Monthly Archives: February 2008

Hurry, hurry! Free books, going fast! (And new site feature)

Posted on February 28, 2008 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Okay, it’s a trend: Feb. 9: Tor books launches their “Watch the Skies” program, where they send out free ebooks once a week to readers who register on their site. These are best-selling and critically acclaimed books like John Scalzi’s … Continue reading →

Posted in online books, publishing | 1 Comment

The right to read, circa 1906

Posted on February 27, 2008 by John Mark Ockerbloom

For a few years in the early 1900s, some American book publishers came up with a brave new marketing paradigm. Instead of offering books for sale the old-fashioned way, they essentially decided to license them. Purchasers were warned of dire … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, online books | 1 Comment

Here, have some more Punch

Posted on February 26, 2008 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Punch was a British institution for well over a century. Founded in 1841, it was an irreverent weekly magazine of quips, cartoons, essays, stories and poetry, often on the politics and events of the day. Writers and artists like W. … Continue reading →

Posted in online books, serials | Comments Off on Here, have some more Punch

We call dibs! (or, the genius of the Harvard mandate)

Posted on February 22, 2008 by John Mark Ockerbloom

The Harvard Arts and Sciences faculty recently approved a resolution giving the University permission to make their scholarly articles available to the world at no charge. Here’s the official press release from Harvard, and here’s the text of the resolution, … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, open access, publishing, sharing | 2 Comments

Improving the millions

Posted on February 20, 2008 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Michigan’s announcement earlier this month that they had over one million volumes from their collection digitized was widely hailed online. That million books includes both copyrighted and public domain content. According to Michigan’s John Wilkin, who I talked with shortly … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, online books, open access | Comments Off on Improving the millions

And now, your turn to have a say in ILS interfaces…

Posted on February 15, 2008 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’ve had my head down for the past couple of weeks for various reasons, but I’m happy to surface again and announce that the ILS discovery interface group that I discussed in my last post has produced a new draft … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, libraries | Comments Off on And now, your turn to have a say in ILS interfaces…

Blowing the lid off the ILS (and the providers’ chance to have a say)

Posted on February 1, 2008 by John Mark Ockerbloom

It’s now hardly a secret that many large research libraries are increasingly chafing at their traditional integrated library systems (ILSs). Duke University recently announced that they were planning to design an all new, open source ILS, presumably to replace their … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, libraries | 3 Comments