A Never Ending “Virtual Stream” of Digitized Text
by Gary Price, Senior Editior

When Chris Sherman and I were writing and then giving book talks and presentations about The Invisible Web, we said John Mark Ockerbloom’s Online Books Page was an essential resource for anyone interested in digitized, full text books. Now referred by most as eBooks. More than eight years later I feel the same way about this awesome and well organized collection.

Where do you begin with a site so full of content? For me, that’s easy. Monitoring the latest additions to the catalog/page. I am always blown away by the amount of new listings (when does Ockerbloom sleep?) and the number of organizations digitizing books. If you think it’s only Google digitizing books (of course they are a major player) but not they’re far from the only one doing this type of work. Just look for yourself. The page even has an RSS feed.

So, the Online Books Page is not only a “must have” searchable directory of ebooks but it can also be a great collection development resource to find and add digitized content to your local collection/OPAC.

But wait, we’ve got more.

The Online Books Page new listings only includes some of the digitized text output from the Internet Archive (IA).

If you want to be able to review (at your leisure) all of the new digitized content text content that the IA produces, it’s possible by subscribing to this RSS feed. Even if you’re not going to review the titles, just let it run for a few days to see the AMOUNT of text material that’s digitized in variety of formats. It’s an understatement to say that the scanners at the IA are cranking it out on all cylinders. So, collection development types, subscribe to both RSS feeds and have a large virtual bookshelf to choose from each day. If you don’t do the collection development thing both feeds are useful to illustrate the amount of material being digitized each day, week, month.

UPDATE: Not an RSS user? No problem. Just visit this Internet Archive page and refresh it a few times a day. The most recent addition is at the top.

If memory serves, didn’t exactly the same thing happen to the Kindle 1?

“I don’t have any info on the new store plans. This was very recently announced at a management meeting and I think it’s safe to say that it is not imminent. In the Reader group, we’re focusing very much on the near term—getting the Daily Edition out and flipping the store over to ePub. I know you are aware of our offer to update all the PRS-500s in the field. We’re working on this as well in anticipation of the store changeover in just a few short weeks. All that said, I really couldn’t say anything about what the store Sir Howard refers to will look like.”

Thanks, Val, and keep us posted—especially on hardware matters and DRM issues involving the current and planned stores.

I poked around their store and it seems that all the books I looked at were in PDF format – not very reader friendly – even though the machine will read EPUB. However, the ereading part of the unit is 9.7″ so maybe it can do a decent PDF display. There is no mention that I can find of whether the books have DRM or not. We have previously reported on the unit here.

Take, for example, the book A catalogue of English and foreign bookbindings offered for sale by Bernard Quaritch Ltd.. I can download it for free, get a softcover version for $8 or a hardcover version for $18. I can also preview how the POD cover will look (pictured above). They have books from the Rochester Institute of Technology (654), Kirtas Classics (99,799), University of Pennsylvania (224,199), McGill University (37,921), New York Public Library (317,934) and others.

You might want to poke around. The only problem is that the digitized copies are in PDF format, which means that I certainly will never download one. I don’t like reading on the computer and there isn’t a good portable alternative for PDF reading yet. However, the prices are pretty reasonable I can certainly see ordering a hard cover book or maybe finding an unusual book and having it printed to use as a Christmas gift.

Apparently. Fron the Kindle Facebook page:

“Kindle Customers, We have heard from many of you that you would like to have a better way to organize your growing Kindle libraries. We are currently working on a solution that will allow you to organize your Kindle libraries. We will be releasing this functionality as an over-the-air software update as soon as it is ready, in the first half of next year. – The Kindle Team.”

(Thanks to John Hagewood for the link)

… the debate around green issues behind producing books had so far largely ignored the “vast” impact of data centres and the computer and mobile communications industry.

“I can’t think of an issue where our beliefs about an issue are more out of line with the realities,” Christensen said, whose book is due out in January.

“Both print and digital publishing have an impact on the environment, and we need to get over the misconception that digital publishing is inherently better than publishing on paper. It might be a lot worse.”

But now comes word from BusinessWeek that Sony will also sell e-books elsewhere—in the new Sony Online Store, the current name.

This one will sell music, movies and downloadable apps, too. The feeling among Sony watchers is that the new Sony store will use an iTune-ish approach.No startup date has been announced. 

I’m curious if or how the new Sony store may works with the existing eBook Library software. What’s more, might the current eBookStore vanish? I don’t think so, but who knows?

Is Sony in time going to do the e-book-capable multimedia table that Apple is supposed to offer us? That certainly would jibe well with Sony’s history as a hardware company and the store’s multimedia approach. I’m just extrapolating and guessing. But if you work for a publisher and need to anticipate future possibilities, add this one to the brew.

Also, what e-book format will the new Sony store use? ePub? And what about the DRM situation? Will Adobe-DRMed ePub be the norm? And what if publishers don’t want DRM? Will Sony in fact offer publishers a choice, as I believe it’s indicated?

Apple has backed off from DRM in the real iTunes Store, at least when it comes to music (it is selling “protected” books in the ScrollMotion format). Sony should do the same with e-books.

Perhaps social DRM could be a compromise. I’ll query Sony to see if it has any word on the DRM and format issues and other book-specific details.

Related: Techmeme roundup and Google News roundup.

I put the name in quotes because Harlequin has announced that it changing the name of its new venture effective immediately.

According to a press release, authors expressed concern that the original name would cause confusion between this venture and Harlequin’s traditional publishing business.

That’s not all, though. Romance Writers of America has decided that Harlequin Enterprises is no longer eligible for RWA-provided conference resources because and informed its membership of this without even talking to Harlequin first.

And that’s not all, though. The Mystery Writers of America has issued a release saying that they are concerned about a conflict-of-interest created by Harlequin Horizons’ self-publishing program and the eHarlequin Manuscript Critique service. They feel that there is a possibility that writers could think that it is necessary to use one service to get the other.

It’s going to be a busy week at the Harlequin executive offices.

December 14: supplemental notices about the amended agreement to be sent
January 28: objections to amended agreement be filed with the court
January 28: opt in date for those members of the class who had previously opted out
February 18: hearing to determine whether the agreement is “fair, reasonable and adequate”

The phone is tiny, light, and thin, weighing in at 3 ounces. The design is nothing fancy, and it cuts a few corners (for example, no wifi—connection via Sprint’s cell network only—and an overall slower processor). In fact, for just $55 more you can have the somewhat more featureful and faster Pre.

But at least it shows that smartphone prices are definitely falling. Now if only they could rein in the calling plan prices, too. (Even if, as the article notes, Sprint’s are overall significantly less than AT&T or Verizon’s prices.)

Presumably, the Pixi will run the same e-book applications that the Pre will, so this may look like a reasonable option for people wanting a cheap smartphone. On the other hand, taken as a percentage of overall cost over two years, upgrading to the more-capable Pre is just a drop in the bucket.

Los Gatos, Calif. and Wellington, New Zealand – November 19, 2009 — Silicon Valley based Smashwords, Inc. has acquired Wellington New Zealand company BookHabit Limited, consolidating Smashwords’ position as the world’s premier ebook publishing and distribution platform for independent authors and publishers.

BookHabit was founded in 2008 as an ebook publishing platform for independent authors. During that time, BookHabit developed relationships with 340 authors who collectively published over 600 books.

Smashwords launched in May, 2008. Today, the fast-growing service publishes over 4,700 ebooks from 2,100 independent authors and publishers around the world. In the last several weeks, Smashwords has opened new distribution channels for indie authors and publishers by announcing distribution relationships with major online retailers Shortcovers, Sony and Barnes & Noble.

“I’m pleased to welcome BookHabit authors and readers to the Smashwords family,” said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords. “This acquisition boosts our international base of authors, ebooks and customers. We look forward to helping BookHabit authors gain access to our worldwide distribution network.”

“This acquisition benefits the BookHabit author community by offering broader sales and distribution opportunities, especially in North America,” said Clare Tanner, founder of BookHabit. “Smashwords makes it fast and easy for authors to publish multi-format ebooks, readable on all the popular e-reading devices. I’m pleased to help our authors take full advantage of the free publishing, marketing and distribution tools offered by Smashwords.”

Smashwords purchased the assets of BookHabit for an undisclosed cash sum. Smashwords and BookHabit will immediately begin migrating BookHabit’s authors, books and customers over to the Smashwords platform. BookHabit authors, as with Smashwords authors, will continue to retain all ownership and copyright to their books, and are under no obligation to migrate their books to Smashwords.

Eoin Purcell raises an interesting question in his blog:

But riddle me this?

Why do they not just sell it direct? The multi-publisher bookstore provides just the platform, they have created an incredible audience and the property is a very, very good one. I cannot understand this decision. Sure the rest of Macmillan also avoids ebook sales listing instead other sellers on their site bit surely the selling of a digital download is not THAT difficult? Is it?

Photo Note:

I’ve had more time to play around with the Astak, and the bloom is off the rose. Yes, the e-ink screen is truly amazing, and far clearer than the touch-sensitive Sony reader’s. However, it has certain other problems.

In Praise of Astak

Before I start talking about the Astak’s shortcomings, I should mention that the company itself has some astoundingly good customer service. For one thing, they monitor the Astak forums on MobileRead and pop up to answer questions.

Whenever I have posted a technical question on the forum, I have almost immediately been emailed by an Astak representative with suggestions and offers of advice. Now, granted, I do not know whether this is their default behavior toward all users, or just because they know I’m reviewing their product. I’d like to think the former is true.

Another nice thing about the device itself is that the firmware is remarkably easy to upgrade. Just put the firmware file on an SD card, slide the card in, and reboot into upgrade mode using a combination of keypresses.

My only complaint in this regard is that the instructions I found for upgrading on their website were not entirely clear. One of the buttons to be pressed is mentioned as the “increase volume key”. I assumed that meant the rocker switch on the right—but after that did not work and I searched some more, I learned that those instructions only applied to the 6” Astak reader devices; for the 5”, you press the page-forward button left of the screen instead. Just a little confusing.

Now let’s talk about some of those shortcomings.

Battery Life

One of the things that makes e-ink so great is that it only uses power when you turn the page. The e-ink page uses micro-capsules that are rotated by current, but require no current to stay set as they are. This is why e-ink readers have such a long battery life.

This should mean that, theoretically, an e-ink reader should use almost no power at all when it is “idling”. I should be able to leave it “open,” like a book, for days on end and pick it up with the same battery level that I left off.

(Granted, there may need to be some minor power consumption—but since it is not driving a display, surely it should use less than a digital watch, which is able to run for months on a single tiny battery.)

Unfortunately, this is not the case with the Astak. If I leave it alone for several days and forget to plug it in, the battery drains completely dry—and requires approximately “overnight” to charge back up to full again. This puts a damper on what ought to be one of an e-ink reader’s biggest advantages.

A Peeling Reader

I also noticed that my sample has started to develop a flaw remarked upon by other Astak users: the peeling paint problem. About half of Astak owners have found that, with a little wear, the paint covering their reader starts to peel off. Here you can see it starting on mine, right around the left page-turn arrows. (You may need to click to enlarge it to see more clearly.)

It is only a cosmetic problem, of course, and Astak’s excellent customer service again comes to the fore: they will, on request, provide replacement units that do not suffer from this flaw. Not everyone even cares about a replacement; one Astak user on the Baen Bar has just peeled all the paint off of his and been quite happy to keep using it that way.

Ex-Calibre

For some reason, I have not been able to make Calibre work with the Astak. I am not sure whether this is the Astak’s problem or some flaw with Calibre (which worked just fine with my Sony).

When I posted to MobileRead about it, it was suggested that I should remove the Chinese language manual from internal memory, as it messes with Calibre’s ability to connect.

I wanted to try to do this, but it seems at the moment I cannot get the reader to connect to my computer’s USB at all. It just shows a “charging” indicator and blinking light, and does not give me a “press Enter to connect” dialogue. But others seem to be able to use Calibre with their devices just fine.

It was not a great handicap, however; I ended up just using an SD card reader to copy my books directly onto my card, which I then put in the Astak. It just takes a few extra steps to make the copy.

If I were going to keep this reader, I might be more concerned about getting Calibre working with it—but since I will be sending it back, I am not going to let it bother me.

Moving on to formats…

Mobipocket vs. ePub

First of all, the majority of the books I read are unencrypted ePub these days, from Baen. I recently downloaded all of my Webscription purchases and put them on a directory of the 2-gig SD card I normally use for my digital camera, and put that in the Astak. The books load right up with no problem.

Reading ePub books on the EZReader is, well, “EZ”. They load quickly, and I am able to access the table of contents, zoom, search, even use the read-aloud feature (once I had updated the firmware to the latest version).

However, a Mobipocket book I read on it did not fare so well. This was 1634: The Baltic War, from one of the Baen CDs hosted on The Fifth Imperium. It was not available in ePub format, so I loaded the Mobi.

I found that, though I was able to read the file, the Astak reader was unable to parse the Mobi table of contents. There was a table of contents I could jump to, but it was all HTML links and I couldn’t figure out how to click on any of those links (if it was even possible at all). I ended up having to use the “jump to page” function in the menu to navigate through the book.

Furthermore, every so often the reader would lose track of my place. I would turn it back on to find myself a few dozen or hundred pages back from where I had been. If I find myself faced with a Mobi-only title in the future (at least while I still have the Astak), I will probably go to the extra trouble to convert it with Calibre first.

eReader and PalmDoc

In email correspondence, Bob Barry, the Director of Global Business Development for Astak, said that the Astak already supports non-DRMed books in Fictionwise’s eReader format, and they are negotiating to add support for eReader DRM as well.

However, I tried testing with three unencrypted eReader books I created myself and that I had verified opened on other devices, and the Astak did not even see them in a directory listing of the SD card. Very disappointing. It appears the Astak may not be the eReader e-reader of my dreams after all.

I was able to open a book in the PalmDoc format, though since it had no table of contents navigation through it would have the same problem as Mobipocket.

Awkward File List Navigation

I should also note that the navigation through the file list is a bit of a pain if you have a large directory. My Baen e-book files take 27 screens to list, alphabetically by title, and there is not any way to jump to specific titles. (Nor can I sort them in any way except title, date, or type, which is not terribly useful in this situation.)

So if I were to want to read Worlds of Honor or Young Miles, I would have to resign myself to paging through 27 pages of files to get to the ones I wanted.

I suppose if I copied my Calibre directory onto the card rather than my unsorted Baen ePub directory I might at least be able to navigate the directory tree by author, but I would still need to know what author wrote the book I wanted.

However, I cannot now remember whether Sony’s file list interface was any better.

PDF

But the PDF format is where the Astak easily falls the shortest. I had expected that, being a more recent device, it should handle PDF files at least as well as the Sony did. (You may wish to read my review of the Sony’s PDF capabilities for comparison purposes.) However, its performance left a number of factors to be desired.

First of all, I loaded the image-only PDF of “Bronte’s Egg”. Full-page, it looked about the same as it did on the Sony, only smaller by an inch. However, when I used the “rotate” option and turned the reader 90 degrees, when I pressed “page forward” the device simply crashed back out to the file list again. I tried multiple times, and it always behaved in this way.

Moving on to Dragon Warriors, we see that in both the portrait and landscape versions, the text looks pretty good. The problem comes when we use the “zoom” function, to break the PDF out of its formatting and zoom the text in a few times. The result: the first column on the page is nowhere to be found. The text below the header starts at the beginning of the second column.

(The Sony was not perfect in this regard either, but at least it put the “Introduction” header at the middle of the page and kept the first column of text before it. But no amount of paging up would reveal that first column of text in the Astak.)

Spycraft, the 160-megabyte overformatted bloat-monster, took more than a little time to load, but once it did it looked fairly decent, if much too small to read. Rotating 90 degrees did improve the readability some—but attempting to zoom in further simply zoomed out instead—and it remained zoomed out through each of the several zoom levels, until I finally reached the one that zoomed it back in to its original half-page view.

Also, zooming, rotating, and page-turning were all extremely sluggish—not that I am surprised, given the 160-megabyte size of this monster.

Spirit of the Century, a much smaller book and less-bloated PDF, came off considerably better. The smaller page size meant it is more readable in general on the Astak, and the non-cruft formatting meant it came off considerably better zoomed in as well.

Tables of Discontent

One other annoyance had to do with the table of contents. The Astak would read the PDF’s table of contents, and this included multi-level TOCs such as the one from Spycraft.

In a multi-level table of contents, if I clicked on “4. Chapter 4: Skills” I would get another table of contents, starting off with “1. Chapter 4: Skills” and then listing subheads for 2, 3, and 4.

So assuming I want to start off at the beginning of Chapter 4, I would click 1 for “1. Chapter 4: Skills”, right? Wrong. Clicking 1 would put me back at the main TOC. To go into the chapter, I would need to click 2 or up for one of the subheads. This is not a very intuitive interface design.

Conclusion

Although ePub files are a joy to read on the Astak, other formats are considerably less so—and the interface makes getting to those files somewhat awkward when I have a lot of them. With that in mind, though I am enjoying using it while I have it, I find I will not regret sending it back when the time comes.

AudioLark is being run by Jennifer Fedderson, a freelance editor who runs of the Best of the Best Ebook Contest at her website, along with Celia Kyle, a published author.

I wish them the best of luck and also note that they are hiring voice talent and audio editors.