Tag Archives: eBooks

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Times They Are A-Changing, Web & Technology, Weblogs (Blogs)

Introducing the new EPUB reader for e-books at the Library of Congress | The Signal

Published February 2, 2023 by Carlyn Osborn

Today’s guest post is from Kristy Darby, a Digital Collections Specialist at the Library of Congress.

Bird Species: How They Arise, Modify and Vanish is now available to view in the new EPUB reader.

The Open Access Books Collection on loc.gov includes approximately 6,000 contemporary open access e-books covering a wide range of subjects, including history, music, poetry, technology, and works of fiction.

All books in this collection were published under open access licenses, meaning the e-books are available to use and reuse according to the terms of the licenses. Users can access the e-books in the Open Access Books Collection by reading directly online in a browser or downloading the book as a PDF or EPUB file.

Green book cover for Bird Species: How They Arise, Modify and Vanish, edited by Dieter TietzeBird Species: How They Arise, Modify and Vanish is now available to view in the new EPUB reader.

When we first made open access e-books available on loc.gov, titles were available for download in either PDF or EPUB format, but PDF was the only one available for reading directly on the website; loc.gov did not support viewing EPUBs in the browser, and they were only available for download. As many books were available in both formats or in PDF only, this ensured most titles were viewable directly on the website.

However, we recognized an increase in titles available in EPUB only so we are happy to share the news that an EPUB viewer was launched on loc.gov. The viewer makes EPUBs available for reading on loc.gov and provides a richer interface for users.

Source: Introducing the new EPUB reader for e-books at the Library of Congress | The Signal

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Libraries, Pleasures, Times They Are A-Changing, Web & Technology

Learning to Love Paper Books Again | Tor.com

By James Davis Nicoll, Mon Jan 23, 2023 12:00pm

Photo: Gülfer ERGİN [via Unsplash]

I was an early adopter of ebooks, in part because of my terrible eyesight, but mostly because I happened to break into reviewing just before the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Fear of contaminated packages increased shipping time for cases of manuscripts from four days to forty. Electronic books (which in those long-ago days were really just doc files) provided instant gratification.

At one point, I even considered ditching paper entirely in favor of electronic formats. In addition to the instant gratification angle, one does not have to worry about ebooks overloading the floors of one’s residence. One can carry a few thousand ebooks in one’s pocket. One can—and for me, this is the killer app—adjust font size. Ebooks are great, and I would defend them to your last breath.

Source: Learning to Love Paper Books Again | Tor.com

Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Web & Technology

Amazon’s e-book return policy comes under criticism from authors : NPR

By Deanna Schwartz Twitter, June 27, 20225:00 AM ET

A kindle e-book reader is pictured at the Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2015.
Daniel Roland /AFP via Getty Images

Earlier this month, Lisa Kessler, a paranormal romance author, logged into Kindle Direct Publishing to check her earnings from the previous month. On her publishing dashboard, she saw something she had never seen before in her 11 years as an author: a negative earnings balance.

The reason for the negative balance? Kindle e-book returns.

Authors are protesting Amazon’s e-book return policy, a system they say allows readers to “steal” from self-published authors. Amazon’s current return policy for e-books allows customers to “cancel an accidental book order within seven days.” But, for some readers, seven days is more than enough time to finish a book and return it after reading, effectively treating Amazon like a library.

Source: Amazon’s e-book return policy comes under criticism from authors : NPR

Books & Reading, Libraries, Pleasures, Web & Technology

Why Are Ebooks So Terrible? – The Atlantic

By Ian Bogost, September 14, 2021

Getty / The Atlantic

Perhaps you’ve noticed that ebooks are awful. I hate them, but I don’t know why I hate them. Maybe it’s snobbery. Perhaps, despite my long career in technology and media, I’m a secret Luddite. Maybe I can’t stand the idea of looking at books as computers after a long day of looking at computers as computers. I don’t know, except for knowing that ebooks are awful.

If you hate ebooks like I do, that loathing might attach to their dim screens, their wonky typography, their weird pagination, their unnerving ephemerality, or the prison house of a proprietary ecosystem. If you love ebooks, it might be because they are portable, and legible enough, and capable of delivering streams of words, fiction and nonfiction, into your eyes and brain with relative ease. Perhaps you like being able to carry a never-ending stack of books with you wherever you go, without having to actually lug them around. Whether you love or hate ebooks is probably a function of what books mean to you, and why.

Editor’s Note: I happen to love ebooks, public service announcement…

Source: Why Are Ebooks So Terrible? – The Atlantic

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Libraries, Times They Are A-Changing, Web & Technology

An App Called Libby and the Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-books | The New Yorker

Increasingly, books are something that libraries do not own but borrow from the corporations that do.

By Daniel A. Gross, September 2, 2021

Illustration by Seba Cestaro

Steve Potash, the bearded and bespectacled president and C.E.O. of OverDrive, spent the second week of March, 2020, on a business trip to New York City.

OverDrive distributes e-books and audiobooks—i.e., “digital content.” In New York, Potash met with two clients: the New York Public Library and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

By then, Potash had already heard what he described to me recently as “heart-wrenching stories” from colleagues in China, about neighborhoods that were shut down owing to the coronavirus. He had an inkling that his business might be in for big changes when, toward the end of the week, on March 13th, the N.Y.P.L. closed down and issued a statement: “The responsible thing to do—and the best way to serve our patrons right now—is to help minimize the spread of COVID-19.”

The library added, “We will continue to offer access to e-books.”

Source: An App Called Libby and the Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-books | The New Yorker

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Libraries, Web & Technology

Amazon withholds its ebooks from libraries because it prefers you pay it instead – The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon’s publishing arm has refused to sell digital books to libraries

By Nick Statt@nickstatt, Mar 10, 2021, 1:39pm EST

Amazon is withholding ebook and audiobook versions of works it publishes through its in-house publishing arms from US libraries, according to a new report from The Washington Post. In fact, Amazon is the only major publisher that’s doing this, the report states. It’s doing so because the company thinks the terms involved with selling digital versions of books to libraries, which in turn make them available to local residents for free through ebook lending platforms like Libby, are unfavorable.

Source: Amazon withholds its ebooks from libraries because it prefers you pay it instead – The Verge