You'll Need a PhD To Make Sense Of The Pricing Schemes Publishers Impose On Libraries, Forbes.com

Extract:

Much has been written about publishers’ early reluctance to license or sell any e-books to libraries. That  is mostly past.

But don’t get crazy and think that this must mean there is actual agreement or standards about how to structure the relationships between e-book publishers and their library customers.

Steve Potash,  President and CEO of OverDrive, the Cleveland-based provider of technology for managing and distributing digital content for lending libraries,  described the various schemes that publishers and producers have structured for charging their library clients for their digital materials.  continue reading

on the same shelf:

•  Rogers removes digital magazines from Canadian libraries
• Thought for the day: "The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, provided you back it up with a Ph.D." -- Nelson Algren in Dictionary of Library and Information Science Quotations  Edited by Mohamed Taher and L S S R Valluri Ramaiah. ISBN: 8185689423 (New Delhi , Aditya, 1994) (p. 6).

The Global eBook report update fall 2013 is out

Courtesy: Stephen Abram

Extract (source):

“The Global eBook report is ready for download now. The Global eBook report documents and analyses how ebook markets emerge in the US, UK, continental Europe, Brazil, China, India, Russia and the Arab world. It combines the best available data and references to specialized local actors, with thematic chapters, focusing on critical policy debates and on key driving forces, notably ebook bestsellers and pricing strategies across European markets, self-publishing, government regulation, piracy, and the expanding impact of global players.For international downloads, please be aware that many global platforms have not fully integrated their online catalogues. So according to your location, you may need to check which of the following links works for you – or try a search by wischenbart. Apologies for the inconvenience. continue reading here: http://www.global-ebook.com/ The Global eBook Report - Wischenbart.com

(PDF): Global-eBook Report (Update October 2013) 

A publisher sues librarian blogger for millions

India Today, Rohan Venkataramakrishnan: "Last week University of Colorado librarian Jeffrey Beall was threatened with a billion dollar lawsuit and three years in prison all because he annoyed a publishing company.

Beall's blog, 'Scholarly Open Access' is popular for its comprehensive list of journals and publishers who engage in practices that he believes are predatory. " continue reading: Send Section 66A bullies home 

On the same shelf:

Who pays for Open Access journals? The most common model is charging a publication fee for each article. The idea is for the cost of publication to be built into grant proposals, so that the institution funding the research bears the expense.

My publisher offers a "Sponsored Article." What is that? Some publishers are now experimenting with a hybrid model. This is a journal that does charge subscription fees but the author can pay-typically around $3,000- to make an article freely available. continue reading library.illinois.edu

Investigating journals: The dark side of publishing : The explosion in open-access publishing has fuelled the rise of questionable operators. nature.com

Academic publisher sues librarian blogger for millions, by Ariel Bogle, Melville House

On the same Open Source / Open Access shelf:

Blogger better be a billionaire, says 'open access' publisher lawsuit, OMICS offended by 'Beall's List' By Richard Chirgwin, Science

Cautiously Open to Open Science, by Gretchen Goldman, The Equation: Blog of the Union of Concerned Scientists (blog)

Of Predators and Public Health | Peer to Peer Review. By Kevin L. Smith, Library Journal (author's limited rights in an open access world)

Mathematicians Aim To Take Publishers Out of Publishing, Soulskill

Asking Authors to Buy 'Memberships' for Open Access, By Jennifer Howard Chronicle of Higher Education -- Extract: Jason Hoyt thinks scientific publishing can be faster, sleeker, and a whole lot cheaper. The Stanford-trained geneticist is a fan of open-access journals, which make scholarly articles freely available online rather than put them behind paywalls. But he argues that having authors shoulder big publishing fees—a popular model for open access—burdens researchers with costs that are too high, often thousands of dollars per article...

So much writing, is anyone reading? By Suntosh Pillay, Thought Leader

India's OMICS Publishing Group threatens scholarly critic with $1 billion lawsuit, jail time Cory Doctorow

  Side effects of publish-or-perish pressure on academia

Why students need the right to copy

Shamnad Basheer, The Hindu, April 26, 2013

EXTRACT:
The lawsuit by publishers seeking to stop Delhi University from distributing photocopied course packs goes against the spirit of education for all. continue reading

Penguin waddles into the future, Toronto Star

Paperback trailblazer waddles into the future, by Mallick Heather, Toronto Star Oct 30, 2012 Extract:
The Penguin-Random House book merger is a big deal: Mallick The merger of Penguin and Random House, which will create the world’s biggest book publisher, will change your life but not in any way you’ll notice. It’s like the recent Libor scandal — the secret fixing of world interest rates by banks — which probably didn’t register, despite its huge effect on you personally. continue reading

Blogging a book ~~ Publish or Perish

Punchline: "Any popular blogger's book would sell, that's the way it works."

'Metrolife finds out that even though more and more bloggers are getting published, not all the books are selling' More from Nina C George @ Deccan Herald » Metro Life - Fri

Making by Stealing of Un-cited (Recycled) Content in the Wiki Age: Role of Librarians?

What comes to our mind by seeing the emerging open-source and open-gate information revolution? (most Netizens may think this as an avenue to be creative, in terms of manipulating and exploiting the deep Web--with the freedom and choice to use the Read-Write Web, 24X7, via blogs, wikis, and second life in nano-seconds)

"We the users turned creators and distributors of content are TIME's Person of the Year 2006, and AdAge's advertising agency of the year. We form a new Generation C. We have MySpace, YouTube, and OurMedia; we run social software, and drive the development of Web 2.0. But beyond the hype, what's really going on?" Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and B... >>>>>>-----

The following links may make us think (indirectly, albeit) about a role libaries may have in promoting best practices for knowledge sharing:

• [KG Audit Disc] Is Knowledge inequality an open invitation to mass-destruction of knowledge? [Read my views on how a revolutionary timesaving approach, "cut and paste" has metamorphosed into a fancy synonym for organized knowledge piracy, and on a bigger canvas as a psychological disorder that needs to be checked.
  Looking forward to your views.
  Best wishesSaurabh]


• Copyright, Copyleft & the Creative Anti-Commons
• Cut/Copy/Paste - Three Shortcuts That Killed Creativity ...
• CARL - The Cyberspace Is Not A "No Law Land"
  
• ControlC: Turning Cut & Paste Into A Web Service


• KnowledgePerson.com blog: Why understanding is knowledge


• Knowledge as information in transition


• YouTubers cut and paste at their peril - Technology - smh.com.au


• Carnegie Mellon Libraries: Information Ethics Problem of the Month ...


• Libraries Unleashed: the Guardian Tackles Library Technology Issues


• Disconnects Between Library Culture and Millennial Generation Values


• Study of Internet's Impact on Museums and Libraries


• Book publishers seek ways to adapt to Web SiliconValley.com


• Encyclopaedia Britannica Goes -- Gasp! -- Wiki


• Stealing slogans from the Web


• Tragedyof the Commons Revisited: Librarians, Publishers, Faculty and ...


• Hackers, phishers can't get away with it like they used to By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
  
• Sell More by Sharing on Peer to Peer Networks
  They say that piracy on the Internet decreases sales. Everywhere you hear figures in hundreds of millions dollars/euros of revenues lost by sellers of music, movies, software and books.
  Is it really true? Can you have a different take on sales by sharing? Here is a different story.
  Paulo Coelho, author of books such as “The Alchemist” and “The Witch of Portobello”, sold over 100 million books last year. He puts this success down to BitTorrent, as he saw a huge increase in sales when his books appeared on sites such as The Pirate Bay.
  
  
  

Orient loses Longman

Mumbai, Jan. 14: Orient Longman — the Hyderabad-based publisher of educational books — is losing its suffix. The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata),

Pearson Education group of the UK has reclaimed the rights to the Longman brand in India in an out-of-court settlement with Orient Longman.
In 2006, Pearson Education, the owner of the Longman name worldwide, had filed a suit against Orient Longman in a British court to assert its right to the Longman brand. Under the terms of the settlement, Orient Longman has agreed to stop using the Longman brand by November 2008. But it will be able to use the expression “formerly known as Orient Longman” for another year until November 2009. Continue reading

Bangla and Bangalooru: The Phonetic Similarity in Jeopardy

PS. Bear in mind the newstory about the trend to restore original syntax & symantics (A.K.A. Indianization) that was announced in the State of Karnataka (India) -- It's official: Bangalore is now Bengalooru / Bangalore or Bangalooru?

Reference and Research Protests posted by Annoyed Librarian:
It can't happen often that a reference book draws more than yawns and mediocre reviews, but the OUP has stopped selling the Concise Dictionary of World Place Names because of some protests and outcries in India. (This was reported a few days ago, but I'm behind on my news.)

According to the story:"Among other errors, the book, the Concise Dictionary of World Place Names, says that the local language in Bangalore, Karnataka’s capital, is Bengali. Actually the language is Kannada. Bengali is spoken in Bangladesh and neighboring regions of northeastern India." Continue reading

Indian police seize pirated Potter books

BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - Indian police have seized hundreds of pirated copies of the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series, a police official said on Monday. continue reading

see also:

Harry Potter book pages found online

British School Justified In Reprimanding Teacher Who Told Children Harry Potter Author Was A Witch -- Faithwise Review of the Week

Good old Indian folk tales need a magic genie

New Delhi: Once upon a time, traditional folk tales from the Panchatantra or, say, stories of Akbar and Birbal used to be hugely popular with Indian children. But ask a kid today about her favourite book, and chances are she will name an Enid Blyton, a Nancy Drew, a Hardy Boy and - even more likely - a Harry Potter.

To give an example, the pre-bookings for the seventh edition of the Harry Potter series to be released July 21, is escalating at a rapid rate. The sixth in the series sold a smashing 160,000 copies in India last year.

The story is entirely different for Indian folk tales and other children's books. A predictable storyline, monotonous illustrations, lots of moral baggage and more importantly sloppy marketing have led to their taking a beating. continue

Mahatma Gandhi praised Urdu in last letter

News update: Heritage saved! Auction of Gandhi letter stopped CNN-IBN, July 02, 2007
The executors of Albin Schram have agreed to withdraw the Gandhi manuscript from Tuesday's auction in order that it may be acquired by the Indian Government.


Bapu's letter may be stolen: Grandson, CNN-IBN, June 27, 2007 at 22:16
New Delhi: The scheduled auction of a letter written by Mahatma Gandhi, possibly his last before his assassination, has sent the Indian government in a tizzy.
The letter, written on January 19, 1948, is part of a collection of manuscripts put up for auction at the famous auction house Christie's in London. Meanwhile, a harried Indian Government has started the process of bidding for it. Sources in the Ministry of Cultural Affairs have said that they are assessing the cost to bid for Gandhi’s letter, which is expected to fetch £ 12,000 or Rs 10 lakh.

Press Trust Of India, London, June 29, 2007,
In the letter, a rare manuscript that will go under hammer at Christie's in London on July 3, Gandhi said opposing Urdu will "put a wanton affront" on the Muslims, who "in the eyes of Hindus have become aliens in their own land".

Writing in his journal 'Harijan' on January 11, 1948, Gandhi, who appeared disturbed with the dwindling circulation of its Urdu edition, said in the letter that it is likely to be stopped.

Praising Urdu, which he said "is set free from bondage of orthodoxy", he asserted that those who learn it will "lose nothing but gain". At the same time he urged Muslims to learn Devanagari to "enrich their intellectual" capital and subscribe to his journal.continue

See also:

Mahatma in market

Mahatma manuscript up for sale, govt wakes up

India to participate in auction of Gandhi letter

Gandhians demonstrate against auction of letter

Rare letter from Mahatma surfaces

What the Ancient Egyptians Taught me about Blogging

You may think there can be no way in the afterlife that there is a link between one of the oldest civilisations on earth and one of the most modern pastimes, but you would be wrong. The Ancient Egyptians blogged in Stone. Continue reading MATT JONES

See also:

Blogs and visual innovation

Blog As A Teaching Tool

National Library Week April 15 - 21, 2007

New data on U.S. libraries shows almost two billion served
Predicted demise due to Internet fails to materialize
For Immediate Release, April 16, 2007

"Ten years after some experts predicted the demise of the nation's system of libraries as a result of the Internet explosion, the most current national data on library use shows that the exact opposite has happened. Data released today by the American Library Association (ALA) indicates that the number of visits to public libraries in the United States increased 61 percent between 1994 and 2004. According to the 2007 State of America's Libraries report, there were nearly two billion visits to U.S. libraries in fiscal year 2004. The study was released today by the ALA as the nation begins its observance of National Library Week, April 15-21. In the case of academic libraries, the number of visits exceeded more than one billion for the first time in 2004, up more than 14 percent in just the previous two years." More Info courtesy Thadakamalla Sujatha

Communities “Come together @ your library” to celebrate the changing role of libraries

National Library Week Sites

The American Library Association NLW Site

PLL's National Library Week Resources

@ Your Library

LLRX's Guide on the Side Column, "National Library Week: What's the Point?"

AALL RIPS 2007 Teach-in kit

MUCH MORE

NB. This post is dedicated to a user-friendly librarian, Gail, who knows about India and India's libraries much more than me!

See also:

My book review in ARBA: Cyber Worship in Multifaith Perspectives

The Harry Potter Marketing Story Revisited

PS. Jill Stover's blog (Library Marketing - Thinking Outside the Book) and, Vancouver Sun (Magical Marketing: Harry Potter seller turns early book release into effective sales tool) covered this theme in 2005. Here is an update:

Amazon.com Seeks ''Harry-est Town'' in America

Indigo starts 107-day countdown to release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

New Potter book has rules for libraries

Librarians must obey the rules to get Harry

Amazon.ca Seeks "Harry-est Town in Canada"

Publisher Wants To Keep Harry Potter's Secrets

No peeking at 'Deathly Hallows' till July 21

From my related posts:

Market Research Resources via Libraries