Below are the descriptions, slides, and mp3s of the eBooks presentation held on April 23, 2010 at Baruch college.
Alycia Sellie & Matthew Goins - Brooklyn College
"The Rights of Readers and the Threat of the Kindle"
"This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies
of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was
stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles."--Jeff
Bezos, Founder & CEO, Amazon.com
What happens to our rights as readers when books go digital? Librarian
Alycia Sellie and technologist Matthew Goins will challenge the status quo
of book digitization and argue that current digitization projects rob
readers of well-established rights that they have held historically with
print. More than just an issue of convenience, we will outline what changes
when books go from print to restricted digital format. We will examine
restrictive licensing agreements and closed technologies used in current
digitization projects that deny readers long-held rights of fair use.
Sellie and Goins will examine those private corporations who have invested
in digital book projects and whether their principles are something that we
as librarians, consumers and informed readers should accept or avoid.
Rajeev Jayadeva, Stefanie Havelka, Jennifer King, Adelaide Soto - Lehman
College
"Sony E-Reader Borrowing Program at Lehman College"
Lehman College has just launched our Sony Reader borrowing program and will
share the details in a presentation. Lehman currently has 10 PRS-600
Readers. Library staff will discuss their evaluation of the product; Sony
Reader vs Kindle; the logistics of lending them out, marketing, and how it
operates.
Maria Kiriakova, Gretchen Gross, Karen Okamoto, Mark Zubarev - John Jay
College
"Student Reactions to Sony E-Readers"
In the summer of 2009, four members of the John Jay library staff tested
168 incoming freshmen on their reaction to the Sony E-Readers. A
questionnaire was distributed to the participants of the testing. The test
attempted to analyze and evaluate the limitations of ereaders in terms of
circulation, content acquisition, dealing with pdf files, comparison with
Kindle, etc. The study was finalized and written up as an article which was
accepted for publication in the March 2010 issue of "Computers in
Libraries".
Robin Brown - Borough of Manhattan Community College
"Ebooks; A Point of View from an educated consumer"
What exactly are ebooks? Where did they come from? This presentation will
pay homage to Michael Hart, as well as give some of the latest updates from
the format wars. What is going on in the consumer marketplace, and how
does that effect libraries? Who are the biggest vendors, and where did
they come from?
Finally, where does that leave all of us as librarians and big book
consumers?
