 2008, the Digital Bookmobile (@DigiBookmobile) has traversed America coast-to-coast, allowing readers of all ages in over 400 venues to experience digital audiobook, ebook, music, and video downloads from their public library and immerse themselves in an interactive learning environment.
Housed inside a 74-foot, 18-wheel tractor-trailer, the Digital Bookmobile is hosted by individual libraries in support of their download services and operated by OverDrive, Inc. (@OverDriveInc) [OverDrive Digital Library Blog (@OverDriveLibs)].
The traveling community outreach exhibit is an updated version of traditional bookmobiles but is equipped with Internet-connected PCs, high-definition monitors, a sound system, and a variety of portable media players.
See the national tour calendar of venues.
Also see our blogposts tagged “Library.”
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you digitally publish and market your brand’s content in ebook, pbook, and audiobook formats.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
Between traditional publishing, the legitimization of self-publishing, print-on-demand, and Internet technology lowering the barrier to authoring books, roughly 1,000 books are now being published every single day in the USA.
We’ve never had so many books available, yet bookstores are going out of business like never before. With the astronomical number of books in the marketplace and stores closing their doors where books have historically been displayed for serendipitous encountering, the question these days is, “How will people conveniently browse and discover new titles.” The following social websites are one answer:
· AudioBookFans (@AudioBookFans)
· Audiobook Jukebox (@audiobkjkbx)
· Authonomy (@authonomy)
· BookCrossing.com (@BookCrossing)
· BookFinder.com (@BookFinder)
· BookFinder4U.com (@bookfinder4u)
· Bookish (@BookishHQ)
· Booklist Online (@BooklistOnline)
· BookMooch (@bookmooch)
· Bookreporter (@Bookreporter)
· Books & Culture (@booksandculture)
· BookShout (@BookShout)
· BookSpot
· Byliner (@TheByliner)
· DearReader.com (@DearReaderCom)
· Edelweiss (publishers catalogs) (@weiss_squad)
· Everyday eBook (@EverydayeBook)
· Fanado (@Fanadoevents)
· FirstChapters (@first_chapters)
· ForeWord (@ForeWordmag)
· goodreads (@goodreads)
· Kirkus Reviews (@KirkusReviews)
· Lendle (@lendleapp)
· LibraryThing (@LibraryThing)
· Little Free Library (@LtlFreeLibrary)
· Los Angeles Times Books (@latimesbooks)
· Lovereading (@lovereadinguk)
· NetGalley (@NetGalley)
· The New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) (@Book Reviews)
· Oprah's Book Club (@OprahsBookClub)
· Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly)
· Reader2
· Revish
· Riffle (@Rifflebooks)
· Shelf Awareness (@ShelfAwareness)
· Shelf Unbound (@shelfmagazine)
· USA TODAY Books (@USATODAYBooks)
· The Wall Street Journal Books (@WSJBookReviews)
· Zola Books (@zolabooks)
Also see our blogposts:
· “Findability, Discoverability, & Marketing"
· “Discoverability in the Digital Age: Personal Recommendations and Bookstores"
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to market your books so consumers readily discover them.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, where you’ll find the above list of links in the Book Discovery Sites tab.
Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld) editorial director Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid) says, “Publishers worried that readers who borrow ebooks from libraries don’t buy books can put those worries to rest."
According to a new study from the The Pew Research Center's (@PewResearch) Internet & American Life Project (@pewinternet), those who borrow ebooks from libraries also purchase ebooks. When ebook borrowers were asked by Pew how they acquired the last ebook they read, 41% said they bought it.
“Ebook borrowers are book lovers,” says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet project. “They the heaviest book-reading cohort of the ones we measured. They are more into books than even ebook readers, the larger group they fall into.”
Findings from the study:
· 12% of readers of ebooks borrowed an ebook from the library in the past year.
· But 58% of all library card holders say they don’t know if their library provides ebook lending services.
· 55% of all those who say the library is “very important” to them say they don’t know if their library lends ebooks.
· 53% of all tablet computer owners say they don’t know if their library lends ebooks.
· 48% of all owners of ebook reading devices such as original Kindles and NOOKs say they don’t know if their library lends ebooks.
· 47% of all those who read an ebook in the past year say they don’t know if their library lends ebooks.
· E-book borrowers appreciate the selection of ebooks at their local library, but they often encounter wait lists, unavailable titles, or incompatible file formats.
· Many Americans would like to learn more about borrowing ebooks.
· 58% of Americans have a library card, and 69% say their local library is important to them and their family.
· Leading-edge librarians and patrons say the advent of ebooks has produced a major transformation in book searching and borrowing at libraries.
Read the study, Libraries, Patrons, and Ebooks, in full.
In his blogpost, “Does Pew study prove ebooks in libraries are safe for publishers?,” Mike Shatzkin (@MikeShatzkin) says, “The latest Pew ebook study seems to me to confirm that the publishers are doing the right thing for sales by constricting the availability of many of the most attractive books from library shelves.”
Also see PBS’ MediaShift (@PBSMediaShift), “What Is the Role of Libraries in the Age of Ebooks and Digital Information?” and FOX News’ (@FoxNews) article, “How to borrow Ebooks from the library.”
Also see our previous blogposts, “Ebooks Projected to Comprise 50% of US Trade Book Market By 2016” and “Extensive New Study: The Rise of E-reading.”
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market your brand’s content in pbooks and ebooks.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
More homeowners are designing libraries and reading rooms in their homes. See the above video by The Wall Street Journal (@WSJVideo) (although note: the Encyclopædia Britannica (@Britannica) has not gone out of business as the reporter says around 1:15 into the video; it has ceased print publication and is concentrating on digital editions — see our blogpost "Encyclopædia Britannica Stops the Presses").
If you’re a book lover like we (@smrsault) are, bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
The Audio Publishers Association (@AudioPub) (#JIAM2012) has declared June Audiobook Month.
Author Cathryn Prince (@CathrynPrince) writes on her blog about the magic of audiobooks.
I didn’t think about audio books as something for me until I started commuting about 45 minutes to and from an adjunct teaching job. I’m not teaching at the moment, but as Dr. Frasier Crane said: I’m listening. A lot. I discovered a whole new world in audio books. I imagine audio books to be the distant relative of the serial shows of radio days.
The above video is Jim Dale (@JimnJules), the voice of all the characters in the Harry Potter audiobook series. As a narrator, he's won a Grammy Award (2000), 5 Grammy nominations, and 7 Audie Awards.
NPR Books (@nprbooks) offers a list of audiobooks “that’ll make the family road trip fly by.”
See the list of winners in The Audies competition, the award that “recognizes distinction in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment.”
For a behind-the-scenes description of the making of an audiobook, see Publishers Weekly’s (@PublishersWkly) “How Chef Marcus Samuelsson Records an Audiobook.”
More reporting about audiobooks is available on PW’s audio blog, Listen Up (@PWAudio).
If you’re interested in audiobook reviews, subscribe to AudioFile (@AudioFileMag), the magazine that covers the world of audiobooks.
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to create an audiobook for your content.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
The above film, EPILOGUE: the future of print (@EPILOGUEdoc) (vimeo channel) by Hanah Ryu Chung, is a documentary that explores the world of print books, scratching the surface of its future. Chung says:
The act of reading a “tangible tome” has evolved, devolved, and changed many times over, especially in recent years. I hope for the film to stir thought and elicit discussion about the immersive reading experience and the lost craft of the book arts, from the people who are still passionate about reading on paper as well as those who are not.
Also see our previous blogposts:
- "Paper is Stronger than Tech and Now its Aroma Comes Bottled"
- "Home Libraries Despite the Ebook Era"
- "Birth of a Book: The Handmade Bookbinding Process"
- "Book Seller Believes in Video's Marketing Power"
- "A Video About a Poster Masks a Bookstore's Promotion"
- "Video: What Books Do After Hours"
- "The Technology of Storytelling"
- "Photos: The 20 Coolest Bookstores in the World"
- "Introducing the New Book"
- "Even E-reader Owners Still Like Printed Books, Survey Finds"
- "In a Flood Tide of Digital Data, an Ark Full of Books"
- "The 'End' of Print and TV."
If you love books like we (@smrsault) do, we invite you to make our SomersaultNOW online dashboard your personal computer homepage (see instructions).
Perfect insight on today’s fast-changing publishing scene! :)
(Cartoon copyright © Harry Bliss. Used by permission of Pippin Properties, Inc..)