Daniel Reetz – “DIY Book Scanning”.
A presentation by Daniel Reetz from the Open Hardware Summit on the creation and evolution of the DIY Book Scanner project
Archive for the 'EBooks' category
Libraries, ebooks, and The Kindle Lending Club
A new startup, called The Kindle Lending Club, has been developed to meet the needs of Kindle owners in response to the new lending capability.
The Kindle Lending Club is the brainchild of Catherine MacDonald, who said that when she heard Amazon announce on December 30 that it was finally adding a lending option for Kindle, she decided to set up a Facebook group – a way to help people find others who were willing to share their e-books. But as interest in the group exploded, MacDonald realized that Facebook just didn’t offer the scalability needed for such an undertaking. “I had no idea how viral the idea was,” she says.
What is most interesting is how quickly she made this happen (emphases added).
So in less than two weeks’ time, she has pulled together the resources – about $12,500 in angel investment and a Web development team – to launch the Kindle Lending Club.
Two weeks!
This site brought a few questions to mind and I want to throw them out there and hope I get a response or two.
- I’ll say it again: two weeks. Why don’t libraries have this sort of turn around from idea to implementation? Can your library move this fast to grasp hold of an idea and get it past the gate? In light of the speed that the world now moves at, shouldn’t we be able to move this quickly? Do we have the option not to?
- Why didn’t a library step in to fill this need? If ebook downloads are rising, shouldn’t we be facilitating our users in getting ebooks for devices our vendors can’t/don’t/won’t support.
- Due to the ease with which ebooks can be created and shared online (for example, see my previous post on the upcoming Book Saver) will libraries just be pushed out of the ebook lending business? As we are wedded to vendor applications that are often slow and difficult for first time users to understand and use, will library users just take matters into their own hands, stop waiting for us and simply create the means to get what they want?
I’m looking forward to your feedback!
(Thanks to Nicole Hennig for the link)
Book Saver vs. DRM?
Book Saver, from Ion Audio, is a device designed to allow you to digitize your home library, at the cost of $150. For more information check out the company’s site and promotional materials.
Book Saver has two cameras that take separate images in rapid succession of each page within an open book. Both cameras of Book Saver also have a flash for allowing the page to be fully illuminated during the scanning process. Book Saver’s cradle, where the book is placed during the scanning process, is also angled as to not require you to hold pages down to get a flat, even surface. While similar devices require up to seven seconds per one page, Book Saver takes only one second per two pages!
Reported to become available in the summer, it will be interesting to see if it hastens the end of publisher’s use of DRM on ebooks, an end that was recently predicted in PricewaterhouseCoopers report, Turning the page: the future of ebooks.
In the long term, most experts expect cumbersome DRM will disappear and that developments on the eBook market will follow those that have been seen on the music market. Music publishers abandoned DRM in spring 2009, after a lengthy battle against file sharing. Experts believe that abolishing DRM is necessary sooner rather than later because illegal content will be available anyway as the market develops, and that DRM will not be able to perform its protection function. Most experts expect that soft DRM will become established.
Update: Soon after posting this I found the following video’s online; a promotional video from Ion Audio and a hands-on from this year’s CES.
