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Sunday, May 27, 2012
Wanted from OverDrive and rivals: Smarter software for library e-books
The new version of the OverDrive library app, for e-books and audiobooks, has just appeared for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad III.
Compared to past incarnations, 2.4.2 should delight many a patron.
Users of Apple’s IOS operating system will enjoy ‘more control over text justification, line spacing, page margins, and font selection.’
And the just-released Android variant from OverDrive even offers double- and triple-column options in landscape mode, and serif, nonserif and typewriter-like monospaced styles in both regular and bold.
Might such marvels from OverDrive on the way for my iPad soon?
I’ve long begged OverDrive for all-text bolding, and I thank the company for responding (as well as for trying harder recently with APIs, so checking out e-books on nonKindles will be less Rube Goldbergish in the future).
But the real point here is that we still need smarter library-related software for e-reading, with more features and fewer trade-offs. And I’m not merely talking about OverDrive, just one example. A few specifics:
In-book search functions
For now, in both the iPad and Android versions of OverDrive, I still don’t see an in-book search function, not even within the chapter-oriented navigation menu. Is it there? If not, when will OverDrive add it?
My sharp-eyed wife, a heavy user of OverDrive software, can’t find this function, either. So even if it is there, which I doubt, OverDrive still isn’t doing what it should.
By contrast, Amazon’s Kindle software for hand-held devices not only lets me search within a book, but do so rather efficiently—by showing a number of results at once, at least on my iPad. So does the iPad version of Blio, which works with for Baker & Taylor library systems.
All-text bolding–either directly or via font options
But then neither Blio nor the Kindle software has the wonderful bolding options that OverDrive has added to its Android version via the font variants and ideally will include on the iPad and other IOS devices, too.
Text to speech
At least the Kindle E Ink machines let you hear the books via text to speech when publishers allow this; same for Blio’s iPad version, as a paid option.
Why hasn’t OverDrive software caught up with TTS for platforms like the iPad and Android machines?
Shouldn’t libraries be especially respectful of the needs of the visually impaired?
Notes—not just book-marks
Kindle and Blio let you take notes. OverDrive’s own software doesn’t, at least not for Andorid and the iPad—even though schoolwork is among the major reasons why people use public libraries. No small number of recreational readers also want note-embedding capaiblities.
* * *Perhaps the biggest fault of the most popular e-readering apps, for both retail use and libraries, is that they’re dumbed down compared to freeware and shareware alternatives that won’t work for DRM- or format-related reasons. Some of the best DRM-free programs such as Moon + Pro for Android will even let you zap lines between paragraphs while adding indentations. Not everyone wants to mess with Calibre-based customizations.
Vendors would argue, ‘But we’ve got to dumb down our products for the typical library patron.’ No, you don’t. Just include one menu choice, ‘Advanced features,’ and let that open up a whole range of customization options for serious e-book lovers. OverDrive could even offer a ‘revert to original settings’ for people who feared they would do irreparable damage.
What do you think, readers? As you see it, what are the most important features missing from library software for e-reading on mobile devices like my iPad? Care to share your priorities, not just for apps from OverDrive and rivals but also for third-party products that work with their servers (such as Bluefire Reader, Aldiko and Mantano in OverDrive’s case and various version of the Nook reader for hardware and software—plus 3M-related products and those for Baker & Taylor and the rest).
Detail: The OverDrive-supplied screenshot, picked up from the App Store, might be from an iPhone or Touch rather than an iPad. The software runs on all three kinds of devices.Similar Posts:
Pocket Star relaunched by Simon & Schuster as dedicated ebook imprint
From the press release:
- Louise Burke, Executive Vice President and Publisher, announced today that
Pocket Books, America’s first paperback publisher, has re-launched its Pocket Star line as an eBook-only
imprint. As it did in print, Pocket Star will continue to feature bestselling and debut authors in popular
genres including women’s fiction, romance, thrillers, urban fantasy, and mystery.
Louise Burke said, “Similar to how mass market has served as a platform to develop future hardcover
authors, it is our mission to use Pocket Star’s new digital-only format to establish new voices in the
marketplace. An eBook imprint is flexible, cost-effective, cutting-edge and makes sense in today’s
marketplace. Under the Pocket Star banner we will publish original works including full-length novels
and novellas from some of our most popular authors.”
Pocket Star will follow the model of the successful eBook publication of WARLORD WANTS FOREVER, a
novella by #1 New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole that has now sold almost 60,000 copies.
The imprint is launching with titles from its Spring and Summer lists, featuring authors V.C. Andrews,
Nathan Dodge, Cindy Gerard, Laura Griffin, Sabrina Jeffries, Carrie Lofty, and Michael R. Underwood,
among others. All Pocket Star eBooks will have the full support of Pocket Books’ creative and innovative
publishing resources. Reflecting a fluid marketplace, titles initially published under Pocket Star may
transition from eBook to print format.
Lauren McKenna, Executive Editor, has been named Editorial Director of Pocket Star and will oversee all
content. “Lauren has been instrumental in helping shape our vision for Pocket Star.” added Ms. Burke,
“She will be vital to the further development of this new imprint.”
To access the Pocket Star eBook Sampler, please click here or paste this URL into your browser:
http://www.simonandschuster.com/admin_assets/7080_PocketStar_eSAMPLER_1_.pdf
Pocket Books will remain home to mass market authors published in both print and electronic formats.
Gale digitizes popular 20th century weekly – Liberty Magazine
There are very few magazines that are able to stand the test of time while so accurately capturing the moods and attitudes of an entire country. Liberty Magazine, a weekly that rivaled the Saturday Evening Post in its heyday, has found new life within the family of Gale Digital Collections. Gale today launched the Liberty Magazine Historical Archive, 1924-1950, a complete digitization of the entire run of Liberty Magazine, nearly 1,400 issues, with more than 17,000 fiction and non-fiction articles and thousands of advertisements all in a searchable, full-color format.
If the Stanley Cup playoffs have got you interested in ice hockey, you can read about its beginnings with “Hell on Skates – A look at Hockey, that mad, glad, man-smashing epidemic from Canada – Is it a Game or an Affliction?” (Feb. 17, 1934).
Or if the upcoming summer Olympics have you feeling less that athletically gifted, skim through a piece by Dr. Seuss, titled “Goofy Olympics” (June 4, 1932), and try your hands at Thumb Twiddling, the “newest Olympic game.” According to Dr. Seuss, “the majority of the enrolled competitors are Wall Street brokers, who have been kept in excellent practice ever since the crash of ’29.”
This unique archive houses treasures that will be useful for students and scholars of many disciplines as well as the general reader.
The historical archive of Liberty Magazine, long considered one of the greatest magazines in America, is now available in a digital format from Gale, a leading publisher of research and reference resources for libraries, schools and businesses and part of Cengage Learning. The Liberty Magazine Historical Archive, 1924-1950 is a complete digitization of the entire run of Liberty Magazine, nearly 1,400 issues, and contains over 17,000 fiction and non-fiction articles and thousands of advertisements all in a searchable, full-color format.
“This archive offers a rich perspective of the everyday lives of working and middle-class America, from the Roaring Twenties through the Great Depression and World War II,” said Jim Draper, vice president and publisher, Gale. “It will serve as an important resource for research on the 20th century, as primary sources for this time period are in high demand.”
Liberty Magazine, subtitled “A Weekly for Everybody,” was a general interest magazine founded in 1924 by Joseph Patterson, publisher of the New York Daily News, and Robert McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune and often regarded as the world’s greatest publisher. The magazine’s high-quality and originality of art, stories and features led to an ongoing circulation of 3 million weekly. The magazine’s prominence attracted original contributions from the greatest artists, writers, celebrities and statesmen of the age, including Walt Disney, F. Scott Fitzgerald, H.G. Wells, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mahatma Ghandi, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Babe Ruth and many more.
Gale licensed the magazine’s content from the Liberty Library Corporation, owned by Robert Whiteman, who has collected and organized the content over many years.
“I’m excited to see this great piece of Americana find new life among Gale’s distinguished digital newspaper collections,” said Robert Whiteman. “With articles like Joe DiMaggio’s ‘How much is a Ballplayer Worth?,’ Liberty Magazine content is just as relevant today as it was 60 years ago.”
The Liberty Magazine archive includes content from almost all genres – human interest stories, mysteries, westerns, love stories, humor stories, biographies and autobiographies of the rich and powerful – both famous and infamous, and some of the greatest World I & II stories. Liberty Magazine charted the moods, attitudes, lifestyles, fads, and fortunes of America through its three most significant decades. With approximately 100,000 pages, this easy-to-access collection offers primary source material for American studies, political studies, social and cultural studies, business history, global studies and international relations.
The Liberty Magazine Historical Archive, 1924-1950 will join the family of illustrated weeklies that Gale has made available digitally, including The Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938-1957and The Listener Historical Archive, 1929-1991. It will be cross-searchable on the Gale NewsVault platform.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Queen Victoria’s personal journals now available for public access, by Sue Polanka
London, 24 May 2012. HM the Queen launches online resource of all Queen Victoria’s Journals
Her Majesty The Queen today launched a unique online resource that makes available all the personal journals of Queen Victoria. The Bodleian Libraries working in partnership with The Royal Archives and information company ProQuest, have for the first time ever, made the private records of one of the world’s most influential public figures available for the public to access at www.queenvictoriasjournals.org.
The journals, which span Victoria’s lifetime and consist of 141 volumes numbering over 43,000 pages, have never been published in their entirety and previously were only accessible by appointment at the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. In addition to autograph diaries begun by the youthful Princess Victoria, there are edited versions from her later years, redacted and transcribed by the Queen’s daughter, Princess Beatrice.
Queen Victoria was a prolific writer and recorded her thoughts and experiences almost daily, starting with her first entry as a young girl of 13 and continuing until just weeks before her death in 1901. Her journals provide a fascinating insight into her life as Queen, giving an intimate first-person account of key events in her life and sixty-three years on the throne, from her coronation and her marriage to Prince Albert to the Diamond Jubilee of 1897. The journals also trace important events in political and social history such as meetings with her Prime Ministers, The Great Exhibition and the Crimean and Boer Wars, shedding previously unrecorded moments of significance for world history.
Throughout her journals pride and passion for country are revealed: ‘I really cannot say how proud I feel to be the Queen of such a Nation’ (28 June 1838). She writes about her travels across Britain detailing her views on the North-west, Black Country, Wales and Scotland, where on a visit to the Invertrossachs she writes: ‘The romance and wild loveliness … beloved Scotland the proudest, finest country in the world’ (2 Sept 1869).
The journals expose the challenges of duty, when she writes: ‘So much to do, so many boxes, letters, business…’(26 February 1862). They also reveal the impact of world events when she reflects on the Franco-Prussian War: ‘I ended this dreadful year of bloody conflict in no cheerful mood’ (31 Dec 1870).
Finally, the journals give insight into many personal experiences showing an unexpectedly intimate side to Queen Victoria. She writes of her early romance with Prince Albert: ‘He clasped me in his arms, and we kissed each other again and again!’ (10 Feb 1840), and describes giving birth: ‘A boy was born, to great happiness to me. Dr Snow administered ‘that blessed Chloroform’’ (the birth of Prince Leopold, 22 April 1853). Later in life she describes the loneliness of widowhood: ‘Here I sit lonely and desolate, who so need love and tenderness’ (10 March 1863).
All the journals are now available via this easy-to-use website and can be browsed and read online. Pages from the journals can be searched by date or place of writing, and transcriptions of each page–searchable by keyword–are currently provided for the period up to 1840, with further releases planned throughout the Diamond Jubilee year. The site includes an interactive timeline and drawings by Queen Victoria, along with selections from her sketchbooks. Finally, the site includes a number of essays about aspects of Queen Victoria’s life, authored by Sir Roy Strong, Laurence Goldman and Peter Ward-Jones among others.
Members of the public can also access the site to find out about key figures, events or places in history. In the year of our Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, users can even discover what Queen Victoria wrote about her own equivalent celebrations in 1897: ‘It was like a triumphal entry … one mass of beaming faces, and the cheers never ceased’ (21 June 1897).
The resource is available free of charge to all users in the United Kingdom and to the national libraries of Her Majesty’s Realms; users outside the UK can access the website until 30 June 2012. Thereafter, a specialized version for libraries will become available from ProQuest.
‘ProQuest is delighted to enable this content to be accessed and used by the global research community,’ said Rod Gauvin, ProQuest Senior Vice President. ‘It will be an important resource of primary materials for scholars worldwide, particularly those with an interest in British political and social history and those working on gender and autobiographical writing.’
Delivering the journals online has taken eight months to achieve and has involved specialist staff across the three organizations. Digital images of all journal volumes, along with drafts and illustrations, were created on site at the Royal Archives in the Round Tower at Windsor.
Dr. Sarah Thomas, Bodley’s Librarian said: ‘This initiative is a highly engaging and significant partnership across three organizations for the benefit of public and scholarly access to fascinating historical documents, and has been made possible with the support and generosity of Oxford benefactors The Polonsky Foundation and The Zvi and Ofra Meitar Family Fund.’
David Ryan, Assistant Keeper of the Royal Archives said: ‘The virtue of digital access is its ability to reveal the thoughts of Queen Victoria to millions around the world, providing them with a record of the important political and cultural events surrounding a monarch whose name defined an age.’
The Queen Victoria’s Journals website is mobile-compliant and can be viewed from all iPhones, Blackberry and Android phones. The website is supported by a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/queenvictoriasjournals and Twitter at @QueenVictoriaRI .
Bowker Research Shows Australia is a Global Leader in E-Book Adoption
From the press release by the Book Industry Study Group:
…The Global eBook Monitor finds that men are slightly more likely to have engaged with the digital book market than women. The 18-24 age group leads in use, just a little ahead of those aged 25-34. However, that may change shortly. ‘Although current e-book use tends to decrease with age, those most likely to come into the market in the next six months are somewhat older than current buyers,’ said Ms. Henry. ‘That’s the pattern we’re seeing in both the U.S. and the U.K.’
The Global eBook Monitor (GeM) tracks consumer purchases of e-books, and attitudes about e-books, in ten major world markets and aims to inform the publishing industry during a critical period of change. An annual study, over time it will create a unique view of market shifts in response to new digital formats. GeM currently operates in partnership with Pearson, Tata Consultancy Services, AT Kearney, and Book Industry Study Group (BISG). It employs online surveys hosted by Lightspeed Research or their affiliates in 9 countries, and by MTi in the US. The minimum number of respondents in each country was 1000; samples were designed and weighted to be representative of the adult (18+) population in terms of age, sex and region, but were by definition drawn from the online population only.
(Via BISG.org > Latest News.)
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