Resource of the Week: Roundup of Recent Posts About eBooks...and Some Kindle Stuff
Resource of the Week: Roundup of Recent Posts About eBooks...and Some Kindle Stuff
By Shirl Kennedy and Gary Price
Why eBooks? Why now? Because the Fourth Annual World eBook Fair got underway July 4...which means you have free access to more than two million eBooks through August 4. Also, the Kindle DX -- with its larger screen format -- just made its appearance...and apparently sold out quite rapidly.
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Word from Michael Hart, the Founder of Project Gutenberg, that once again this year the World e-Book Fair will take place from July 4th-August 4th. This is the 4th year of the annual book fair. It starts on July 4th to celebrate the 38th anniversary of Project Gutenberg which began on July 4th, 1971.
Once the event begins you'll find FREE access to over 2.5 million full text eBooks that you can download to your computer. Some titles can also be downloaded and read on certain types mobile phones.
JISC has funded an ‘e-books for Further Education (FE) project to make over 3000 e-books freely available to every college and sixth form in the UK.
Over the next five years, the project, which also received funding from the Learning Skills Council (LSC), will enable all students in FE in the UK to access online course texts to support their studies.
E-books will be made available from the start of the next academic year via the ebrary e-books platform E-books will be made available from the start of the next academic year via the ebrary e-books platform. Subjects will range from Fashion Design to Software Engineering, Health and Social Care to Automobile Electronics, and Beauty Therapy to Practical Lambing. Access will be available whether students are studying in the college, at home or in an internet café.
Seven new and updated features and tools from Google Books today. You can read about them here. Here are a few highlights:
Embeds and links - This new toolbar option allows you to embed a preview of a full view or partner book in any of your websites or blogs--all with a simple html snippet. It's a lot like the embed tag that makes it so easy to share YouTube videos.
Better search within each book - You've always been able to search inside books you find on Google Book Search. Now, for public domain and partner books, we've made it easier to see exactly where your search term appears within the book by showing you more context around the term, including an image from the part of the page on which it appears.
Thumbnail view - Click on the thumbnail view button in the toolbar to see an overview of all the pages in a public domain book or in a magazine
Contents drop-down menu - Above the book itself, you'll find a Contents drop-down that allows you to jump to chapters within the book--or articles within a magazine.
Page Turn Button and Animation - In addition to scrolling through the book, you can now also click the page turn button at the bottom of the screen, even if you haven't yet finished the page.
Improved Book Overview Page On the Overview page you'll find an assortment of useful data about the book, including reviews, ratings, summaries, related books, key words and phrases, references from the web, places mentioned in the book, publisher information, etc.
Source: Inside Google Book Search Hat Tip: Barry S.
The interest in e-readers, or e-books as they are called now, has reached a fever pitch. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos fields nothing but Kindle questions at the company’s shareholder meeting. Prime View picks up E Ink, the company that supplies the screen to Amazon’s Kindle, for $215 million. And companies ranging from Google to Interead are aiming to upset Amazon’s early advantage.
The complete post contains a chart from a new report from Forrester Research laying out how they believe the market will develop.
Source: ZDNet
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Do you use a Kindle? Are you thinking about buying one? Check out The Kindle Warehouse blog, which offers Kindle- and Kindle product-related news, tips, and reviews. Be sure not to miss the post about -- Free Kindle eBooks. User comments contain links to even more resources. Who knew there was so much free stuff available for this popular -- though proprietary -- device?
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