LexisNexis Legal eBooks Now Available in the Amazon Kindle Store

“LexisNexis® Legal & Professional (www.lexisnexis.com), a leading provider of content and technology solutions, today announced that a large selection of its legal eBooks are now available in the Amazon® Kindle® Store.  Additionally, LexisNexis® eBooks on Kindle or through Kindle reading apps are also accessible through the recently launched LexisNexis® Digital Library solution. “As legal professionals and law students steadily embrace and use eBooks, our strategy is to provide them a wide diversity of options rather than forcing them into one format, one reader type or one application,” said Bob Romeo, CEO of Research and Litigation Solutions at LexisNexis Legal & Professional. “Offering LexisNexis eBooks via the Kindle store and reading applications is an important new component of that approach, and we are pleased to offer our collection on one of the world’s leading eBook shops.”

Many Kindle, Nook owners are clueless about borrowing library e-books

BY MIKE FLACY

As Amazon and Barnes & Noble continue to promote the use of e-readers among customers, libraries haven't quite been able to get the word out about free e-book borrowing.

According to a new study conducted by Pew’s Internet & American Life Project, nearly six out of ten library patrons weren’t even aware that they could borrow e-books for free from their library. Furthermore, only twelve percent of Americans above the age of 16 have borrowed an e-book from their local library in the past twelve months. Specific to technology, fifty-three percent of tablet owners didn’t know about the availability of library e-books and 48 percent of Kindle and Nook owners were just as uninformed. In addition, approximately half of respondents that have read at least one e-book in the past year weren’t aware about library e-book borrowing .

Of the small portion of people that have checked out an e-book in the last year, half of those people haven’t been able to locate a particular book in an electronic format or found a long waiting list to get access to the book.

Since libraries pay for a limited number of copies to legally lend out, many libraries use an email waiting list to notify a patron about the availability of the book. Once the book is returned by another patron, the next patron on the waiting list receives an email and has a limited amount of time to download the title. An additional eighteen percent of those people were able to locate the correct book, but the book format wasn’t compatible with their e-reader or tablet. 

Americans that do have a library card are much more likely to own and use more technology than people without cards. Pew researchers found that eighty-seven percent of library card holders owned their own desktop or laptop computer compared to sixty-seven percent of people without a library card. However, that difference was much smaller with mobile phone ownership. 

Likely interesting to companies like Amazon that sell e-books, over forty percent of the people that regularly read e-books checked out from the library purchased the last book that they read. In addition, library card holders also read about twice as many books per year as people without a library card. 

This is likely one reason why Amazon promotes the Lending Library feature in order to encourage Kindle owners to use the e-reader more and discover new books. When it comes to finding new books, an e-book borrower is much more likely to get a book recommendation from an online review over a recommendation from a staff member at a bookstore or a librarian. 

When Pew researchers asked librarians about the influence of e-books on the library, many librarians stated that library patrons were visiting the physical library location less and seeking out information about the library’s collection through the Internet. In addition, the purchasing policy is shifting at most libraries to free up funds to purchase more copies of e-books. Money to fund these purchases is being moved from physical, printed copies as well as audio books on compact disc. The role of librarians is also shifting to a larger role in technical support in order to help library patrons download copies of e-books to their devices as well as search the library catalog through an online site instead of a local database.

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/gadgets/many-kindle-nook-owners-are-clueless-about-borrowing-library-e-books/#ixzz1ymNgM4DF

U.S. web giants lead charge for new internet names - The Hindu

Team Library Soup found a interesting news article in The Hindu, Delhi ed. 15 June 2012 and recommending it to the members.

U.S. web giants lead charge for new internet names

American internet giants Amazon and Google were the top applicants on Wednesday for a broad range of new top level domain names that could dramatically change the functioning of the internet address system.

ICANN, the non-profit organization that regulates the internet, announced the new name applications on Wednesday, saying the introduction of the new domains would “change the internet forever.” The new domains will mark the biggest ever expansion of internet addresses, with almost 2,000 applications posted for a total of 1,700 new top level domains that will supplement the current limited supply of suffixes such as .com, .biz, .org and other country-specific suffixes.

Google appeared to be the top bidder. A registry company that applied for such names as .google, .gmail and .android made a total of 100 applications, including for such names as .lol, .baby and .blog.

Amazon was also heavily represented with 76 applications, including .book. Apple applied for the .apple top level domain, but there were no applications for .facebook or .twitter. Other applications were made for names such as .love, .pizza and .kids.

The most applied-for domain was .app which saw 13 applications, followed by .home and .inc with 11 applications. Other popular names were .book, .blog, .llc, and .shop with nine each.

Anyone could apply to own the new domains, provided they could come up with the 185,000-dollar application fee. According to ICANN, the most applications, 911, came from the US, with 675 from Europe, 303 from Asia Pacific, 24 from Latin America and just 17 from Africa.

ICANN will decide who will receive the contested names, with the first of the new names coming online at the beginning of next year.

“This is an historic day for the internet and the 2 billion people around the world who rely on it,” said ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom in a press conference announcing the applications.

“The internet is about to change forever. Through its history the internet has renewed itself through new ideas; we’re on the cusp of new ideas and innovation which will give rise to new jobs and ways to link communities and share information.”

source:- http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/article3527759.ece

First Library in India to lend Amozon Kindles

KOZHIKODE: The 75-year-old Desaposhini Public Library here has created history of sorts by becoming the first in the entire country to lend pocket-sized Amazon Kindles to its members. Each member can borrow an e-book reader - a Kindle can accommodate as many as 3,000 books-- for up to 20 days.

"We started the initiative after we got five Amazon Kindles as donation. The main intention was to attract the young generation to reading. The initial feedback has been very promising. The entire community is upbeat and we are flooded with enquiries for membership mostly from the youth," said Krishna Kumar, president of the library.

He said that the library, which has a membership base of 8,000, has amassed a collection of 2.4 lakh e-books. "We think that by embracing the digital revolution we can make the library more attractive to the tech-oriented younger generation," he said.

A P Karthik, who donated the e-readers, said that over two lakh e-books have either been purchased from Amazon or belonged to the free books category without any copyright issues. The library also has plans to digitize rare books. "We are eagerly waiting for the response of our readers. If they are open to adapt to the new system then we will think of adding more titles,"Krishna Kumar said, adding that they had approached the government and MPs to raise funds for the project.

But already the digital reading culture has many takers in the city. "It is like walking home with a library. First I had apprehensions on reading whole books on e-readers, but the device with its unique screen provided a very comfortable reading experience. It is similar to reading a book in your hand with the added convenience of knowing you have ten other books that you can switch to at any moment, said Suchitra Karthik.

Library officials are chalking out a viable lending mechanism for the hi-tech gadgets which cost $100 each. "We are thinking of getting the devices insured and taking a deposit from members to make the devices accessible for all," Krishna Kumar said.

Source: Times of India