| Overdrive has announced that library patrons using their system have now borrowed over 100 million audiobooks and eBooks. This is a massive achievement because the company has only been marketing digital content since the year 2000. Libraries have definitely been embracing the digital format. In 2014 ten different libraries in Canada and the United States had over one million eBook checkouts. This is a significant increase from the six libraries that achieved the milestone in 2013. What type of eBooks are being loaned out the most? Overdrive is starting to monthly reports from over 34,000 libraries and schools allover the world. H TOP 5 MOST BORROWED EBOOK TITLES FROM LIBRARIES IN AUGUST
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Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Libraries Have Loaned out 100 million Audiobooks and eBooks
Barnes and Noble Will Soon Unveil an 8 Inch Nook Tablet
| Barnes and Noble has a new six inch e-reader coming out this week and they also have a new tablet they will be releasing on the same day. The Nations largest bookseller is continuing their relationship with Samsung and the hardware will be based on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 is poised to go on sale this Friday, which is the same date as the new Nook Tablet and Nook e-Reader are poised to be announced. The tablet features an 8 inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1536 x 2048 pixels with 320 PPI. Underneath the hood is a Octacore processor featuring a Quad-core 1.9 GHz & quad-core 1.3 GHz. There will be 3G of RAM and an SD card that supports up to 128 GB of extra memory. It is unclear whether Barnes and Noble will support two different variants of memory, since Samsung has both 32/64 GB for internal storage. You will be able to take pictures via the rear facing 8 MP camera or employ the front-facing 2 MP camera for video conferencing. If you purchase this tablet it will have a fairly modern version of Android, in the form of v5.0.2 (Lollipop). It will be bundled with the Google Play app store, Nook App Store and Samsung App Store. So there will be shortage of ways you can download anything you need. B&N will also be loading in all of the apps that debuted on the Samsung Galaxy Tab for Nook, such as their e-book store, library, magazine system and customized settings menus. Barnes and Noble has telegraphed the new Samsung 8.0 tablet via their website where they have a few new two-way cases. The big question is, will you buy this tablet? It has way better resolution, processor power and RAM than any other Nook tablet to date. |
Kobo Touch 2.0 Tech Specs Announced
| Kobo has officially announced the Kobo Touch 2.0 on their blog and unlike the Indigo leak last week, we now have a sense of what type of specs this e-reader has.
Supported e-book formats eBooks: EPUB, EPUB3, PDF, and MOBI |
Should eBook Readers Without Frontlights Be Phased Out?
| With the release of the new Kobo Touch 2.0, it’s hard not to ask the obvious question: Why are ebook readers without frontlights still being made? A lower entry-level price is the only answer that makes any sense. But you have to wonder if that’s really working out for the better in the long run. […] |
Kobo Touch 2.0 Officially Announced, Arrives September 9th
| This past weekend the Kobo Touch 2.0 turned up for sale on the Chapters.Indigo website before any kind of announcement was made about its existence. Then the listing was taken down yesterday. This kind of thing happens all the time when Kobo goes to release a new model. Some retailer puts it up on their […] |
What is Amazon Underground?
| Amazon Underground is a new app store that has thousands of games and apps available completely for free – even those that cost money on other app stores, with no catches. You will be able to download popular titles such as Fruit Ninja, Goat Simulator and Star Wars Rebels: Recon Missions, OfficeSuite Professional 8 and many more. What is most compelling, is that none of the apps that are available have micro-transactions of any kind. Amazon Underground is redefining the Android app store experience and making the entire process very lucrative for developers. Normally when companies design and make an app they charge a one time fee. Sometimes its as low as .99, in other cases it’s close to twenty dollars. Amazon Underground will give you the app for free, but for every hour that you actually use it, developers will net twelve cents. Amazon is monetizing the Underground platform by running advertisements and the revenues that it brings in will be used to pay for developers. The ultimate hope is that more people will jump ship to Amazon from Google Play, allowing Amazon to generate more profit and in turn woo more developers to put their apps on their platform for free. In order to make the launch of Amazon Underground a success the Seattle company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Vine celebrities to hype up the service. To date, these have racked up millions of views and likely contributed to brand awareness for the millennial generation. Things aren’t complete rosy with the Underground launch. Customers have noticed that Amazon got rid of its Free App of the Day program and many people have been wary of installing Underground because of privacy issues. When you install it for the first time it wants access to a litany of personal information that some people are finding intrusive. On the other hand, sacrificing some of your private info to download thousands of paid apps might seem like a good trade-off. Amazon has promised that Underground is not a limited time promotion, but will be a normal way of doing business going forward. You can download Amazon Underground from the Good e-Reader App Store. |
Todd’s 10 deserted island books
| Ed. Note: This is the 4th in our series of books we'd take on a deserted island if we could only pick 10. Today’s list comes from Collection Development Analyst, Todd Warhola. Thanks again to Time Magazine for the idea!
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace Smart and funny essays by a great writer. He is somehow able to make a review of the dictionary engrossing. Even if you have reservations about his fiction, give these essays a shot, you will not be disappointed. American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis If you thought the movie was violent…read the book. White Noise by Don DeLillo DeLillo captured what it's like to live today in a world dominated by media and technology but he did it 30 years ago. Self Help by Lorrie Moore Her stories are brilliant, wry, and beautifully crafted. The story "How to Become a Writer" says all I need to say, "First, try to be something, anything, else." The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel by Amy Hempel I read "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried" at least once a year. You have never read a story so uplifting about a best friend dying. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris The title story in which Sedaris takes a French class in Paris will make you laugh for a very long time. "Sometimes me cry alone at night." Firebird by Mark Doty This may be the most beautiful book I have ever read. Doty's prose is otherworldly. Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk A story about the last remaining member of a suicide cult who becomes a steroid filled messiah and spends the entire book narrating his story after hijacking a plane. What more do you want? Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson A wonderfully sad book. Robinson, as everyone knows, is just fabulous. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman Funny, absurd, and random. Klosterman has a voice unlike any other and the passion to focus on subjects that many of us don't even consider.
Todd Warhola is a Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive  |
Fish tank temperature probe: an ideal beginner’s project
| Determined to redress the moggie-doggie bias of the internet Lauren Orsini decided to use a Raspberry Pi and a waterproof temperature sensor to monitor her fish tank. It's not a recent project but it deserves a place here because it's such a brilliant introduction to physical computing on the Raspberry Pi: one sensor, one purpose and a few lines of "English with a funny syntax" (aka Python). It's a great tutorial too—Lauren writes clearly and shares her beginner's point of view, documenting things that more experienced people might take for granted. The setup is based on a tutorial from Adafruit and although Lauren hadn't done any "hardware hacking" before, she says that the hardest part was "taping the wires inside the temperature sensor to the wires that fit inside the breadboard." So it's a real beginner's project but one that can be expanded as you learn. Lauren, for instance, extended the project to turn it into a true Internet of Things device that texts her when the fish tank gets too hot. All in all it's a great way to slowly build your Raspberry Pi computing skills. It's also pocket money cheap. In fact if you already have the CamJam EduKit #2 then you already have the kit needed for this project. And of course the sensor doesn't have to be in a fish tank. Monitor the temperature of your bathwater; your cup of tea; the fridge; your dad’s armpit while he dozes in front of the TV. If you're looking for something to do with your Pi on the last day of your summer holiday then this comes highly recommended.
Bonus back to school question #1: If 'dogs' = 5; 'cats' = 2; and 'cheese' = 1, what is the value of 'fish'? Answer tomorrow… The post Fish tank temperature probe: an ideal beginner’s project appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Monday, August 31, 2015
8% Tax will be applied to all Kindle ebooks in Japan
| Starting October 1, 2015 an 8% consumption tax will be applied to all Kindle ebooks sold to customers living in Japan. One-time Adjustment for Existing KDP Titles Beginning October 1, list prices set for Amazon.co.jp will be tax-inclusive, meaning that the 8% consumption tax will be included in the list price that authors establish. For example, if you set your Amazon.co.jp list price at ¥1250, your new tax-inclusive list price would be ¥1250. Tax will be deducted from this price, and your royalties would be calculated on a resulting price of ¥1157. Minimum and Maximum List Prices The minimum and maximum list prices for the 35% and 70% royalty plans will now also be inclusive of tax. Previously the minimum and maximum list price for the 35% royalty plan were ¥99 and ¥20,000 respectively. The new minimum and maximum list prices for the 35% royalty plan will be ¥99 and ¥20,000 inclusive of tax (or ¥91.67 and ¥18,518.52 exclusive of tax). Similarly, the minimum and maximum list prices for the 70% royalty were ¥250 and ¥1250. The new minimum and maximum list prices for the 70% royalty plan will be ¥250 and ¥1250 inclusive of tax (or ¥231.48 and ¥1,157.41 exclusive of tax). Setting List Prices for Amazon.co.jp Starting October 1, to make it easier to set customer friendly list prices without having to calculate tax, authors will set list prices for the JP marketplace that include consumption tax. To accommodate this, the KDP pricing grid will be updated to accept tax-inclusive list prices. In the pricing page, authors will also see their suggested price without tax to help them understand how royalties will be calculated. For those authors who set their JP marketplace price automatically from their US list price, we will convert the US list price to local currency and that will be the list price that includes tax. |
Rachel Kray’s 10 deserted island books
| Ed. Note: This is the 3rd in our series of books we'd take on a deserted island if we could only pick 10. Thanks again to Time Magazine for the idea!
Stories don't get more compelling than this. I plan to read this book once a year and no desert island will stop me! A powerful love story that paints a rich picture of the New York City lifestyle and culture in the 60s and 70s. Anyone who has ever loved a punk rock song, a piece of art, or has loved love itself will be captivated by every one of Smith's words. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling Three words: The Prince's Tale. Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins Tom Robbins obviously had lots of fun writing this book and I always have even more fun reading it. Quirky, brilliant, and hilarious – this book is my go-to read when I'm feeling down. If I was stranded on a deserted island, I might finally have time to read this one J The Weirdness by Jeremy Bushnell A "hipster" sells his soul to the devil in a last ditch attempt to sell his novel. And there's also werewolves and an evil wizard trying to end the world with a very special lucky cat. Hilarious with brilliant prose, this book in unlike anything else I've ever read. We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver Exceptionally well written and equally disturbing, I would bring this book with me to remind myself that there are worst things than being stuck on a deserted island. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood I generally consider this title my all-time favorite book so this was a no brainer. I could also learn from survival and coping tips from the characters. Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs I love a good memoir and they don't get much better than Augusten Burroughs. I could read his writing all day and would love to do so. This book is my idea of a perfect beach read. Is that weird of me? Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron This is my ultimate 'feel-good' read. Also, I'm sure I'd miss my own orange tabby while marooned on an island so this book would certainly make me feel better.  |
10 Free Kindle eBooks and 90% Off Book Deal for Students
| Amazon is running a big sale on Kindle ebooks for students today only, August 31st. The deal takes up to 90% off Kindle ebooks for students, with over 425 titles being offered. I’ve also included a list of 10 highly-rated free Kindle ebooks below. Please note that the Kindle ebooks are free as of August […] |
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein: A perfect back to school book club read
| Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein is a New York Times Bestseller and has received starred reviews from both Booklist ("An ode to libraries and literature that is a worthy successor to the original madman puzzle-master himself, Willy Wonka.") and Kirkus (“Full of puzzles to think about, puns to groan at and references to children's book titles, this solid, tightly plotted read is a winner for readers and game-players alike.”). It is recommended for ages 8-12, grade levels 3-7 and boasts a mere 336 pages of fun from Yearling Publishers. This is a story about an eccentric billionaire, Mr. Lemoncello, who decides to donate funds to rebuild the town library. Mr. Lemoncello made his fortune by creating games and this influences the making of an eclectic library layout. He decides to award some children a sneak peek at the library before it officially opens. Reminiscent of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we follow the adventures of these children trying to "Escape for Mr. Lemoncello's library". I recommend this book to book clubs and readers of all ages. Additionally, there are many ways you can incorporate this book into your fall library programs. For schools, consider displaying the book prominently in your media center. Make it your book club's first eRead of the school year. (Don't forget that September 18th is International Read an eBook Day!) Display the eBook on your monitors in the media center during Open House night. Create gaming tables and include old favorites like checkers, Candy Land, and Jenga! Be sure to load your digital library with plenty of fun read-a-likes and gaming books from OverDrive. OverDrive has curated lists for the books in Mr. Lemoncello's Library and read alikes. Chris Grabenstein even has a scavenger hunt for your library. Simply go to his web site, and follow the clues…er directions. Enjoy the Escape from Lemoncello's Library, have fun with your students and patrons while reading fun books like this one and others like it, and may you all have a successful year. As Mr. Lemoncello says: "Knowledge not shared remains unknown."
Sheila Henline is a Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive  |
Toshiba BookLive! e-Book Store is Closing
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Toshiba has been operating their own online digital bookstore since 2010 called Bookplace. They initially co-developed it with a company called Blio, but a year later they started a new in-house project called Book Live which was designed to replace Bookplace. The main premise behind the re-brand was to focus on the Japanese market. All good things must come to an end and it looks like Booklive! will be closing its doors on September 30th 2015. We have official confirmation from Toshiba that they will be transferring all of their customer data and billing information from Booklive! to a company called U-Next. U-Next is well known for being one of the top anime, movie and music services in Japan and many big companies rely on their content distribution network for gaming consoles and televisions. Recently, they got into selling e-books with a platform that is very much akin to Toshiba Booklive! and it should because the two sides collaborated on the development. The Book Place for U-Next sells e-books, manga and graphic novels individually, and regularly updates the site with deals and promotions. One of the new initiatives they recently started was an unlimited magazine subscription service that costs $20.00 US a month. There hasn’t been any mainstream news coverage over this situation yet, so details are fairly scarce on what type of role Toshiba will be playing with the Book Place for U-Next. Likely, Toshiba is just withdrawing completely from the e-book market and got financially compensated by U-Next for all of the customer data. This is very much akin to what occurred when Sony closed their digital bookstore and worked out an agreement with Kobo for customer data. |
Digital Magazine Subscriptions are on the Rise
| It might be considered a moot point by now, but digital magazines are experiencing growth while print is on the decline. According to the latest ABC audit, the average circulation of magazines fell on average by 5% in the first half of 2015, while digital circulation rose to 409,414 in the period, up 21% year-on-year. What is interesting about this latest report is that magazines such as Empire and Men's Health are hampered by both tough competition and also shifting consumer attitudes toward their content from online-first to online-only. That is to say, people are getting entertainment and movie news from websites such as the Hollywood Reporter or IGN on a daily basis and not Empire. The other major component to the audit has to do with publishers starting to be successful with turning their print titles into premium advertising channels. Cosmo, for example, is still a key magazine brand and alongside its print version, has successful events such as Fash Fest and high profile awards like Ultimate Woman of the Year. The magazine has also started to double down on social media, such as Facebook where clickbait articles on sex are shared millions of times a day. They also have over 1.3 million Twitter followers – all of which are unaudited audience extensions. |
Joker: a Raspberry Pi + Python joke machine
| Today is a public holiday here in the UK, and Pi Towers is silent and still. Clive’s in a field “with no network (not even mobile),” he specifies, just in case someone were tempted to try and make him do something anyway. By the time this post appears, I’ll be pursuing a couple of kids around the Cambridge Museum of Technology. Liz and Eben have one-upped everyone by going to Scandinavia. So, in keeping with the leisurely, end-of-summer vibe of today, we thought we’d share a project that’s designed to amuse. We hope it’ll cheer up all those of you unlucky enough to live in places where you don’t automatically get to bunk off on the last Monday in August. Raspython, a new project aiming to offer tutorials and learning resources for the Raspberry Pi community and for new makers and programmers in particular, brings us instructions for making Joker, a Raspberry Pi joke machine. A fact that ought to be more widely known is that our own Ben Nuttall is founder and chairperson of the Pyjokes Society. He and co-founders Alex Savio, Borja Ayerdi and Oier Etxaniz have written pyjokes, a Python module offering lovingly curated one-liners for programmers, and it’s from this that Joker gets its material. Ben and friends encourage you to improve their collection by submitting the best programming jokes you know that can be expressed in 140 characters or fewer; you can propose them on GitHub via pyjokes’ proposal issue or via pull request. Joker’s display is an affordable Adafruit 16×2 LCD Pi plate; this comes as a kit needing assembly, which Adafruit’s detailed instructions walk you through gently. With the LCD assembled and mounted, getting Joker up and running is just a matter of installing the pyjokes module, LCD drivers and Joker script, together with a little bit of other set-up to allow your Raspberry Pi to talk to the LCD. Everything you need is in the tutorial, and it makes for a really great self-contained project. Give it a whirl! The post Joker: a Raspberry Pi + Python joke machine appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Nova Scotia Libraries Now Has e-books by Local Authors
| Library patrons in the US are fairly spoiled when it comes to local self-published and traditionally published authors having their e-books available. The Library Journal has a program called Self-e and Smashwords also connects everyone up together. Here in Canada, there are less choices for local authors to get their digital titles in the local library. A new initiative by the Nova Scotia Library is hoping to change this paradigm. The Nova Scotia Provincial Library, Halifax Public Libraries, and the Atlantic Publishers Marketing Association have collaborated to provide greater access to the region's e-Books through a project called Read Local. Twelve regional publishers are participating in this program and over 600 e-books are currently available. This is the first province-wide agreement of its kind between libraries and locally based publishers. |
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Kindle for PC Updated with Bookerly and KFX Support
| Amazon has just updated their seminal Kindle for PC app and it now has support for the brand new Bookerly font and also KFX. This will allow readers with Windows branded tablets and computers to be able to read books in much high resolution. Have you heard of Bookerly or KFX before? Well, a few months ago Amazon developed a new font for e-reading in mind called Bookerly. In order to really take advantage of the new format, Amazon had to generate an entirely new e-book extension and named it KFX. Amazon claims there are around 100,000 e-books on their website that their titles in the new KFX format. If you want to find out if a specific title will give you the optimal reading experience you look on the book's description page at Amazon. There's a new label that shows if enhanced typesetting has been enabled. When you download the Kindle PC update and already have e-books downloaded to your machine, there are a few things you need to know. If you have a collection of e-books on your local machine, chances are a few of them have the new KFX extension. You need to delete them and download them once more from the cloud. Once you download the fresh copy, it might have the new e-book format. |
Saturday, August 29, 2015
New Kobo Touch 2.0 e-reader Available Now
| Kobo has just quietly unveiled a brand new e-reader that is designed for people on a budget. The Kobo Touch 2.0 is now officially listed on the Chapters/Indigo bookstore website for $89.99. Likely, this e-reader will make a great back to school gift or for the upcoming holiday season. Nothing much is known about the new Kobo Touch 2.0, it is very likely that Chapters posted the details before Kobo was ready to make a formal announcement. What we do know is that it has an older e-ink Pearl HD screen and it is not illuminated, so you won’t be able to read in the dark. I think Kobo primarily designed the Touch 2.0 to heavily compete against the basic model of the Kindle. If you look at the price difference the Touch 2.0 costs $61 in the US, while the Kindle has a price tag of $79 US. Stay tuned to Good e-Reader for an upcoming review and full product specs. In the meantime, if you live outside of the Canada you can have your Kobo Touch 2.0 shipped out in 24 hours from Shop e-Readers. |
Amazon Echo Can Now Play Audiobooks from Multiple Amazon Accounts
| The Amazon Echo now has the ability to play audiobooks from multiple Amazon accounts and switching between them is as easy as a voice command. In order to get started you simply need to access the settings menu within the updated Alexa App for Android and add your second account. Once this is completed all you have to do is say “Alexa, switch accounts.” This might seem like a trivial change at first, but the multiple account support will be welcomed by many. People who live in homes with family members who have different accounts will be able to access their individual libraries of audiobooks. |
New Kobo Touch 2.0 Quietly Released for $89
| It looks like Kobo has quietly started rolling out their latest ebook reader, the Kobo Touch 2.0. So far there’s been no official announcement from Kobo about the new device, and it still isn’t listed on Kobo’s website at all, but the Kobo Touch 2.0 has just turned up for sale at Chapters.Indigo, one of […] |
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