Tag Archives: eBooks

No comments

The Tableau Experience

  November 20, 2014 , , ,

Today I attended “The Tableau Experience.” I’ve been struggling with what to call it: a conference, a convention… It had only one speaker, and a Q&A – and a wet-bar.  So… I’m settling with ‘experience’ as they do. What it really was though, was an advertisement. Don’t get me wrong – I like using Tableau to recreate charts for the Tobacco Ebook I’m working on, and this ‘experience’ was worth it for several reasons: 1. The speaker demoed several ways to share data that I haven’t seen in action since I’ve only been using it to create charts for data sets that are already created for me.   2. There were a lot of people there from many different kinds of institutions.  I met others from universities like me – Georgia Tech, Gwinnett College, and so on. But I spent most of the time schmoozing with a lady from Home Depot, and then talked briefly to a man from a company called Norfolk. Everyone was using Tableau for something different – I’m pretty sure I was the only one making an Ebook. 3. I was able to ask about that pesky issue Ryan Cagle and I have been having in trying to get the distance between pane tick marks and labels to be exactly the same in all our charts so they’re uniform within the Ebook. Sorry, Ryan – there is no way to do this. The guy I asked said your idea was the smartest. Overall, I’m glad I went to … Continue reading

4 Comments

eBooks in Higher Education, especially in Libraries

  November 12, 2014 ,

The history of the codex includes myriad and often convoluted ways of producing and distributing the book to readers.  Current day production and distribution of eBooks is no different in its dizzying variety.  To narrow things down, here I will present a snippet of the information available on how eBooks get to readers within the higher education system.  In particular, I want to mention some ways in which university libraries acquire and distribute eBooks. First of all, universities and colleges are increasing acquiring more eBooks than print books; among all U.S. academic libraries, as of 2012, more than half of their added materials were eBooks.  This is especially true for community colleges, which makes sense given it would be more convenient for their commuter student population to access materials remotely.  But, for all libraries, eBooks make sense; physical books take up a lot of space, which translates into the need for more real estate.  A perpetual problem for libraries continues to be the need for space for their collections. See the table below from the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Almanac of Higher Education, 2014,” extracted from U.S. Department of Education figures, FY 2012 (http://chronicle.com.ezproxy.gsu.edu/article/Percentage-of-E-Books-at/147835/). Table of Percentage of E-Books at Academic Libraries, by Institution Type, FY 2012 click chart to enlarge University or college libraries depend on a variety of means to provide eBooks to users and there are several different kinds of middle-people distributors who provide content to be consumed by readers via different methods.  First, and perhaps most … Continue reading

1 Comment

eTextbooks

  November 5, 2014 ,

I recently read a 2014 article about eTextbooks; the focus of the narrative study, published in College Teaching and written by Jenny Bossaller and Jenna Kammer, both at the University of Missouri, centered on faculty experience with eTextbooks, particularly those developed by college textbook publishers, and the advantages and disadvantages of this approach and arrangement. Bossaller and Kammer’s purpose in the article was “to inform instructors and administrators of the positive aspects (such as convenience, portability, and currency) and negative aspects (such as privacy, cost, and outsourcing) of teaching with etexts” (69).  Their methodology included a literature review about etext use in higher education and narrative interviews with eight faculty who had used etexts produced in conjunction with vendors (and in some cases, faculty who had also produced their own eTextbook). The authors list from another study (Cheverie, Peterson, and Cummings, 2012), “six major policy areas for etexts in higher education: affordability, broadband (network connectivity), information policy (encompassing access versus ownership, Digital Rights Management [DRM], and preservation), accessibility, privacy and security, and identity management (capable of single sign-on)”, but focus in their paper on affordability, privacy, and access, and add to this list outsourcing etext production, which they define as an important policy decision made by the faculty and university (69). The information in the study surprised me in several ways: 1.  I had not read much about nor thought much about the policy implications of the fact that college textbook companies have expanded their roles these days and are … Continue reading

2 Comments

Amazon vs. the Authors

  October 12, 2014

Amazon’s stranglehold over the ebook market has led to strong-arm practices. Initially, the online seller’s attempts to control (i.e., limit) sales of the publisher Hachette was seen as a problem for Hachette (and its writers) alone. Gradually, however, other authors began to wonder what would prevent Amazon from exercising its influence in more and more offensive ways, leading them consider whether the “Justice Department [ought] to investigate Amazon for illegal monopoly tactics.” An article from the New York Times asks:  “What are the rights and responsibilities of a company that sells half the books in America and controls the dominant e-book platform?” By choosing to place certain books (on certain subjects) on sale, or to ship more quickly, Amazon is able to privilege some political views over others. Of course, merchants can always influence or express political views through their sales and product lines. The difference is that Amazon has a vast influence on book selling, particularly ebook selling. In Ursula k. LeGuin words: “Amazon is using censorship to gain total market control so they can dictate to publishers what they can publish, to authors what they can write, to readers what they can buy. This is more than unjustifiable, it is intolerable.” The Times article in particular describes the coming together of a diverse group of authors, some amongst the most well-known in American letters, to form Authors United. A letter signed by the assembled group and sent to Amazon’s Board of Director’s  protested Amazon’s sanctioning of Hachette authors’ books, stating: … Continue reading

No comments

The i Has It

  September 8, 2014

The reader of an ebook faces the question: which reader software should I use? The creator of an ebook faces the question: which ebook format should I use? In neither case is there a universally “best” answer. As business interests have scrambled to try to capture the ebook market, many formats have been introduced. This completely unregulated environment has created a certain amount of confusion and a lack of uniformity. Ebook (or ebook or eBook) formats fall into some broad categories. First, those based strictly on their internal structure: epub (or ePub) PDF text (or txt) Next, ebook formats based both on internal structure and the means to read them: iBooks (read exclusively on iOS devices) MOBI (Third party readers such as Stanza, FBReader, Kindle for PC and Mac, and STDU Viewer can open MOBI files.) AZW (used exclusively on the Amazon Kindle) It is important to note that these categories are not mutually exclusive. That is, while one must use ibook reader to read an ibook, one can also use ibook reader to read epubs, pdf, and text files (but not MOBI or AZW formats). In general, the formats based strictly on internal structure are the most adaptable to the widest range of reader software. However, it is also true that ebook formats based on internal structure and the means to read them offer more bells and whistles: design options, interactivity, multimedia, etc. (There are myriad other ebook formats; I list above only the most popular.) Amazon, as the big player in the … Continue reading