During the recent American Library Association Mid-Winter Conference, we received the news that Overdrive is working on distribution agreements with Kondansha, Shogakukan, and other Japanese Manga publishers. The end result will see thousands of Manga titles available to libraries to integrate into their catalogs.CEO of Overdrive Steve Potash was in Japan a few weeks ago, … [Read more...] about Breaking: Overdrive to Bring Digital Manga to Libraries
Archives for January 2013
Barnes and Noble to Close 239 Bookstores
Barnes and Noble CEO chief executive Mitchell Klipper publicly announced that his company will close a number of stores in the next ten years. Currently B&N operates 689 bookshops in the US and also 674 college stores. The company intends on trimming the fat and down scaling to 450 retail locations.Mitcell recently talked to the Wall Street Journal and commented, "You … [Read more...] about Barnes and Noble to Close 239 Bookstores
American Library Association Mid-Winter Conference Wrap-Up
The American Library Association Mid-Winter Conference is almost wrapped up, and Good e-Reader was live on the scene. We talked to many of the leading digital publishing companies focused on the modern library, such as 3M, Overdrive, Zinio, Recorded Books, and a few others. This year, many of the leading publishers, such as Scholastic, Harper Collins, Penguin, and Macmillian, … [Read more...] about American Library Association Mid-Winter Conference Wrap-Up
Samsung Readers Hub 2.0 Now Supports EPUB3
Samsung has updated the seminal Readers Hub app to now support ePub3. The company has also developed its own self-publishing portal, which allows publishers to track, upload, and manage their ebooks. Right now, the app is only available for users on the Readers Hub 2.0, which is preloaded on the Samsung Galaxy Note II. Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note 10.1, and Galaxy … [Read more...] about Samsung Readers Hub 2.0 Now Supports EPUB3
ProQuest and Bibliotheque National de France to Digitize Important and Rare Works via Early European Books Program
Digitization of the world's heritage increases day by day. Now, ProQuest and the Biblioteque national de France have joined to digitize about 70,000 books from the library's collection of European books printed before 1700. The collection includes 3,000 works that were printed before 1501.According to the press release:The BnF's collection is vast and wide-ranging, … [Read more...] about ProQuest and Bibliotheque National de France to Digitize Important and Rare Works via Early European Books Program
Springer Book Archives Opens with 37,000 Books
The Springer Book Archives has opened, digitized, and released 37,000 book in January and will release more than 63,000 titles in 2013. The Springer Book Archives intends to digitize about 100,000 books dating from the 1840's and they will be available on the SpringerLink platform. Books will be e-reader compatible PDFs and will be DRM-free.While the actual digitization … [Read more...] about Springer Book Archives Opens with 37,000 Books
eBook Review: Love Unscripted by Tina Reber
Verdict: 4 StarsWhen I approached hybrid author Tina Reber for our interview a couple of weeks ago at an event in the Simon&Schuster offices, she took one look at my camera and called out, "No paparazzi!" I was confused, until I read her once-self-published romance, Love Unscripted. Her title, which was picked up and re-released by Atria Books, presents a very … [Read more...] about eBook Review: Love Unscripted by Tina Reber
President of ALA Maureen Sullivan Talks about the Shift to Digital
In the last few years, the transition to digital ebooks in libraries has been accelerating. Many companies such as 3M, Overdrive, Baker & Taylor, and Recorded Books have all come of age and offer complete solutions for libraries offering electronic books. The American Library Association President, Maureen Sullivan, spoke to Good e-Reader about some of the issues facing … [Read more...] about President of ALA Maureen Sullivan Talks about the Shift to Digital
New York Candidate Sees Digital Textbooks As Budget-Friendly Plan
Arguably, the New York City school system has its share of problems. Any system educating that 1.1 million children in grades kindergarten through high school spread out across nearly 1,700 schools obviously would. But one frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to take Mayor Michael Bloomberg's seat sees a lot of their problems being solved by better use of funds, namely in … [Read more...] about New York Candidate Sees Digital Textbooks As Budget-Friendly Plan
Hands on with the 3M SelfCheck System R-Series
The 3M Cloud Library System has a new terminal for overworked library staff that will allow customers to automatically checkout books in a library. The aptly named SelfCheck System R-Series is a cool system that will scan your library card and let you know the status of your current loans, or any fines you might have. You simply put a bunch of books on the bottom of the … [Read more...] about Hands on with the 3M SelfCheck System R-Series
Overdrive Demonstrates HTML5 Reading on the Wii-U
Overdrive is hoping to bring younger readers into the library to borrow digital books in innovative new ways. The company, famous for being the largest content distribution platform, showed off its Overdrive Read HTML5 platform today to Good e-Reader at the American Library Association Mid-Winter Conference in Seattle, Washington.The Nintendo Wii-U is the latest … [Read more...] about Overdrive Demonstrates HTML5 Reading on the Wii-U
IOS 6.1 Hints at a New 128 GB iPad
When the iPad 3 and 4 started to offer amazing resolution compared to the earlier models, people ran out of storage space fairly fast. Comics, movies, and apps are starting to take a large amount of memory and consistent file maintenance is often warranted. Beta Developers that are testing the new version of iOS 6.1 found an entry in one of the files that alluded to a new 128 … [Read more...] about IOS 6.1 Hints at a New 128 GB iPad
Amazon Not Collecting Georgia Sales Tax, Despite Jan 1st Deadline
Despite the furor over state-by-state sales tax only a few years ago, not much has been resolved in terms of deciding whether or not online retailers had to collect sales tax in each individual state. The major target of a lot of the activity concerning rewriting states' tax laws was Amazon, whom many felt was shirking its responsibility by not collecting and turning over tax … [Read more...] about Amazon Not Collecting Georgia Sales Tax, Despite Jan 1st Deadline
How to Take Screenshots on the Nook HD
The Barnes and Noble Nook HD has the ability to take screenshots directly on your e-reader. We have seen countless people try to take pictures of content right on the device, and often they do not look good. If you find yourself wanting to take a screenshot of anything happening on your device, our video tutorial will walk you through the entire setup.Taking a screenshot on … [Read more...] about How to Take Screenshots on the Nook HD
Zinio Talks Z-Pass Magazine Subscriptions and Recorded Books
Zinio is one of the largest digital magazine companies in the world. They have built their business by offering magazines on mobile devices, like the iPad. Since they were an early launch partner, they remain a fixture in the most popular app categories. They expanded to Android, Windows 8 and have developed a new HTML5 based website to read magazines. Today we caught up with … [Read more...] about Zinio Talks Z-Pass Magazine Subscriptions and Recorded Books
3M Discusses the Growth of Their Cloud Library
The 3M Cloud Library system is one of the newest entries to the market that focuses on getting libraries hooked up with the ability to loan out ebooks. The company has grown over the last year and now sees almost 1,000 different libraries offering its ebooks and other multimedia content to their patrons. We caught up with Tom Mercer, the Digital Library Business Development … [Read more...] about 3M Discusses the Growth of Their Cloud Library