Library Stuff

Bloomberg – “Apple Inc. and the publisher Macmillan are preparing to be sued as soon as today by the U.S. Justice Department over alleged collusion in the pricing of e- books, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Apple and Macmillan, which have refused to engage in settlement talks with the Justice Department, deny they colluded to raise prices for digital books, the people said. In an antitrust case, they will argue that pricing agreements between Apple and publishers enhanced competition in the e-book industry, which was dominated by Amazon.com Inc.”

NYT – “Apple is further tightening its control of the App Store. Some application developers, including Sony, say Apple has told them they can no longer sell e-books within their apps unless the transactions go through Apple’s system. Apple rejected Sony’s iPhone application, which would have let people buy and read e-books from the Sony Reader Store. “

latimes.com – “They say these Kindles and other electronic reading gizmos will replace books one of these days, and to that I say, “NOT SOON ENOUGH!” I am all for that. I can never get paperbacks or hardcovers to work. They won’t hold a charge, and they’re so hard to reboot.”

Guardian – “Discontent over digital royalties prompts Roth, Amis and other leading names to enter into exclusive deal with Odyssey Editions”

PC Worlds – “Are you still holding out to see what happens with this whole ebooks “fad” before deciding whether to embrace it for your business? Well, the times they are a changin’ and there are a variety of reasons that ebooks are outpacing printed books. Amazon reports that ebook sales are three times higher than last year, and that Kindle versions of books have outsold their hardcover equivalents by 43 percent over the last quarter. The traditional written word printed on paper will not be fading to oblivion any time soon, but here are five factors contributing to the success of the ebook”

BusinessWeek – “My 11-year-old son had a dilemma last night. He had zipped through the first two books in the Twilight series and was keen to start on the third, Eclipse. But the book my wife quickly picked up at the library was in Spanish. Oops. So we tried an experiment. Two weeks ago, I won a Sony Reader Pocket Edition in a raffle. It’s a slim gadget with a 5-inch screen, the electronics giant’s answer to the Amazon Kindle. I futzed with it a bit since I got it, but really hadn’t put it through its paces.”

Ars Technica – “HP and the University of Michigan have inked a deal that will see HP reprinting rare and out-of-print books from Michigan’s library via the printer maker’s print-on-demand service. Here’s why this is potentially as important as anything Google Books is doing.”

Rich Jaroslovsky – “Everyone from desperate publishers to techno-lusting consumers knows what an e-reader should be: a thin, light, affordable tablet with a bright color touch screen, decent battery life and fast wireless access to books, magazines, newspapers and work documents.”

NYT – “Kate Lambert recalls using her library card just once or twice throughout her childhood. Now, she uses it several times a month. The lure? Electronic books she can download to her laptop. Beginning earlier this year, Ms. Lambert, a 19-year-old community college student in New Port Richey, Fla., borrowed volumes in the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series, “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold and a vampire novel by Laurel K. Hamilton, without ever visiting an actual branch”

Good to see my buddy Michael Colford quoted in this piece.

NYTimes – “In our digital age, miniaturization rules. This is a welcome thing — in most cases. Squeezing two billion transistors onto a small chip? All good. Squeezing an enormous printed textbook down to iPhone-size? Not so good.”