TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Gizmodo via MobileRead. Related: The Readable E-Book Is Here, from LouRockwell.com. Readable in extremely dim light, too—like a backlighted PDA?

More tags: Sony, Sony Reader

                                                 

E-book publishing isn’t the friendliest industry for the disabled, who, even more than others, suffer from the effects of Draconian DRM—all too often a horror for those using screen readers, for example.

Baen Books, a leading sci-publisher, which each month previews its p-books in e-format, earlier set an example through avoidance of DRM. Now it’s gone another step by providing e-books free to the disabled. Here’s a news release on Baen and ReadAssist, a group working with the disabled:

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More tags: Baen, Jim Baen, disabled, print-impaired, WebScriptions, ReadAssist

                                                 

You already know how the Fairfax County (VA) Library is interviewing local writers for podcasts. Now, here’s another example of a library originating local content—one way for public libraries to help avoid obsolescence in the Googlezon age:

The Sherborn Library is pleased to announce the posting of an electronic version of Anne Carr Shaughnessy’s “The History of Sherborn” to the Sherborn Library Web site. This title joins two additional e-books on the library Web site: “History of Sherburne. Mass. from its Incorporation 1674 to the end of the year 1830″ by William Biglow, and “A Genealogical Register of the Inhabitants and History of the Towns of Sherborn and Holliston” by the Rev. Abner Morse. With the inclusion of Shaughnessy’s “History of Sherborn,” the Sherborn Library Web site offers researchers of local history and genealogists the ability to access crucial information from the comfort of their homes and will be especially useful for long-distance researchers.

Related: Sherborn Library site and The History of Sherborn. The “Death Bridge” photo (cropped to fit here without losing detail) is from the book. Notice? The e-book was done in HTML as a simple Web page; no need for fancy stuff if budgets are tight.

More tags: Sherborn, Sherborn Library

                                                 

Do you want YOUR child to have to learn the OLPC way---a mix of LOGO and other forms of contructivism?

Yes

No

Maybe

Don't care

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Polls Archive

I’m an unabashed cheerleader for the technological side of the $100 laptop project for the Third World. But must participating governments also buy the OLPC’s educational philosophy, in effect bundled with the laptops? Suppose your child is involved. Do you want him or her to have to spend countless hours working with LOGO—inspired by constructivism? That’s the real question, and I hope you’ll take time out to consider the implications. Here are some pro-constructivist and pro-LOGO writings by Seymour Papert (photo), an OLPC cofounder and a LOGO creator, and here are posts raising questions.

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More tags: OLPC, constructivist, constructivism, One Laptop Per Child

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To help address needs of the disabled, it would be classy of the IDPF to set aside a board seat for one of them—now that the group may add two seats to the current seven if the members approve.

Alas, George Kerscher, a blind disability advocate who had chaired the IDPF, lost his seat an