‘These Are Your Kids on Books’ Poster Goes Viral – GalleyCat.

[via @quadelle]

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

• Story about teenagers living with terminal cancer and their approach to life and death.
• As you’d expect from John Green, it is very cleverly written with some nice touches of humour.
• If you like Green’s other stuff, you’ll probably like this. See also: Jenny Downham’s Before I die.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

findings.com.

Find, organize and share highlights from your eBooks and the Web.

Just came across this via Craig Mod and plan to have a poke around in the next little while.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Craig Mod on the value of being able to point at things.

This lack of platforminess is what makes many iPad magazine apps impotent. They end up in no better a position than a printed magazine. There are no routes by which you can directly get to their content. You can’t point in. You’re forced to go through the “front door” to get anywhere. And it’s a door usually weighing several hundred megabytes and infuriatingly difficult to unlock.

Craig Mod’s work has only recently come to my attention. I plan now to go back and read more of what he has written in the past.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Looks like Microsoft and Barnes & Noble have been doing some reading of ancient proverbs, perhaps specifically: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Interesting development.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Nice work..

The Miles Franklin award is arguably Australia’s most prestigious literary prize. It was won three times by David Ireland. His books are out of print in this nation. This seems absurd, a cultural shame, as does the fact that Miles Franklin’s celebrated My Brilliant Career can only be bought in Australia in an American edition; it is out of print here.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

The Information Activist has a few things to say about The Apple Way for Libraries (a Manifesto?).

I wanted to grab a snippet to give you a taste but if you work in libraries, you really should go and read the whole thing.

He says things like this:

Library’s need to regain control. Libraries need to have end-to-end products. We need to create a positive user experience, but without the ability to make necessary changes to a database, catalog, or other information resource, we simply cannot make the necessary changes.

And this:

If we have to teach classes on how to search, then maybe we need to pause and think. Are the systems being designed for the user, or do we design users for the system?

Not to mention this:

Remember patrons don’t need us anymore. In the past, distribution models and pricing caused a real need for us. Bookstore as we know them today, or knew them yesterday, did not exist like that. It used to be damn near impossible to get some books, especially in rural areas. Thomas Jefferson would wait up to 6 months for book to arrive from Europe. It’s now so easy and relatively cheap. Easy and fast beats free any day. And the notion that some can’t afford this stuff won’t care us forever. Instead we ought to focus on creating a want in our patrons for us. We do this through creating powerful user experiences. Experiences that we need to control, and we simply cannot do this in our current model.

Seriously, go and read it. You might not agree with everything, but I suspect you will find something to make you think long and hard about what your library is doing.

(via @hughrundle)

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

David Carr at The NYT:

The Justice Department finally took aim at the monopolistic monolith that threatened to dominate the book industry. So imagine the shock when the bullet aimed at threats to competition went whizzing by Amazon — which not long ago had a 90 percent stranglehold on e-books — and instead, struck five of the six biggest publishers and Apple, a minor player in the realm of books.

In the short term, stopping the agency model that threatened Amazon’s ability to completely own the market will result in lower ebook prices from Amazon. They can sell most of them at a loss until they do own the market. Then what?

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Via if:book

When people ask me to speak or write about the future of books, invariably what they want to know about are things like ebooks, digital publishing, book apps, transmedia. These are not the future of books. They are the present of books.

To consider the future of books, we must imagine the future of media. We must imagine the future of the web. And for that we must lift the veil and step into the post-digital.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

This amazing Madrid sculpture series, by Spanish artist Alicia Martin, uses 5,000 books per installation to create stunning works of art. The effect is a waterfall of cascading books.

- The Wheeler Centre: Books, Writing, Ideas.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Charles Stross on why the big six publishers will kill DRM:

It doesn’t matter whether Macmillan wins the price-fixing lawsuit bought by the Department of Justice. The point is, the big six publishers’ Plan B for fighting the emerging Amazon monopsony has failed (insofar as it has been painted as a price-fixing ring, whether or not it was one in fact). This means that they need a Plan C. And the only viable Plan C, for breaking Amazon’s death-grip on the consumers, is to break DRM.

As with plenty of other people around the world, I’m very curious to see how this plays out. Unlike plenty of other people around the world, I don’t think I can predict it. But Stross put forward an interesting scenario.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

There are a number of government funded programs around the world that give a free book to every child born in that region along with literacy information for the parents. Tennessee however have gone a step or two (or sixty) further:

Tennessee has an amazing program called Books From Birth or Imagination Library. The program provides every child in TN (if they sign up for the program) with a new book of their own, every month of the year, from birth through age 5. And it’s all FREE. Can you believe that? The books arrive in the mail, and it’s so much fun to find them waiting in our mailbox on each arrival day.

Brilliant.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

If you are interested in the present and future of libraries but aren’t reading what Hugh Rundle has to say, you are missing out on thoughts like this:

The real value of libraries is not the hardware. It has never been the hardware. Your members don’t come to the library to find books, or magazines, journals, films or musical recordings. They come to be informed, inspired, horrified, enchanted or amused. They come to hide from reality or understand its true nature. They come to find solace or excitement, companionship or solitude. They come for the software.

Do yourself a favour and go read the whole thing.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Pew Internet Project have released a new study on the rise of e-reading. Full report here. Press release here.

Some snippets:

In mid-December 2011, 17% of American adults had reported they read an e-book in the previous year; by February, 2012, the share increased to 21%.

I’d love to see some Australian stats for comparison.

It’s now clear that readers are embracing a new format for books and a significant number are reading more because books can be plucked out of the air.

I’ve heard several accounts of people saying they’re reading more because they always have a book with them now.

E-book readers and tablet computers are finding their place in the rhythms of readers’ lives. But printed books still serve as the physical currency when people want to share the stories they love.

This in reference to stats that show people prefer paper books when reading to kids or sharing with others. There are clearly logistical reasons around this.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

John Scalzi on his Hugo nomination:

Why do I love this nomination?

1. Because it’s absurd, in the best sense of the word. The idea that a story written as an April Fool’s Day joke has gotten a Hugo nod is just delightfully nuts.

Complete list of Hugo nominations here.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Sad. Really sad..

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Photographer Joel Robison (Boy_Wonder on Flickr) has some great images incorporating books and the act of reading. Well worth a browse.

Thanks to Book Patrol for the tip-off.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Gleason Public Library (somewhere in Massachusetts) goes fine free.

Partly a simple economic decision as they spent more money collecting the fines than they received in fines:

Moreover, processing the monies collected from overdue books bears its own costs in terms of staff time, for collecting and reconciling accounts, and infrastructure such as change boxes and safes.

“Every transaction, which was often only 10 or 20 cents, had a cost associated with it,’’ Mollet said.

“At the rate we were collecting fines, the management cost was greater than the revenue.’’

But also a philosophical decision:

But to Mollet, the decision isn’t only pragmatic; it is also philosophical. “As an institution, we put a lot of emphasis on meeting the needs of the patron,’’ she said. “We look for ways to let people know this is their library. They’re already paying for it through their taxes.’’

The staff and trustees at the Gleason Public Library are also eager to eliminate any obstacles to reading, especially for children.

There is part of me that would love to see the end of library fines. I’m sure is would make a lot of people happy. There is also a part of me that fears I would stop dealing with people grumpy about late fines, and start dealing with people grumpy about the fact the book they are waiting for has not been returned even though it was due two weeks ago.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Patrick Rhone over at Minimal Mac has some nice things to say about cloud based ebook service booki.sh:

What was that? I thought I heard you say you were looking for a cloud based library for all of your DRM free ePub books. One that would allow you to read them on just about any compatible browser including iOS and Android. One where the books operate in much the same way when loaded in said browser as they would in iBooks or Kindle. Oh, and you said you wanted to be able to download these things for offline reading too?

OK, great. Got it. Click the link above and you can have all of that and more.

I’m going to presume he didn’t notice they had recently been bought by Overdrive. If you ask me, that casts a cloud (see what I did there?) over the future development of the booki.sh platform in favour of incorporating their technology into Overdrive products.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

What a wonderful way to encourage kids learning to read.

The dogs that participate in the program have been trained through the TOUCH Program and selected by the Support Dogs staff based on the qualities that make them suitable for the program. These dogs are especially calm and unobtrusive and settle in as part of the class. The children view the dogs as lovable and non-judgmental, which are the keys to success in this program. Children have said that the dogs give them confidence because the dog does not make fun of them if they read slowly or mess up pronouncing a word. The dogs are great listeners and give the child a sense of comfort while reading. Children have been known to practice with their personal pets at home in preparation for the Paws for Reading dogs.

(hat tip to @library_vic)

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Margo Lanagan, speaking on Radio National Books+ show Feb 18, 2012:

I think that fiction is about throwing up questions, I don’t think it’s about answering questions. I think fiction that answers questions and gives moral lessons is very dull to read. I like to finish a book feeling a little abuzz with the things that it’s made me think about rather than feeling, ‘right, I know the truth and I will carry that truth forward into my life’.

I think that part of fiction’s role is to prod and poke at uncomfortable areas of life to see what we think of them. To see if we can work out something about them or towards them, if we can gain something useful from the complications of them.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

People coming and going constantly filter through Union Station, a working piece of the city’s history.

But in between being on the go, there can be plenty of waiting for a train or bus, and the Friends of the Worcester Public Library hope people take advantage of the downtime to read a book from The Give and Take, a bookshelf of free titles for people to peruse and even take with them.

I love this idea!

via Bookshelf

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Kindles, iPads and Nooks “are the ultimate brown paper wrapper,” says Brenda Knight, associate publisher at Cleis Press, of Berkeley, Calif., a publisher of erotica since 1980.

Mainstream publishers are launching digital-only erotic labels to feed demand. At the end of the month, HarperCollins UK will launch Mischief Books, with the tag line “private pleasures with a hand-held device.”

via How Kindle, Nook and iPad Fuel Sales of Erotica for Women – WSJ.com.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

Mike Shatzkin proposes publishers experiment selling ebooks to libraries and seeing what happens to sales.

I accept the major premise. If it were just as easy to get ebooks from libraries as it is from retailers, over time more and more customers would migrate to the libraries. But, the more I think about it, the less I accept the notion that total withdrawal from the library market is necessary to create a clear advantage for the retailer as a destination for ebook readers. In fact, it is possible that putting ebooks into libraries, in the right ways, could increase sales at retail. And the only way for publishers to find that out is to do some controlled experimentation in that marketplace. To my knowledge, that’s not taking place.

via Thinking more about ebooks and libraries and what big publishers should do – The Shatzkin Files.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net

A couple of weeks ago I spent some time away at Phillip Island with my bike and some books. I didn’t end up reading much but got some nice rides in. Full set of pictures is on Flickr.

Wherever you happen to be reading it now, Jonathan published this post at: BookBoy.net