2cultures.net(.au) » ebooks

Book ‘em, Bezos

feedback@digitalcampus.tv (Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media) — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:25:08 +0000

In this edition of the podcast, Dan, Amanda, Tom, and Mills are joined by Tim Carmody, senior writer for Wired, and it was very refreshing to record what we called a “fact-based” podcast for a change. At the top of the show, we got Tim’s take on the lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice against Apple and several of the major book publishers. Sharp-eared listeners will remember that we discussed this topic in the previous podcast–when it had first arisen. This time around, we were able to take advantage of Tim’s deep knowledge of this complex topic. In particular, we discussed why the average ebook consumer should care and whether the end result would be Amazon.com taking over the world. In addition, we discussed rental fees being recommended to Canadian universities for the use of digital journals, and whether Google Drive (yes, we said “Google” this time) would become part of our lives, or would it end up in the dustbin of history along with Google Wave and other such fails by the search giant.

Links:

DOJ Announces Terms of Settlement With 3 Publishers in E-Book Lawsuit
The most expensive copyright insurance policy in Canadian history
Introducing Google Drive…yes, really
Google Drive: A step closer to no-fuss cloud storage?

Running time: 1:12:35
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Book ‘em, Bezos

feedback@digitalcampus.tv (Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media) — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:25:08 +0000

Links:

Running time: 1:12:35
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Episode 84 – The One Where We Didn’t Say G****e

feedback@digitalcampus.tv (Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:19:58 +0000

This week we consider the question of whether Apple and five major publishers colluded to fix e-book prices and the prospect of a Department of Justice Anti-trust suit against them. We also argue the question of whether buy-in from Blackboard will be good or bad for open source learning management projects Moodle and Sakai and join the chorus of praise lauding the online release of the 1940 U.S. Census. On the lighter side, we check in on the ongoing saga of @FakeElsevier. Finally, we celebrate our unintentional, but surely very welcome, neglect of a certain not-evil web search and services company.

Late update: Since we recorded this episode on April 4, 2012, the DOJ showed its hand and officially filed suit against Apple and its partners in the publishing industry, announcing terms of a possible settlement with at least three publishers.

Other links mentioned on the podcast:
Bigger Than Agency, Bigger Than E-Books: The Case Against Apple and Publishers
Blackboard Buys 2 Leading Supporters of Open-Source Competitor Moodle
Fake Elsevier’s complaints about academic publishing leads to fake takedown notice
Big Day for Family History Hunters: 1940 U.S. Census Is Online

Running time: 45:38
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Episode 81 — Is There a Story Here?

feedback@digitalcampus.tv (Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:31:01 +0000

Sometimes we wonder to ourselves (and to those of you listening) whether some of the biggest “stories” in the world of digital media really are stories. Maybe it’s just us, but is it really news that Google is combining all of its user data into one big file? Or did Apple really revolutionize the textbook market? Dan, Amanda, and Mills asked these and other really, really big questions during the most recent podcast. Among those other questions were whether the growing boycott of Elsevier publications by scholars was really going to make a difference and why it should (or shouldn’t)? We also speculated on what it would be like to take an online course with 64,999 of your closest friends at a university called U-Da-City? To find out where we ended up on each of these very pressing issues of the day, give a listen and tell us what you think in that comment field below.

Links:

European Union Presses Google to E.U. to Delay Privacy Policy Changes
On (Not) Learning to Code
Elsevier Boycott Gathers Pace

Running Time: 46:40

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Anne Rice Coming to Google to Discuss “The Wolf Gift” on February 24

Inside Google Book Search — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:06:00 +0000

Posted by Ariel Levine, Google eBooks Associate

Anne Rice, author of Interview with the Vampire, The Witching Hour, and Angel Time: The Songs of the Seraphim will be coming to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View to discuss her latest book, The Wolf Gift, on Friday, February 24th at 10AM PST.

The Wolf Gift is a richly imagined story of a man turned wolf trying to figure out what his new reality means--all while trying to stay one step ahead of the people desperate to hunt him down. With this novel, Anne Rice makes an intriguing return to the gothic world her fans know and love, set this time not in her native New Orleans but along California's haunting mist-shrouded coast. Both searching and suspenseful, it’s a gripping exploration of a man both delighted and tormented by a life he could never have anticipated.

The talk will be live streamed on the Authors@Google YouTube channel, and there will be some time for fan questions. If you’d like to submit a question for consideration please visit our Google Moderator page for the event. We look forward to you joining us as we discuss the depths of this supernatural tale.

(Photo credit: Matthias Scheer @2010)

Read The Wolf Gift: Pre-order the ebook for The Wolf Gift today from Google eBooks (available February 14) for easy reading on tablets, smartphones, e-readers and the web.

Submit your questions for Anne Rice: Click on this Google Moderator page to submit your questions and vote on other fans’ questions. We will select some of the most popular questions to ask Anne Rice during the talk. The Google Moderator page is open from now until February 23rd, 12PM PT.

Watch the live YouTube broadcast: On Friday, February 24th, at 10AM PT, Anne Rice’s interview will be broadcast live from the Authors@Google YouTube channel, youtube.com/atgoogletalks. We'll also post the recorded interview on this page afterwards.

More about Anne Rice:

Check out her official website
Follow her on Twitter

Read some of her most popular books:

Doodling for Dickens’ Birthday: A behind the scenes look

Inside Google Book Search — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Posted by Ariel Levine, Google eBooks Associate

Today marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens' birthday (born February 7, 1812). To celebrate the life and work of one of the world's greatest storytellers, the Google doodle team created this fantastic celebratory doodle for our home page:

In addition, our Google Books editorial team curated a collection of free and featured Dickens classics available in the Google eBookstore in Dickens' native land (United Kingdom) and some Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia) as well as the US -- a relatively new nation that Dickens himself visited in 1842 and 1867.

As anyone who has read a Dickens novel can attest, they are full of memorable characters, realism, humor, lyricism, and social commentary. He is considered one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian era, and responsible for some of the most iconic stories in English literature. Contemplating Dickens’ diversity of characters and themes, I wondered how the artist who created the Dickens doodle, Mike Dutton, handled the challenge.

Prior to working at Google, Mike was a freelance artist, and illustrated several children’s books, including Donovan's Big Day. He is no stranger to making the words on a page come alive through imagery.

Mike has worked on countless doodles, some honoring other authors like Richard Scarry, and others celebrating events like the Royal Wedding and the World Cup. His favorite doodles to work on (so far!) were Mary Blair’s 100th birthday and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (author of The Little Prince).

When asked about his experience trying to represent Dickens, Mike said that it posed a greater challenge than most. “Google doodles,” he said, "are intended to be fun and delightful"; however Dickens’ work is frequently serious in tone. So I decided to focus on Dickens’ characters to bridge this gap.”

And Mike’s doodle is full of characters! We see Nell and her grandfather in the The Old Curiosity Shop, many characters from Little Dorrit, Oliver and his friends from Oliver Twist and Estella and Pip from Great Expectations. Even a certain French aristocrat graces the doodle, sitting inside the uppercase “G” -- a reference to his eventual death by guillotine. And no tribute to Dickens would be complete without Ebenezer Scrooge and a vivid depiction of London in the background.

Mike said that while he normally works on his tablet, he had to go back to a physical drawing board for the Dickens doodle, creating each character separately so that he could place them within different parts of the Google logo. Like an engineer, he likes to iterate on what he designs until he gets it right.

Mike’s puzzle – layering characters from Great Expectations and Oliver Twist

When I visited his office, I also saw that like other artists, Mike immersed himself in his subject. He had Dickens’ novels stacked by his desk, as well as images from adaptations of the author’s novels pinned to his wall.

“Just happy to be here.”

Interestingly, while a doodler’s work neither hangs in a museum nor receives the reverence of a Da Vinci or a Picasso, the illustrations are perhaps more widely and instantly viewed than any other artists’ in history. When asked about this, Mike responded:

“Sometimes I feel I got to cut in line somewhere along the artist’s journey. Being a doodler is a very fun job, but we take it seriously. Our ultimate goal is to engage and delight users, but we want to make sure we really pay proper homage to each figure along the way too.”

Mike’s doodle lets Dickens’ characters speak to the author’s impact, the way Dickens himself used them to speak his messages to the world. They are familiar, warm, and tell their sometimes harsh stories in a way that makes us want to take notice and enjoy. He uses them to successfully capture what made Dickens’ great: characters that are real to us.

Find out more about Dickens’ work and Google doodles:

Browse our Free and Featured Collection of Dickens' pieces (available in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Australia)
Learn more about Google doodles

Episode 80 – Law Soup

feedback@digitalcampus.tv (Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:51:25 +0000

Friend of the podcast Peter Hirtle stands in for Amanda to give Tom, Mills, and Dan some much needed legal education as we take on SOPA, PIPA, the Research Works Act, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Golan v. Holder [PDF]. We also consider Apple’s attempts to shake up the textbook market and the sad fate of two very old University of Nevada at Reno students’ Facebook pages.

Links mentioned on the podcast:

Apple Introduces Tools to (Someday) Supplant Print Textbooks
Apple’s mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement
How Wikipedia Turned Off the Lights
Publishers Applaud Research Works Act
Supreme Court Upholds Law That Pulled Foreign Works Back Under Copyright
Facebook Deletes University’s History Project for Violating Social Network’s Rules

Running time: 1:00:31
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East West Bookstore: Lending a personal touch to eBooks

Inside Google Book Search — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:03:00 +0000

This is a guest blog post written by Graham Waldon, manager of East West Bookstore, an independent bookseller based in Mountain View, California

People are more important than things. That motto lies at the heart of what we believe at East West Bookstore, lending a certain resonance to our partnership with Google and its philosophy of "focus on the user and all else will follow."

East West is not just a business. It is above all a resource for expansive ideas, a retreat from ordinary life, and a gathering place in support of community ideals and spiritual growth. True spirituality is always current, vibrant, and applicable to daily life, not something to be hidden away or buried in the depths of history. In that spirit, East West always strives to evolve and adapt to people's current needs. One of our fun new evolutions this past year has been our integration with Google to sell Google eBooks on our website.

Our partnership has given us a complete ebookstore, with a vast selection, so that as more and more people move to ebooks, we'll be there ready for them. Since we rely heavily (like all independent bookstores) on people who love helping to support us, we're glad we can offer them this way of doing so. And when you buy a Google eBook from us, you're supporting more than just East West. You're serving our whole community by supporting an important spiritual and cultural resource that is unique in the Bay Area.

Some of us on the staff here already take our eReaders with us wherever we go, and many of our customers are the same way. For those who aren't, we held a "technology petting zoo" event on January 3rd for folks who were just looking for a friendly way to dip their toes in and find out what this whole ebook thing is all about. With help from some of our Google friends, we had demonstrations, one-on-one assistance, and a variety of devices -- including an iPad, iPhone and Android devices -- on hand for people to try out.

Customers who came out enjoyed the event, learned a lot about eReaders and apps, and became more familiar with our ebookstore. A visiting couple from Portland was glad to be able to support East West even after they headed back home, by purchasing eBooks. A local author was inspired to get her own book published through Google eBooks. And everyone enjoyed exploring the expanded possibilities of reading in the digital age.

Check out East West's ebookstore.

Hundreds of bookstores across the US are also selling Google eBooks. To find your nearest participating independent bookstore and learn how you can support them through Google eBooks, visit http://www.indiebound.org/google-ebooks. For customers outside the US, you can search for participating stores in Australia, Canada and the UK.

Pre-order your favorite ebooks at the Google eBookstore

Inside Google Book Search — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:00:00 +0000

Posted by Stella Loh, Google eBookstore Product Manager

Excited about Michael Connelly's upcoming new book The Drop? Can't wait to get your hands on True Blue by Diana Palmer? Worried your bookstore will run out of Dean Koontz's The Moonlit Mind before you can get your copy?

Have no fear: Pre-ordering in the Google eBookstore is here!

We are excited to announce that the our eBookstore now supports pre-orders for many titles that have not yet been released. No longer must you wait outside in long lines and in the cold, or worry that you'll forget to call ahead with enough time to reserve a copy of that sequel you've been dying to read.

Simply sign into your Google Account, search for the title you want to pre-order and click on "Pre-order eBook" button.

After you’ve confirmed your pre-order, the title will appear in your purchase history. Once the title is officially released to the public, your credit card will be charged, and we'll send you an email letting you know that your book is ready to read!

Ebooks in Education: A Videoconference Discussion

Lisa Spiro — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:33:40 +0000

What are the implications of ebooks for education? At an impromptu session on November 8, participants explored ebooks’ potential to foster collaboration, greater interactivity, and convenient access, as well as obstacles to integrating ebooks into education, such as cost and restrictions on usage. We began by discussing a recent ebrary survey that found that student usage [...]

A visit from Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Egan

Inside Google Book Search — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:54:00 +0000

Greg Sanders, Technical Writer, DoubleClick and display products

We were pleased to host Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, for an Authors@Google event in our New York office this August. I had the pleasure of moderating the talk with Egan in front of a group of Googlers.

Although the cast of characters spanning Goon Squad is vast and raucous, Egan is most interested in the sometimes self-destructive, sometimes tender-hearted protagonists, a music producer and former punk-rocker, Bennie Salazar, and his klepto assistant, Sasha.

The book has received much press focused on the nonlinear nature of its narrative. Rather than flowing predictably from past to present to future, the chapters are ordered either to trace the threads of the characters' lives – to lend credence and nuance to their current state of mind – and sometimes as needed to maintain the plot’s tension. For example, we're led back in time to the formative days of West Coast punk, then thrust a decade or two into the future of lower Manhattan, all with interesting effect, especially as regards Egan's take on technology. Yet I found other aspects of her novel even more intriguing.

First, as a fiction writer myself, I was impressed with the control and narrative prowess Egan exhibits in Goon Squad, including the numerous voices and styles she employs to tell her story. I was particularly interested in one "future" chapter, told by the sister of an Aspergian child, called "Great Rock 'n' Roll Pauses," that presents its narrative in the form of a series of graphs and charts. (Makes us wonder how data narratives will fit with straight-up storytelling in the future.) In addition, she clearly grants her imagination broad license. I wanted to understand how she manages her creative process, and wondered if she had a model that was generalizable for writers and engineers (remember, this is Google) alike.

To prepare for the role as moderator, I made a mental map of the narrative arcs that intersect across the chapters; I read the book a second time and took notes on character names, places, plot points, settings, etc. I then began generating potential points of discussion. When I felt I had a critical mass of questions, I typed them up on index cards (see a sampling) using a manual typewriter. Egan, I discovered in my research, writes all of her early drafts in longhand. This would prompt at least one question I'd ask her: does the mode we write in influence the content we write?

The discussion with Egan was fast-paced and improvisational. She clearly enjoys expanding on the themes of her work – technology, music, the perception of time, the nature of memory – and is refreshingly open about the process she goes through while writing a book like Goon Squad. Take a look for yourself.

Egan speaks at Authors@Google in our New York office

Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad is available as a Google eBookstore, as well as other novels by her (available in certain countries):

Episode 75 — The Kindle Crack’d

Amanda French — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 19:27:37 +0000

In this episode of Digital Campus, Tom, Mills, and Amanda (sans Dan) touch briefly on the passing of Steve Jobs and discuss Apple’s announcement of iOS5, the release of the Kindle Fire and other new Kindle products, the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Project Directors meeting, and one university’s brief ban on social media sites. We also agree that “Nickerson” probably isn’t the best name for a razor company.

Links:

Jobs, Apple co-founder and visionary, is dead, New York Times
Apple releases iOS5, CNET News
Amazon unveils $199 Android Kindle Fire tablet, $99 e-ink Kindle Touch, Ars Technica
The Promise of Digital Humanities, Inside Higher Ed
Back in Blackout, Inside Higher Ed

Running time: 41:35
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A Google chat with Nobel Peace Prize-winner Leymah Gbowee

Inside Google Book Search — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:37:00 +0000

Posted by Anna Tong, Google eBooks Associate

Last Wednesday, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee stopped by Google to discuss her new memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War (Beast Books, 2011). We were fortunate to have this extraordinary individual visit just two days before she found out she was one of three women awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

By way of background, Liberia in the early 2000s was a country ravaged by a civil war that had claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people. But the country's president refused to hold peace talks. Meanwhile the fighting continued, and warlords trained child soldiers. In the midst of this chaos, Gbowee had a dream.

"I heard a voice, and it was talking to me, commanding me: Gather the women to pray for peace!" she writes.

Gbowee began organizing Liberian women of all ages, backgrounds and religions. Hers is an amazing tale of women’s unity: dressed in white, they picketed for months and confronted Africa’s male leaders. Thanks to their efforts peace was achieved, and in 2005, Liberia elected Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - the first modern-day female head of state in Africa.

Google vice president Megan Smith talks with Leymah Gbowee

I had the good fortune of being able to sit down with Leymah before her talk and ask her some questions. The first two questions are excerpted from my conversation with Leymah, while the second two are questions asked by Google audience members during her talk:

Q: What advice can you give to girls around the world?

A: Something that happens to girls that's universal and across all social statuses is that we let little things take our focus away. Whether you're a girl from Liberia or the U.S. or Hong Kong, you will have challenges. Don't let your story be that you didn't mount those challenges, whether in school or in your social life.

Q: A central story in your memoir is your relationship with an abusive man. That's something many women can relate to. What's your advice to them?

A: I always make myself available to listen in a non-judgmental way. When you are in an abusive relationship, the person is making you believe you can't get out, nobody will love you, etc. I try to sit and listen to women and I never criticize. I'm that shoulder. I'm there. I let them know there's always a place to come to if they need something. I've found myself helping women with finances if they make the decision to run away – I did this with girls who were married to ex-combatants.

Q: Were you ever afraid?

A: The war started when I was 17. I had my moments with terror in those early stages. The first time I saw a dead body I froze. By the time I was 31 I could walk over a dead body without a second thought. I had become immune to anything called fear.

Q: The Western media made a big deal out of the Liberian women withholding sex while advocating for peace, but it wasn’t a huge part of your memoir. What are your thoughts on that?

A: In [the US] the sex industry keeps the financial wheels turning... that over-objectification, it's destroying not just this country but our country as well. When I was growing up I sold donuts. Now girls say, "Why do I want to sell a donut when I can sell myself and make $20?" [Google needs] to start a campaign here showcasing very smart women turning on their brains... it is part of your corporate social responsibility.

Mighty Be Our Powers, which is available as an ebook in the Google eBookstore (US-only), reveals Leymah's personal history. It's a powerful story: after reading it, the CEO of Barnes & Noble was so moved that he personally paid for Leymah's book tour. In the book, she writes about events in her life like having a happy childhood, an abusive relationship, and what it was like growing up in war-torn Liberia.

The Perfect Storm Gathers Strength

Mills — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:46:57 +0000

It’s not really news that electronic publishing is wrecking havoc on the traditional publishing industry. In fact, it’s such old news, that I feel a little funny even writing a post about epublishing. But this past weekend, it became clear to me just how doomed academic publishers are.

What happened to finally convince me that it’s time for university presses and other publishers of the conventional academic monograph to give up completely on the analog book as a source of revenue (or more likely a source of losses these days)? Recently, I wrote about the publication of Hacking the Academy (edited by my colleagues Dan Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt). In that post, I mused about wishing for an epub version of the book so I could read it on my iPad and presto!, Mark Sample made one and posted it up for me and anyone else who wanted it.

How could it be so simple, I wondered?

Anyone who knows me knows that of all the key staffers at CHNM, my tech skills probably rate at the bottom of the heap. I can write some wicked html (does anyone still do that?) and know just enough php and MySQL to be dangerous. And I can make PhotoShop do everything I want it to (which isn’t all that much). Other than that, I’m pretty sad when it comes to real tech skills. For instance, I can’t remember the last time I actually saw the command line on my laptop screen.

So I approached the whole question of how to create an ebook with some real trepidation. It must be difficult, at least for people like me with not much in the way of serious tech skills. Or so I thought.

Instead, it turned out to be shockingly easy to create an epub that looked very good when ported over to my iPad. It was so easy, that it became clear to me just how liitle I need a press to publish my work. Of course, I’m not the only one who has come to this revelation–in fact, I’m coming to it pretty late in the game. But the very fact that I could go from knowing nothing to publishing a nice looking ebook in about three hours shows just how low the bar has gotten when it comes to publishing one’s work in a format now widely accepted in the marketplace.

How did I do it? I downloaded the free program Sigil and started copying and pasting text into it. Because Sigil uses a WYSIWYG editor, it couldn’t be much easier to use. My test case was ten entries from this blog, which I simply copied into the editing window and in minutes I had created a book from my posts. The book had chapters, a table of contents, and page numbers, all at the click of a mouse. Adding an image to the cover turned out to be more difficult than I thought–remember, limited tech skills–but I’ve seen how it’s done and am confident that with another hour or so on my hands, I can do it. The final product needs some cleaning up and I’ll probably end up changing the fonts, but if I weren’t picky about the look and feel, I could publish it online right now.

If I can create a book in under three hours from text I’d already written, imagine what this means for the scholarly endeavor. We all know how it used to work. A scholar completes the research and writing of a book, sends proposals around to appropriate presses, one of them issues a preliminary contract and sends the book out to readers, the readers report in, the editorial board decides whether or not to publish the book, if the answer is yes, the book goes into production (and maybe still editing) and about a year or even two years after the scholar mailed out his or her proposals to publishers, a book appears at last. Journal editors receive free copies which they dutifully farm out to reviewers, who take their sweet time writing their reviews, which then appear sometime (we hope) within a year of the date of publication of the book.

Now imagine an alternate universe where the scholar completes the research and writing of a book, identifies two to four experts in the field, sends them the manuscript for review, gets feedback, makes any suggested changes he/she feels are warranted, maybe hires a grad student in the English department to read the whole thing for typos and syntax problems, then ports the text over into a ebook creator like Sigil, fusses with the formatting for a few weeks, and publishes the book on his/her website, and via various platforms such as iBooks, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, etc. Journal editors are notified of the publication of the new ebook and then send links to reviewers, requesting formal reviews. But the author also receives reviews over the transom on his/her website and so the process of peer review begins much more quickly.

Oh, and any profit from the sale of the work goes to the author, not the press. In the case of my first book, I’m guessing that might have added up to $500, i.e., $1 per book sold, but that’s still $500. And as a recent article in the Washington Post pointed out, some authors who follow my second model, cutting out the presses, are making a very good living writing and self-publishing.

But what about the peer review process you are wondering? In an interview I did back in 2008 with our Provost, Peter Stearns, a man who knows a thing or two about peer review, Stearns argued that peer review does not have to take place prior to publication to qualify as peer review. I agree with Stearns on this issue, because, it seems to me, what matters is the quality of the work and the quality of the peer review, not the order that these two things happen.

But no matter. The forces of disintermediation are already more powerful than the inertial forces holding the remnants of the scholarly printing industry together. And, like Shiva, they will blast the world asunder sooner rather than later. Now that I know how to publish an ebook, I no longer fear that perfect storm.

Episode 73 — Farewell Steve Jobs

Digital Campus — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:49:29 +0000

A few days before we recorded the latest episode of Digital Campus, Apple visionary and guru of all things cool in digital technology Steve Jobs announced that he would step down as CEO in what we assume will be the end of his adept micromanaging of the business. Tom, Dan, Amanda, and Mills mused on what Jobs’ legacy will be and how the tech world may or may not be different without him. Will we feel like orphans now that the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Sphere can no longer descend upon us at times of severe tech ennui? And what about those other digital orphans — the “orphan books” we hear so much about? Amanda reviewed for us the latest on this subject coming out of the University of Michigan Library and some of us agreed that we will henceforth banish the term “orphan work” from our vocabulary. Why? Listen and learn. And from what we learned about student searching skills, someone should start teaching students more about online quests for information. That someone could be you.

Links to stories covered in the podcast:

Stanford Silicon Valley Archives
Orphan Books Online
Student Searching Skills

Running time: 37:56
Download the .mp3