One Stop Book Site??

Busy with finals so wouldn't be posting this week, but wanted to put this link up as it's very interesting and talks about the  plan for a 'one stop book site'

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/books/publishers-plan-a-joint-one-stop-book-site.html?_r=1&ref=technology

Will the changing library truly affect the publishing world?

(This blog post has been edited from its original published version by the author)

Libraries in the traditional sense have been a major market source for the publishing industry, being usually large buildings packed full of both new and used books of various kinds. I remember when I was little, going to the library was like an adventure and I was always excited to go. I want that for my children, but after reading several articles on insidehighered.com, I am not so sure that the library as I knew it and the publishing world knew it will be around much longer.

Photo from Wilton High School Library website

With new technologies and new digital media, such as eBooks, the traditional libraries may not be 'needed' or 'used' in the immediate future.

Some university libraries, in particular, may be making the change from traditional to a more 'modern' design sooner than later. Though  university libraries and libraries in general have served a number of functions over the years, from places of study and group meetings to places to interact with technology, student and university needs are changing. However, with the world of education and publishing both taking drastic turns to incorporate new media and new technology, it's no wonder that university libraries would evolve and change as well.

According to an April 27th  insidehighered.com article by Kevin Kiley:

Recent plans at the University of Denver to permanently move four-fifths of the Penrose Library’s holdings to an off-campus storage facility and renovate the building into an “Academic Commons,” with more seating, group space, and technological capacity, are under way and could make the university a flashpoint in the debate about whether the traditional function of storing books in libraries needs to happen on campus.

The article explained that during the libraries’ renovation, the university plans to house the some 1.1 million books (including government documents and microfiche and other materials), in a storage facility roughly 10 miles from the campus. Although the university plans to bring back some of the books, most will be left in storage and only about 20 percent of the current collection will be returning to the renovated library in the end.

The University of Denver library project is estimated to be finished in December 2012. In the mean time the university will monitor the use of books to determine which will remain in the new library and which will be sent off to storage.



Photo from detocquevilles Daughter blog

A similar plan was in progress at Syracuse University in 2009, where low-use texts were planned to be housed in a facility 250 miles from campus.  This plan received high levels of disapproval and the library now plans to build a new storage facility closer to campus.

Certain major research universities, as a November 6, 2009 insidehighered.com article by Steve Kolowich explained, have moved their books to off-campus storage facilities because of space issues and  diminishing need for on-site books.

The article also stated:

Libraries everywhere are eliminating pricey subscriptions to printed academic journals, often opting for less expensive digital versions.

I wonder how this will affect the publishing industry as a whole if libraries suddenly aren't in need of hard copy books and turn entirely to digital media texts and resources?

Will the publishing industry be able to keep up with the rising use and sales of digital eBooks and the diminishing interests and needs in hard copy texts and paper bound books?

I know that my college's library is in need of a renovation, but I would hope that we would not lose the library as we know it in the process. 

New Ad-Supported Amazon Kindle sheds new light on advertising within the publishing world

(This blog post has been edited from its original published version by the author)

For some who already have an Amazon Kindle eReader, the newest development in Amazon’s Kindle may be a bit shocking or perhaps long awaited.

The latest version of the Amazon Kindle is an ad-supported version that actually costs less!!

According to an April 11th article on Cnet news by David Carnoy, Amazon shipped its new ad-supported version of the popular e-reader on May 3 for just $114 (or $25 less than the standard Wi-Fi-only Kindle, which retails for $139). This new model--available for preorder now--is also Wi-Fi-only and comes in the same carbon color as its ad-free sibling. Specs-wise, the two devices are identical. 

On the new $114 Kindle with Special Offers, Amazon's AdMash app will allow users to vote on which display ads they'd prefer as screensavers.

(Credit: Amazon)

Customers now have three  different versions of the Amazon Kindle to choose from, the ad-supported version being the cheapest and latest model.

Though some customers might find the ads on their new kindle irritating or distracting, they can quickly get around the first batch of rotating screen saver ads by hitting the home button.

On the home screen of the new kindle, customers will notice a small ad running along the bottom of the screen. As of now, ads don't appear within books themselves, though some feel that's coming soon. 

According to a Dec. 13th article on the Wall Street Journal by Emily Steel, one digital-book store, Wowio Inc., is making inroads selling ads in the e-books users download from its site onto, say, laptops or e-readers like Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle. Some Wowio e-books have three pages with promotions: an introduction and a closing page each with an ad, plus another full-page ad. The company also is experimenting with techniques to insert ads between chapters and to target ads using profile information that users submit to its website, says Wowio Chief Executive Brian Altounian. 

As the above video from YouTube, brings up some interesting questions about the new ad-supported kindle. (Almost is more of an audio track than a video but still has some good questions in it)

But ads in e-books will most likely be tough to sell. 

According to the Dec. 13th article by Emily Steel on the Wall Street Journal, while it was typical for books a century ago to be published in serial form with ads, in-book advertising now is atypical. For starters, most books sell only a few hundred thousand copies, not enough to interest most advertisers. And many author contracts say the writer has to approve any ads. The lifespan of books, meanwhile, is such that an ad that appears when it first was published could be irrelevant years later. But digital books can address that problem by inserting ads that are appropriate for when a person accesses the book and targeted to the reader's interests. Some companies also are working to sell space across a number of books to entice marketers to purchase ads. 

Because the new ad-supported version of the Amazon Kindle seems to work well for Amazon and will most likely attract enough sponsorship and customers due to the lower price, you might be able to expect the price of the Kindle to continue to drop over the years and maybe even become free someday...

Personally, I think that the possibility of free e-readers or even free books in general would be awesome, though I am still suspicious about Amazon’s ability to delete books; but if it was free I would probably take an Amazon Kindle anyway.

The Kindle could pose a problem to your personal library but is it really hurting the publishing world?

(This blog post has been edited from its original published version by the author)

It's hard not to love Amazon's e-book reader, the Kindle; it's light, thin, and disappears in your hands. Load up a good book and you'll soon forget you're reading plastic rather than paper. You'll also wonder how you ever did without it. The Kindle makes buying, storing, and organizing your favorite books and magazines effortless. You can take your entire library with you wherever you go and switch from reading the latest New Yorker to the latest best-seller without rolling out of bed.

This is how Farhad Manjoo defined the Amazon Kindle in a Feb. 26, 2009 article on slate.com.

Photo from ebookreadersoftware blog

I have contemplated purchasing an e-reader, and have leaned toward the Kindle in particular, partially because of definitions such as Manjoo's. However, recent research has led me to rethink purchasing a Kindle based on restrictions the e-reader puts on book owners, and the publishing world in general.

A March 22nd article by Manjoo on slate.com explained that e-readers don't allow you to share your books as you would have done when owning printed copies. The article also touched on how books purchased for an Amazon Kindle can not be resold or read on other e-readers, a luxury that printed books allow. Although companies such as Lendle, BookLending.com, and ebookfling are trying to compromise this by allowing users to borrow books for up to 14 days, these sites are being challenged by Amazon.

Photo from Gizmodo

Basically we do not truly own the ebooks we purchase as we would own paperback novels or hardcovers. In fact, Amazon has the power to go in and remotely delete titles from a user's e-reader device. A July 20, 2009 article from slate.com, also by Manjoo, explained more about the 2009 incident where certain e-book titles were wiped from user devices. And although refunds were given for the wiped files, it just seems a bit worrisome to know that Amazon can basically monitor their customer's literature even after the initial purchase of the ebooks. The article said that:

In June (of 2009), fans of Ayn Rand suffered the same fate—Amazon removed Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and The Virtue of Selfishness, with an explanation that it had "recently discovered a problem" with the titles. And some customers have complained of the same experience with Harry Potter books. Amazon says the Kindle versions of all these books were illegal.

Photo from The Writing Nut

Amazon did promise to no longer delete customer's books...but I would still be a little wary because although they promised to never do it again...they still have the technical capabilities to delete user's books. Because of this capability and the always unstable nature of electronics I would say that today individuals who are moving their libraries to the digital age are at risk, at risk for loosing something usually taken for granted...the full ownership of our books, and not just books but music and video collections as well. A person can't even borrow out a book today, unless it's in hard copy format, without worrying about getting in trouble or loosing their book 'file'.

Many, like myself have seen the kindle and other e-readers as the future for books and the publishing world, but could they really be the beginning of digital book banning and media banning future run by large corporations?  And what will happen when the e-book world starts to be run by only a few corporations? Or perhaps is all this really trying to help out the publishing world by raising the market through restrictions so that more people have to buy a book rather than just sharing them? So many questions, so few answers...

The History of the Espresso Book Machine

Have you ever been frustrated when trying to buy a book only to find out that it was out of stock, out of print, or delayed in delivery? The frustrations surrounding book buying can seem endless at times. Sometimes even buying a book online becomes a hassle with shipping fees and the delivery wait, which can take longer if bad weather gets involved. However there are machines that can print you a book in an instant, eliminating the wait and hassle. One of those machines is the Espresso Book Machine.

The Espresso Book Machine was described in a 2010 OnDemandBooks.com article in the following words:

A Fully integrated patented book making machine which can automatically print, bind and trim on demand at point of sale perfect bound bookstore-quality paperback books with a full-color cover indistinguishable from their factory made versions.



Photo from dailymail.co.uk



The 'On Demand Books' website compared the Espresso Book Machine to Gutenberg's printing press invention, saying that "the Espresso Book Machine will do for the world what Gutenberg's press invention did for Europe in the 15th century."  

The Espresso Book Machine Channel on Lightingsource.com said that the Espresso Book Machine is the latest pioneering distribution in publisher-to-market pathways that will change the way books are consumed.

Aspiring novelists can even bring in a CD of their work and print out a bound copy of their own novel. (Read more about this concept at : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1173013/A-novel-idea-The-machine-print-book-minutes.html#ixzz1GM8QzlD9)

But how did this unique machine come about?

Well, according to the On Demand Books website, it all started back in 1999 when a man by the name of Jason Epstein held a series of lectures at the New York Public Library about a vision for a new generation of pod technology, a fully automatic, low cost device that could be placed almost anywhere. Epstein was unaware that a prototype of a similar machine actually existed in the St. Louis workshop of an inventor named Jeff Marsh.

Then in 2003, Mr. Epstein and his partner Dane Neller founded the company called "On Demand Books" or ODB to develop Marsh's machine and integrate it into the digital world. A grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation helped provide the funding for ODB to develop, test and later build the first beta version of the machine. This first beta machine was installed in the World Bank InfoShop located in Washington, D.C. in April of 2006. There the machine printed thousands of World Bank publications over the years.

In September of 2006, ODB installed a second beta publishing machine at the Library of Alexandria, Egypt. This machine was made to printing books in Arabic.

The first actual Espresso Book Machine, Version 1.5, was introduced during the summer of 2007, on a trial run of ninety days at the New York Public Library. Since then, the machine has been installed in multiple locations across the globe, printing multitudes of books for customers.

(Watch the above Video from YouTube to learn more about how the Espresso Book machine Works)

The new version of the Espresso Book Machine, Version 2.2, is now available and is currently being placed in various locations across the world.

So that's a little background history on the Espresso Book Machine.

I found this all very interesting and am eager to find a machine near me to buy an out of print book that has been hard to find.

The goal is to eventually get digital files for all out of print and in print books so that you could literally buy ANY book from an Espresso Book Machine or similar book vending machine.

The question is...how will this affect not only the publishing industry, but also the bookstore industry, both online and in stores??

Electronics become more realistic: Silk-based flexible ereaders

Photo from: http://www.slashgear.com/

(This blog post has been edited from its original published version by the author)
 
I was interested to learn that Researchers at a Taiwan university recnetly claimed that they have figured out a way of using silk membranes to help create bendable or flexible electronic devices such as eReaders, LED displays and radio-frequency identificaton tools according to a March 3 article by PC World. 

Wouldn’t that be something, an electronic device that you could bend like you would a magazine or newspaper. I’d buy it just for the uniqueness of it, I mean seriously, how many computers or eReaders can you bend right now?

According to the March 3rd article from PC World : 

The technology turns liquid silk into membranes that work as insulators for flexible thin-film transistors, a component of bendable electronics. The membranes may even improve the speed and performance of a device's transistors.

This video from YouTube explains more about flexible electronics

But, as a journalism student I see this new invention of flexible ‘silk’ technology to be intriguing. Not only will it help keep the idea of holding a traditional newspaper somewhat alive, it will also add new possibilities for, not only writers, but designers as well. Designers would no longer have to stick to straight horizontal designs, but could add curves and other creative features to their publications.

I would rather have my publication be on a flexible electronic device or flexible eReader rather than a regular eReader, at least it would still be similar to the original thing and would have more possibilities. 

According to a March 4 article on SlashGear.com, the Taiwanese researchers have already started discussions with manufacturers to start the new silk based electronics market.

All this new technology is both amazing and mind boggling to me. I just can’t imagine using silk membranes to come up with flexible technological devices. Wow! That’s all I can say about that.

However, we may be waiting for sometime until we see flexible ‘silk’ technology on our local shelves as the Slash Gear article explained:

Although silk is among the more expensive fabrics, in comparison to flexible electronics components it’s far more affordable. The research team expects the silk cost to be around $0.03 per device, and since it’s a natural fiber the ecological impact is reduced as well. No word on which manufacturers are looking to use the new fabric technology, nor when we could expect to see rollable displays and other gadgets based on it.

This isn’t the first time that academic researchers in Taiwan have come up with big technological ideas. In fact, the article on PC World explained a face-recognition vending machine, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, and a webcam-mounted laptop antenna that scans library documents are just some of the other big Taiwanese inventions. 

I know I will be eagerly awaiting the release of these new and intriguing devices as well as watching for more amazing Taiwan inventions. Until then I will be watching for more surprising technological inventions to change the way we consume the written word…

School Yearbooks go digital

One thing that often get overlooked  when talking about the publishing world is the yearbook. The yearbook is that traditional high school piece of memorabilia that most individuals are familiar with. It’s a collection of images, names, memories and hand written messages that some people will keep for the rest of their lives.

Photo from Student Press Law Center Article



Yearbooks are changing with influence of new media.  In fact, yearbooks today might not even be physical books when all is said and done, but Cd's or files on your email. Yearbooks are becoming digital.

An article by PRNewswire talked about the new browser-based software for yearbooks called Pictavo.

The new software is intended to help yearbook advisers create a trendy yearbook. With the new Walter’s Publishing software advisers will be able to design their book with flexibility, efficiency, easy project management, simple page layout and easier tools.

Pictavo will give advisers and staff the ability to create anytime during the day or night and at any location that has an Internet connection according to the PRNewswire article. The software also has the ability to allow multiple users to work simultaneously in Pictavo. Other features include a built-in chat, and virtual sticky notes.

PRNewswire also had this to say about the new Pictavo software:



photo from Walter's Publishing



Pictavo helps advisers manage their staff and the timeline.  Pictavo's comprehensive project management function enables advisers to assign specific permissions to individuals and groups. Detailed permission levels mean advisers can be assured that staff members only have access to the features they need. Powerful reports and the Dashboard give advisers powerful views of their entire book to make sure everyone stays on track and their books arrive on time.



Walter's Publishing offers the largest selection of yearbook creation software. They have created numerous software portfolios, including EZBook Desktop, EZBook Online and browser-based Pictavo.

EZbook video



Other top digital yearbook companies include Yearbook Life and iYearbook.  Yearbook life also uses EZbook software and is free to its users. iYearbook is more for digital versions of a yearbook rather than a place to develop your yearbook for print publication.

I found this all very interesting and wish that when I was on the yearbook staff in high school that we would have had these kinds of software to work with; would have made working on the yearbook staff a bit more fun. 

But this also makes you wonder if soon there will be nothing but digital yearbooks and eReader textbooks in our high schools. I plan to discuss eReader textbooks in a future post. Until then, here are a few questions to ponder:

• Will students gain or lose from the lack of contact with physical published material?
• Will student eyesight deteriorate due to the increased exposure to digital text and digital media?
  

These are just a few questions that pop into my mind when I think about digital yearbooks. Let me know your thoughts…

Self-Pubishing and iPads: 'Turning' pages into "Apps"

I recently came across an article about WoodWing Software; the first company to introduce an effective system of publishing media the iPad. As I hope to one day own an iPad I found this article very interesting.

One of the most interesting facts in the article had to do with the ever-growing amount of publications becoming available to the iPad via WoodWing's apps or applications.

The number of apps created with WoodWing's Digital Magazine Tools recently passed the century mark, and has since then grown to well over 150 apps. Furthermore, publishers worldwide have produced more than 1,500 digital issues, making the WoodWing Digital Magazine Tools the most popular tablet-publishing solution on the market today. Each month, about 25 new publications are brought to the iPad using WoodWing's solution. A continuously updated list of published iPad apps is available at www.woodwing.com/tablet-gallery. As a result of the large number of tablet publications already created with WoodWing's Digital Magazine Tools, WoodWing's Authorized Solution Partners worldwide have become tablet-publishing experts.

But, WoodWing isn't the only company bringing in the apps; Infinity Publishing is making breakthrough solutions in the app industry as well.

Infinity recently launched OneBook, the first all-in-one app for self-publishing that offers print, eBook, and audio book formats. Infinity's product is being called a 'breakthrough solution' for individuals looking to market their products in various way.

An article from MarketWire had this to say about Infinity's new app:



Photo from startupmeme.com



 Infinity Publishing, a pioneer in self-publishing, today announced the introduction of OneBook (http://blog.infinitypublishing.com/onebook-program/), a unique All-in-One offering for independent authors that allows them to publish their book in print, eBook and audio book formats. The new offering represents a significant value for authors looking for an efficient way to market their work in multiple formats to the world. OneBook combines high-quality production with comprehensive global distribution and is priced 20% below the cost to publish in each format separately. In addition, working with a single publishing company for all versions allows authors to maintain greater control over the publication of their work and to be confident that it will be presented consistently across all three formats in multiple channels of distribution.

Besides my hope of someday owning an iPad or eReader, I also have a professional thougt on these new apps by Infinity and WoodWing as I am a journalist and hope to one day write a novel or two.

Both of these apps could prove highly useful in my professional career and I am eager to see where these company's take these technologies.



Photo from blog.newfiction.com



However, one can't help but wonder how these apps are affecting the publishing industry as a whole. Will there soon be a shortage in actual paged publications, aka books and newspapers and magazines?



Hopefully we wouldn't convert entirely over to apps. It would be a sad thing to loose our printed pages to technological applications. Nothing can really match the real thing.

I know I want a hard copy book with real pages of my book if I ever get published, an app simply would not do.







Technology summarizing books: No 'Need' to 'Read'...

(This blog has been summarized from the original published version by the author)

Photo from Buzzle

 Before the age of the internet, individuals who had little time for books, as well as those who just didn't have the urge or desire to read books, got their stories by watching movies; particularly those that would come out based on books. Today people don't have to necessarily wait for a movie to be released to find out what a book is about. They can just hop on their computer and find a book summary site such as Cliff Notes.  

So the question is, with books as movies and online book summary sites, do people really need to 'read' anymore?

One of my close friends once suggested that I read the book called "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", saying it was a great book, I responded with, "Oh, I was going to watch that movie..." This conversation got me to wondering...does anyone really 'read' anymore, or are we just accustomed to getting the classics and new stories from movies, cliff notes and YouTube clips?

I will admit that I am an avid reader and 'book collector' myself but I do tend to vote on 'watching' a book rather than reading it sometimes. But I also can't wait to see a movie that is based on a favorite read; though I always worry that the film industry will mess up the story, which often happens as in "My Sister's Keeper", where the ending of the book and movie are complete opposites.

Changing books into movies is one of the most common things these days that media arts is doing as per the public demand. People have started liking this idea of watching the movie which is based on a particular book they have already read before. They love to compare it, and always wait for some climax scene to take place so that they can compare their visual imagination with that particular scene in the movie. Some people like it while some don't, and this is because all the aspects and some important points cannot be covered in a movie which is based on a book of about 1000 or more pages.

--As Buzzle.com explains.

I would agree that it's fun to be able to 'watch' a book, but I still think that reading a book allows the reader to fully enter the books' story, mostly because not all details of a book can be put into a movie. In fact, some people may go to a movie and have no idea that there was a book that came first. Lets do an experiment, watch the video below from YouTube and try to see how many books you can identify from the film clips they show. I was able to identify about 5, though I think there are 8 or so in the video.



Another medium that seems to deter individuals from actually reading books is Cliff Notes, a wildly used online database that basically sum up an 800 page novel, or any novel, in just a few pages.

I personally have never used Cliff Notes, but know of many who have. The Digital Nation film that was shown in my Digital Media and Society class explained that "...many students never actually read a novel or any of the classics anymore, and some haven't even read an entire book by the time they graduate from high school...", partially due to the availability of Cliff Notes, and other technological conveniences or distractions; depends how you look at it.  It's sad to think that so many are missing out on such great adventures.

Cliff Notes isn't the only site that provides short and simple book reviews however, there are several others; including: freebooknotes.com, sparknotes, bookwolf, and many more.

Sites like the ones I just listed encourage individuals to simply settle with a brief summary rather than the entire publication, and they aren't afraid to say it, as a quote from the bookwolf website shows:

Welcome to Bookwolf home of our popular brand of FREE literature book notes. Here you will find a wealth of helpful information to guide you to a year full of good grades. What ever happened to the long nights spent reading a good book cuddled on the couch with a loyal pet or favorite blanket? They have become filled with hours on updating photos to facebook, playing video games, or downloading the latest hits from iTunes. The publishing world as a whole is being 'digitalized', 'summarized', 'profitized' and many other types of 'ized'. Back to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", I have bought my own copy and will be beginning my full book experience soon. Though an article in a blog on culturemob.com had this to say about the movie: If you haven’t already seen them, it’s also worth checking out the movies of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest. They may never quite live up to the books, but all three are good films in their own right. I plan to try to read all three books, then see the subtitled films to get the entire experience.

A recent news story about the Grand Forks bookstore closings. It would be a good source if you were interested in more about the local bookstore closings:

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/191062/group/homepage/

Are Bookstores to be a thing of the past?

Like many people I love to read and usually look to my local bookstores to get my new books. I consider myself a sort of 'fun' book collector and currently own roughly 4,000 volumes. However, due to the economy, technology, and changing agendas, future generations may not have the good fortune of going over to their local bookstore to pick up a good read.

I first started noticing the troublesome matter regarding disappearing bookstores about two years ago when the local bookstores in the area started closing.

The Columbia Mall in Grand Forks, N.D. had three brand-name bookstores up until 2009 when they closed their Barnes N’ Noble branch and their Waldenbooks mall branch. In March 2009.

In Dec. 2009, the Waldenbooks mall store in Grand Forks closed, (Waldenbooks is a branch of the Borders Company). On the plus side the store had a 50% off sale as its closing sale and I got a lot of good reads for a great deal and there was still one bookstore in the mall.

Then, in December of 2010, the Grand Forks mall closed their BDalton bookstore, a branch of the Barnes N’ Noble chain, and so Grand Forks now has no new bookstores, only a few small used bookstores scattered throughout the city.
 Fargo, N.D. currently only has a Barnes N’ Noble bookstore, as well as, a few small new and used bookstores that can be found downtown and in various strip malls around the city. Fargo used to have a BDalton Bookstore in the West Acres Shopping Mall but that store was closed in Jan. 2010, right after Waldenbooks closed in Grand Forks.

“Barnes & Noble had operated the UND bookstore for 10 years before it lost its lease in March 2009. Today, the store is called the UND Bookstore and, as before, it carries some new popular book titles. Mostly, however, it devotes its space to textbooks, university clothing and other items.” - http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/188412/

The Bloomington mall also closed it's bookstores, for more information watch the video above.

I find this all very sad as I come from a small town (Hensel, N.D.) about an hour and a half North of Grand Forks, so now, if I was to move back home, the closest new bookstore would be the Barnes N’ Noble here in Fargo N.D.

According to its website, Barnes & Noble is the No. 1 bookseller in the U.S., operating about 1,255 bookstores including 729 superstores and another 635 college bookstores. In North Dakota, there are Barnes & Noble’s in Fargo, Bismarck and Minot.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

If I want to get a book when I am visiting at home it seems that I will have to go online and pay for shipping from one of the many online bookstores that have become popular today. The other closest town to my dad’s farm is Devil’s Lake, which has one small used bookstore and a few thrift stores that sometimes have a good selection of used books.

I blame all these bookstore closings on the web and the new e-readers which began to become popular around 2007, though I may be getting a Kindle for Easter from my mom, so maybe I will think differently when I am part of the mass e-reader club.

Amazon released its first version of the Kindle in November 2007. To give Borders credit, it did manage to quickly follow up by partnering with Sony to sell its e-reader in stores, but it overlooked a prime opportunity to develop its own device.
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/20/the-borders-story-is-this-the-final-chapter.html

Now there are many other e-readers other than kindle to choose from as well as applications for the iPad and your computer. At least I will be able to get some books that I have wanted to read that are currently only available to e-readers and are not in print.

About Me

Hi everyone and welcome to my Comm.442 blog about books. This is my test blog to make sure everything is working.
So as a test blog I guess I can tell you a little about me before you start reading my blog.
I am a Senior attending NDSU for a triple major in Journalism, Public Relations, and Natural Resources Management (Environmental Comm emphasis).
I come from a small town. Some of my hobbies include reading, writing, drawing, and gaming.
I am an animal lover and used to raise rabbits, fish, and hamsters. I currently have a dwarf hamster, a mini rex rabbit, a baby red-eared slider turtle, lots of fish (prob about 40 or more between the turtle tank, the 2 Betta bowls, the 10 gallon and the 20 gallon tank), 2 cats, and 3 dogs.
I hope to be a freelance or professional environmental journalist or writer after I graduate. My dream job would be researching, writing about, or working with wolves. I would also like to write some fiction and nonfiction novels someday. Which brings us back to a blog about books...