Digital Library Digest: June 15, 2012

E-book battle pits librarians against publishers

“‘We care about preserving the value of our authors’ work, as well as helping libraries continue to serve their communities,’ Penguin spokeswoman Erica Glass said. ‘Looking ahead, we are continuing to talk about our future plans for e-book and digital audiobook availability for library lending with a number of partners providing these services.’

“To librarians, being cut out of the loop is unacceptable.

“‘The publishers are being shortsighted,’ Bedford Public Library Director Maria Redburn said. ‘When a library purchases a book and someone borrows it, they may recommend it to friends who may go a bookstore and buy it. People who won’t buy a book by an unfamiliar author may check it out from the library, discover they really like that author and buy other books by that author.’”

From Terry Evans’ article in The Star Telegram, Libraries, publishers at odds over access to e-books

New patent aims to incentivize digital textbook purchases

“Last week, the 2006 patent for a ‘Web-based system and method to capture and distribute royalties for access to copyrighted academic texts by preventing unauthorized access to discussion boards associated with copyrighted academic works’ was approved by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The patent was granted to Joseph Henry Vogel, a professor at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras.

“Not surprisingly, legal scholars are highly skeptical that this patent violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the existing balance in copyright law. Current law provides exceptions to the copying of copyrighted material, including fair use and the first-sale doctrine, legally allowing books to be resold a second time. In addition, it would effectively prevent libraries from holding copyrighted works for student use.

“Vogel, in an e-mail sent to Ars, argued that his system will “make very significant inroads” in combating digital textbook piracy.

“’The system is to align incentives of all parties while enhancing efficiency and equity—twin goals of economic thinking,’ he added. ‘Yes, if someone is accessing a product or service that incurred costs in its production, they should pay.’”

From Cyrus Farviar’s article in Ars Technica, Patent granted to encourage purchase of digital textbooks

Finnish e-book concept connects digital content distribution with social media

“Ixonos supplies the technology solution for the Dimcos e-book and library store concept, which supports readers’ activities in social networks. The solution is built on the Ixonos Experience Store™ product, a digital marketing and content distribution platform. Ixonos also provides complete maintenance and hosting services for the solution on the Ixonos Elastic Cloud™ platform.

“Dimcos is a new e-book store concept where publishers can offer their publications for sale at the price of web advertising, with no commission charge. The readers of Dimcos e-books will be able to share their favorite e-book titles with other readers on social media, create personal social-media environments for discussions etc. The new concept will enable commenting or even creation of discussion forums within the book. HTML5 technology manages the copyrights and enables secure sales and distribution of books for tablets and other devices.”

From a press release from The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch, Ixonos Supports Dimcos in Launching a Groundbreaking e-Book Concept

Peer J’s business model anticipated to revolutionize open access publishing

“The company’s co-founders are Jason Hoyt, formerly the chief scientist and vice president for research and development at Mendeley, and Peter Binfield, until recently the publisher of PLoS One. The duo said they are poised to exploit a looming ‘wholesale move’ toward open access in academic publishing, and they ‘expect to be at the forefront of a revolution in how academic content is published and distributed.’

“PeerJ will do without the widely employed and often expensive article-processing charge (commonly called author fees) of other OA journals, which average about $900 per published paper, according to a recent study.

“Instead, PeerJ will use a ‘pay once, publish for life’ model, which will offer individual membership plans starting at $99. Authors who join are granted lifetime rights to publish for free in the company’s peer-reviewed journal, also called PeerJ. Each author on a paper must be a member.

“’We want to contribute towards moving all published research into an open access license as fast as possible,’ Binefield said. ‘The published output of scientific research is some of the most valuable content that our society produces, and it deserves the best possible treatment as it moves from the lab and into society.’”

From Michael Kelley’s article on The Digital Shift, New OA Journal, Backed by O’Reilly, May Disrupt Academic Publishing

Cervantes Institute adds 3,000 books to new virtual library

“The service was created to promote the culture and language of Spain and Ibero-America and is available on: www.cervantes.es/bibliotecas_documentacion_espanol/recursos_en_linea /libros_electronicos.htm, the institute said.

“All users with a Cervantes Institute library card, an electronic reading device and connection to the Internet can access the entire contents of the collection from any part of the world.

“The virtual library’s catalogue includes classical and contemporary literature by Spanish and Latin American authors, children’s books and works on linguistics, history and art.”

From the Fox News Latino article, Cervantes Institute debuts “virtual library” with 3,000 books