Dialogue on Scenarios for Global Copyright Reform and Public Interest IP Agenda
(infojustice.org): The past decade has been a turbulent one for the global intellectual property system in general and for the international copyright regime in particular. On the one hand, there is a trend pressing for greater access to knowledge that is fuelled by an unprecedented growth in communication and information… Read More
Open access comes of age
(nature.com): A study of open-access publishing — published last week in the open-access journal PLoS ONE — has found that the number of papers in freely accessible journals is growing at a steady 20% per year (M. Laakso et al. PLoS ONE 6, e20961; 2011). To many, the growth confirms… Read More
Ebook Spam Could Be the End of the Digital Publishing Industry
(goodereader.com): When e-readers first appeared, the naysayers swore it would never catch on. That claim has now been laid to rest, in light of news that e-books are outselling print on many platforms. But the ebook industry faces a severe threat, a new technique of spamming and piracy that may… Read More
Lifetime access to up-to-date info—is this the future of the textbook?
(arstechnica.com): Textbooks are not research-oriented, nor are they up-to-date. Most are already behind the times by the time you buy them. Of course, the relevance of having an updated textbook is field-dependent. Topics in biochemistry and molecular biology change much more quickly than those in general chemistry. Nevertheless, for many… Read More
Libraries Are Seeing Record Increases in eBook Borrowing
(goodereader.com): The American Library Association Conference is wrapping up in New Orleans and the unilateral consensus is that libraries all over North America are seeing significant cutbacks in their funding. It is no secret that libraries are seeing a decline and most often are a target when city counsels are… Read More
EBooks: Publishers + authors keen, but unprepared
(delimiter.com.au): Australia’s peak organisation representing the rights of copyright owners has published the results of an extensive survey demonstrating that the nation’s authors and publishers are enthusiastic about the burgeoning eBook revolution, but haven’t quite yet formulated all of their next steps in the new digital environment. CAL recently published… Read More
Library Cuts: UK Closures Ahead Of US, And More To Come For Both
(huffingtonpost.com): With ebook and ereader penetration growing ever deeper, does it even matter if we have libraries? The answer seems to be a resounding "yes." eBooks is still in its infancy. In the US, 75 percent of a publisher's business is print books and in the UK, though ownership of… Read More
Can metadata save us from cloud data overload?
(infoworld.com): It's clear that the growth of data is driving the growth of the cloud; as data centers run out of storage, enterprises spin up cloud storage instances. IDC's latest research of the digital universe suggests that data volumes continue to accelerate. Read More
E-textbooks are destroying the old publishing business model
(betanews.com): In May, Nature Publishing Group and California State University announced a three-year partnership to use $49 e-books for certain Biology classes over a more expensive and less versatile paper book. Soon, state universities in Texas and Florida will follow suit. While there are hundreds of startups pitching various ways… Read More
Does Microsoft Have Plans For E-book Readers?
(techie-buzz.com): Microsoft’s Worldwide Developers Conference has seen its fair share of drama. Microsoft showed phones it wasn’t authorised to and laid out a strategy that Nilay Patel at This is my next believes signals the end of Windows as a brand. Andy Lees talked about the future of Windows being… Read More
