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
- On Jillian the Tiger Cub, a national digital library endowment, and the power of the American ego
- 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
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Tag Archives: Kindle
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 [...]
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 Amazon, 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., 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
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Amazon buys Ivona text to speech: Good or bad for disabled e-library users and other TTS fans?
Well, guess which Seattle-based megaconglomerate has just bought Ivona Software (Web site here, Wikipedia entry here)—perhaps the world’s best provider of text to speech to use with e-books and other texts? That’s right, Amazon. It’s reportedly already using Ivona’s Salli voice in the Kindle Fire, and Ivona tech is also powering “Voice Guide” and “Explore [...]
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Also tagged Amazon. Audible, digital libraries, Ivona, Jeff Bezos, Paperwhite, text to speech, TTS
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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 [...]
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Also tagged 1984, Amazon, Boing Boing, copyright law, customer abuse, Martin Bekkelund, Orwell, random house
2 Comments
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 [...]
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Also tagged Amazon, blind, blind people, disabilities, disabled, e-book, e-books, ebook, ebooks, Jeff Bezos, Kindle Keyboard, Len Edgerly, LibraryCity, Paperwhite
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How blind-friendly are Amazon’s Kindle apps for the iPhone and iPad? And what about those for other operating systems?
Text to speech is AWOL from Amazon’s beautiful Paperwhite Kindles (photo), and LibraryCity’s complaint made a stir, complete with a link at The Verge, a major tech site. Keep your related comments coming. I especially like those from David Goldfield, a blind Philadelphian who is an accessibility expert and activist. Please sign the Reading Rights [...]
No text to speech in Amazon’s new Paperwhite Kindles: Why? To push us toward Fire tablets and boost Amazon-owned Audible?
Update: The National Federation of the Blind says the Amazon’s new lines are an accessibility disaster. Also see a newer LibraryCity post. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ballyhooed text to speech in the Kindle 2 in 2009. But guess what’s now missing from the new Paperwhite Kindles even though it’s still present in the Kindle Keyboard [...]
Ten ‘musts’ for an e-library ecosystem—to fight off bullying by content-providers and respect traditional library priorities
Libraries will lose out to profit-crazed publishers and other content-providers unless they can offer something back—beyond their current audiences. Penguin‘s refusal to provide new audiobooks to libraries is just part of an ugly pattern of bullying from the commercial side. Another, of course, is HarperCollins’ requirement that libraries loan an e-book no more than 26 [...]
Toward an e-library ecosystem: Public libraries will screw themselves if they don’t learn from Amazon’s comprehensive ‘seamless’ approach
Video by Lisa Gade of Mobile TechReview, another Fire fan. Update, Jan. 19, 2012: Here. How long would I keep my Kindle Fire tablet? I’d bought it mostly just to stay in touch with popular e-book tech. The Fire is hobbled with onerous digital rights management, favors a proprietary e-book format, and in certain ways [...]
Tips for using e-readers in children’s book clubs: Attn. parents, libraries, and schools
In my series on e-books for family literacy, I’ve emphasized the glories of human contact—as opposed to parents simply using e-books as babysitters. Here’s a somewhat related example of the possibilities of E. In-person book clubs for kids. Recording a promotional YouTube for Sony, author Lori Gottlieb offered generic tips such as the need to [...]
eBooks, LibraryCity, National Digital Public Library
Also tagged children, DPLA, family literacy, k-12, Kobo, Lori Glttlieb, Sony
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