Recent Comments
- Amazon’s book city #1, Alexandria, VA, may cut library hours: Time for a digital-era national endowment to help ease U.S. libraries’ financial woes? | The Travelin' Librarian { [...] Read the full article @ LibraryCity.org. [...] }
- Promising DPLA debut—but please don’t confuse special-collection items, exhibits and APIs with a full-fledged ‘public library’ demo | The Travelin' Librarian { [...] Read the full article @ librarycity.org. [...] }
- Tom Peters { Excellent review of the nascent D(P)LA e-resource. I agree with all your major points. Tis a pity that the usual suspects (Twain, Fitzgerald, Cather, et... } – Apr 19, 11:28 AM
- Online la Digital Public Library of America, che vuole superare Google e Wikipedia | Tropico del Libro { [...] di questo ambizioso progetto. Non sono mancate, in questo senso, le polemiche di chi ha vivamente esortato i creatori della DPLA a preoccuparsi anche... }
- David Rothman { Thanks for such a prompt and classy reply, Dan---you're indeed giving #dpla its due! I truly truly hope that the DPLA succeeds, and meanwhile the... } – Mar 31, 11:58 AM
- Dan Cohen { Thanks for the great and helpful post, David. To be clear on #2, I'm very interested (as I know others are within DPLA) and plan... } – Mar 31, 10:40 AM
- David Rothman { Hi, Don. Nice to see such enthusiasm from a veteran school librarian. I appreciate your thoughtfulness, agree with your priorities, and will have more to... } – Mar 26, 4:57 AM
- Don Smith { If I might, I would like to propose a statement of purpose for the National Digital Library. Often times during my forty year career as... } – Mar 25, 8:54 PM
- David Rothman { Hey, Ralph, here's a belated but heartfelt reply to one of your points. Around here we love both libraries and librarians and are interested in... } – Mar 13, 9:58 AM
- Some news from LibraryLand | not so quiet { [...] this opinion piece, David Rothman makes a case for folks in the Warren Buffet and Bill Gates income bracket to support [...] }
- Bibliotecas públicas sin libros en EE.UU. ¿A la de tres? | Bibliotecas 2029 { [...] comunicada, tuvo una contestación pública demoledora. No sólo los profesionales de todo el país se escandalizaron por este proyecto sino que los propios usuarios... }
- A National Digital Library Endowment { [...] An interesting concept from blogger David Rothman, founder of TeleRead. He suggests that those who have signed The Giving Pledge (though he doesn’t mention... }
- David Rothman { Hi, Robert. Some quick replies… 1. I envision a variety of business models in use, but if nothing else, libraries could buy multiple e-copies (or... } – Feb 20, 2:05 PM
- Robert Nagle { Generally, a great proposal, but here are some practical issues which pop up in my mind. First, if everything is centralized, when I put a... } – Feb 20, 12:56 PM
- ATG Article of the Week: Need Library E-Books to Feed Your New Gadget? Here’s the Answer | Against-the-Grain.com { [...] Need Library E-Books to Feed Your New Gadget? Here’s the Answer, is an thought provoking article by David Rothman posted in TeleRead a few... }
- Reading about eReading this week 2/18/2013 « Allegany County Library System Director's Notes { [...] A national digital library endowment: How America’s billionaires could be modern Carnegies for rea... [...] }
- Reading about eReading this week 1/28/2013 « Allegany County Library System Director's Notes { [...] Dwarf-sized public e-libraries vs. abundance: Listen to veteran publishing guru Brian O’Leary and ... [...] }
- David Rothman { You're welcome, Anthony. Keep us posted if you can Amy-ize your new Fire without installing a full-strength version of Android. David } – Jan 19, 5:46 PM
- Anthony { Thanks Dave! } – Jan 19, 4:47 PM
- David Rothman { Hi, Anthony. Some possibilities: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/where-to-get-more-help-with-your-kindle.html Happy Kindling, David } – Jan 19, 4:00 AM
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Recent Posts
- E-book usability news: Adjustable line spacing now on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9” and perhaps other Fire HDs—although I still can’t narrow the spaces sufficiently
- Voice Dream e-reading app: Stellar for text to speech—and promising as a general reader
- Amazon’s book city #1 avoids cuts in library hours but still might reduce its library book budget—already below the U.S. per-capita average
- Cut in Alexandria, VA, library hours not needed, says city staff memo. Also: Councilman Justin Wilson endorses LibraryCity’s national digital library endowment plan
- Is your local library budget about to be slashed? Here’s an example of how you can fight back
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Tag Archives: Amazon
E-book usability news: Adjustable line spacing now on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9” and perhaps other Fire HDs—although I still can’t narrow the spaces sufficiently
LibraryCity knocked Amazon for not letting users of the Kindle Fire HDs adjust their line spacing. But guess what I noticed just now within the font-related submenu of my Kindle HD 8.9” model running version 8.3.1 firmware? Alas, on my several files tested, I still couldn’t narrow the spaces sufficiently on the HD even though [...]
Amazon’s book city #1 avoids cuts in library hours but still might reduce its library book budget—already below the U.S. per-capita average
Update, May 7: The missing $56K for materials was restored in the final version of the budget last night. Kudos to all the library advocates who spoke up! See, it’s worth the time! – D.R. Now it’s definite. Alexandria, VA—honored as Amazon’s “most well-read” city in the U.S. despite ample evidence to the contrary, especially [...]
Amazon’s book city #1, Alexandria, VA, may cut library hours: Time for a digital-era national endowment to help ease U.S. libraries’ financial woes?
Update: We won! Library advocates successfully fought cuts in hours and the materials budget. Leaving us in the dark about the source of this tidbit, a Washington Post headline in the Style section blog says: “Alexandria, Virginia: the most well-read city in America.” Similar words show up elsewhere in the media about my hometown, the [...]
eBooks
Also tagged Alexandria, Allison Silberberg, biased journalism, corporate hype, digal libraries, digital divide, Digital Public Library of America, DPLA, ebooks, librrianship, literacy, New York Times, Rashad Young, reading, the most well-read city in America, VA, Virginia, Washington Post
1 Comment
A national digital library endowment: How America’s billionaires could be modern Carnegies for real
Update: James Fallows’s blog on The Atlantic’s site reproduced part of this proposal, and the long version appeared in Sabrina Pacifici’s award-winning LLRX library journal. More details and an FAQ on the proposal are here. Warren Buffett was on CBS Sunday Morning. The interviewer, Rebecca Jarvis, asked if he owned an iPad. No. iPhone. No. [...]
eBooks, National Digital Public Library
Also tagged Andrew Carnegie, Berkshire Hathaway, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Global Libraries Initiative, Bill Gates, Born Digital, Brian O'Leary, Cengage, Congress, contractors, digital divide, digital libraries, digital library, DPLA, dysfunction, e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, endowments, family literacy, FCC, Federal Communications Commission, Giving Pledge, Inerstate Highway System, Internet, Internet Archive, iPad, James Fallows, Jeff Bezos, John Palfrey, Jr., Kindle, librarianship, library endowments, library of congress, Lorain, Microsoft, National Archives, national digiital library system, national digital libraies, national digital library, National Digital Library Endowment, national digital library system, National Digital Public Library, New Jersey, Newark, Ohio, Paprika, Pentagon, philanthropies, philanthropy, public libraries, Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Surface tablet, TeleRead, The Atlantic, TheAtlantic.com, Warren Buffett, Wayback Machine, Web, WFB, William F. Buckley
5 Comments
Amazon’s zapping of customer’s Kindle library shows why we need library-provided ‘content lockers’ for e-books and perhaps other media
Update, Oct. 23: Amazon has restored the customer’s past purchases even though this hardly clarifies all the issues. Scroll to the bottom of the Computerworld UK item. What if Amazon wiped out all your Kindle books and refused to let you open another account? I don’t know what if any sins a customer committed, but such [...]
Uncategorized
Also tagged 1984, Boing Boing, copyright law, customer abuse, Kindle, Martin Bekkelund, Orwell, random house
2 Comments
Stanza e-reader NOT a sure bet for iOS 6, alas (updated)
Update: I’m glad I used “apparently.” I had Stanza already configured the way I wanted it. So I didn’t mess extensively with “Settings.” Others did and had bad news to report. Stanza, one of the best e-reading apps around, was broken when Apple upgraded to iOS 4. Amid the uproar from the app’s users, Stanza’s [...]
Kindle Fire HDs apparently can’t change line spacing—and it appears that old Fires for now won’t be upgraded for text to speech
Kindle Fire HD tablets apparently can’t change line spacing when you’re reading an e-book. Is this part of a consumer-hostile niching initiative by Amazon to high-pressure my fellow Kindle addicts into buying more than one gizmo? Yes, I suspect—if we consider similar disappointments, such as the omission of sound in the Paperwhite E Ink reader [...]
Uncategorized
Also tagged blind, blind people, disabilities, disabled, e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, Jeff Bezos, Kindle, Kindle Keyboard, Len Edgerly, LibraryCity, Paperwhite
1 Comment
Important: How to encourage Amazon to bring text to speech to the Kindle Paperwhite and other products where it’s AWOL
Andrea (not the woman in the photo) wanted to know after I raised the text-to-speech issue here. I had in mind not just blind people in mind but also joggers and other sighted folks who enjoy the “Read to me” feature. Beyond that, how about good text to speech and voiceover in Kindle apps? Here [...]
How I turned my Kindle Fire HD from a cash register and billboard into a good machine for an e-book lover
H.L. Mencken, the American iconoclast, depicted Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” Could the same idea apply to the killjoys at Amazon who so cruelly made the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire HD less of an e-book machine and more of a billboard and cash register? Granted, many readers might not [...]
LibraryCity
Also tagged digital libraries, Fire HD, H.L. Mencken, Jeff Bezos, Kindle Fire, libraries, OverDrive, tablet, tablet computers
8 Comments
Harry Potter e-books, OverDrive, the DPLA, Amazon, other topics come up in Bibliotech interview with me
The Bibliotech podcast, based in Ontario, has just posted a two-hour audio interview with me on topics ranging from Harry Potter e-books to OverDrive, the Digital Public Library of America, Library Renewal, and Amazon. Many thanks to Kayhan B, Erin Anderson and Doug Mirams for all the time they put into their super-thoughtful questions. I [...]
ALA, LibraryCity, LibraryCity history, National Digital Public Library
Also tagged Amazon-OverDrive, Amazon-OverDrive deal, Buffy J. Hamilton, David Lee King, Digital Public Library of America, Doug Mirams, DPLA, Erin Anderson, Jan Dawson, Kayhan B, Library Renewal, Lisa Carlucci Thomas, Marshall Breeding, Michael Porter, Michael Stephens, OverDrive, Paul Biba, Sarah Houghton, Stephen Abram, Sue Polana
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