American Library Association

The American Library Association (ALA) today released a new report examining critical issues underlying equitable access to digital content through our nation’s libraries. In the report, titled “E-content: The Digital Dialogue,”authors explore an unprecedented and splintered landscape in which several major publishers refuse to sell ebooks to libraries; proprietary platforms fragment our cultural record; and reader privacy is endangered.

Recently, the leadership of the American Library Association (ALA) met with senior management from several large publishing houses. Some of them allow libraries to purchase and own their e‑books (Random House; Perseus). Some of them are not making their e‑books available to libraries (Macmillan; Simon and Schuster). And some are somewhere in the middle (Penguin, until recently; and Harper–Collins with its "26 circulations" loan cap model). In all of our meetings with the publishing executives (all of the aforementioned except HarperCollins), we found that for those not making their e‑books available through libraries, the sticking point was identifying a business model that protected their digital editions from piracy and loss of sales. These are understandable concerns.

If you build it, they will come. Not just words of wisdom from a Kevin Costner movie anymore, but the experience of libraries across America. They’ve seen a triple-digit jump in the amount of digital lending during the last year due, in part, to the increased use of tablet devices such as the iPad, Kindle, and Nook.

News of the jump came from OverDrive, one of the leading global distributors of eBooks and audiobooks, which powers “virtual branch” sites for libraries and schools.

Publishing, that cheeky teaser of mind, body, and soul, enjoys the same level of excitement and drama as other fields, if not more. As with every industry out there, it plays host to a crazy ensemble cast of heroes, villains, threats, challenges, underdogs, and other archetypes. Then conflict happens — or at least publishers come across a conflict that needs addressing. What follows are just some of the few exciting adventures that go down in the publishing world.

World Book Night U.S. has announced the selection of its honorary national chairperson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Anna Quindlen, and revealed the WBN 2012 U.S. book picks. In addition, World Book Night U.S. has opened the registration process for those wishing to become volunteer book givers.

Earlier this month, a U.S. court of appeals ruled against a graduate student importing textbooks from Thailand and selling them online. This ruling may have far-reaching implications for libraries and secondhand book dealers.

There is a law called the First Sale Doctrine. According to the American Association of Law Libraries website, this means that "a person who buys a legally produced copyrighted work may 'sell or otherwise dispose' of the work as he sees fit, subject to some important conditions and exceptions."

OverDrive announced today that booksellers, libraries, and schools in its global network will soon have access to DRM-free eBook titles from O’Reilly Media.

At every stage of the extraordinary surge in the use of e-books over the past few years, issues have emerged that send all concerned into a swivet.

PDA has been increasingly adopted by libraries, and more digital distribution services are offering this as a purchase option.

181% Increase from 2008 to 2009 in the number of titles produced by self-publishers and "micro-niche" publishers, according to Bowker, a provider of bibliographic information management solutions. These types of publishers produced 764,448 titles last year.