The IDPF announced the Readium Project, an open source initiative “to develop a comprehensive reference implementation of the ePUB 3 standard,” built on the WebKit rendering engine. The project is designed to “significantly accelerate EPUB 3 adoption and increase implementation consistency,” IDPF executive director Bill McCoy says. It has wide support from many organizations and etailers–though not Apple, or Amazon (which is not an IDPF member). Library City has a follow-up q&a with McCoy. Among his remarks, “given that PDF support is increasingly built-in to browsers (e.g. Chrome ships with PDF support) it’s logical to imagine built-in EPUB support in […]
eNews
Penguin Withdraws From Overdrive; Looks For New Library Partners
Penguin announced late Thursday that as of February 10 (today) it “will no longer offer additional copies of ebooks and audiobooks for purchase via Overdrive” and is severing their ongoing relationship with the vendor. Libraries will continue to have access to titles they have already purchased, and Penguin is negotiating a “continuance agreement” with Overdrive to service the products that have already been sold. The move is an outgrowth of the publisher’s suspension of sales of new titles to libraries in late November. At the time they said that “due to new concerns about the security of our digital editions, we […]
eNews: BN Makes Progress In Nook Patent Lawsuit Against Chipmaker; eSales Figures From McAfee, Wilkinson; And More
As part of a separate lawsuit in which Barnes & Noble pre-emptively sued chipmaker LSI to mitigate against accusations that the Nook e-reader line infringed on the company’s patents, Judge Edward Chen of California’s Northern District denied LSI’s motions to dismiss 8 of BN’s defenses, including “non-infringement, invalidity, unenforceability, persecution history estoppel/judicial estoppel, no injunctive relief, license and failure to state a claim.” Chen said BN “had adequately pleaded factual allegations of misconduct by Lucent, LSI’s predecessor, which included failure to disclose rules of standard-setting organizations” and that the conduct could fall under the grounds of unforceability. “Indeed, a contrary […]
eNews: Open Source Textbooks from Rice University; Author Solutions Adds eBook Distribution Service; Hocking’s Market Share, and More
Rice University has launched OpenStax College, which will offer free, open-source course materials for five common introductory classes in biology, astronomy, and physiology. OpenStax is funded by grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the 20 Million Minds Foundation and the Maxfield Foundation, and the program hopes to capture 10 percent of the textbook market that, in turn, would save students $90 million over the next five years. Inside Higher Ed reports that “In the past, open-source materials have failed to gain traction among some professors; their accuracy could be difficult to confirm […]
Massachusetts Governor to Publish Digital Short; Price Promotion Launches New Pelecanos
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is writing a digital-only “pamphlet” for Hyperion, FAITH IN THE DREAM: A Call to Our Nation’s Liberal Majority to Restore American Values, described as “a short inspirational call to action for all Americans and an antidote to our current climate of cynicism and disillusionment.” Hyperion will release the $2.99 ebook in May. That book and readers’ reaction to it will serve as the building block for a full-length work from Patrick, to be published in 2014. They see it as “the launching point for social media interaction with readers that will contribute to the second book.” […]
AAP eBook Sales Nudge Back Up In November, As Children’s Hardcovers Shine
eBook sales as reported by a small but growing group of publishers to the AAP remained lower than their peaks earlier in the year in November, at $77.3 million up modestly from October’s reported $72.8 million. Overall, ebooks comprised 16 percent of trade sales, compared to 12.6 percent in October. The peak during 2011 was February, when high ebook numbers and low print shipments made digital 29.5 percent of the month’s reported sales. Further skewing the month-to-month and year-over-year comparisons, the number of publishers reporting ebook sales to the AAP keeps changing from month to month. For November, 8 more […]