Entries tagged with “digital tools” from Tools of Change for Publishing

TOC Recommended Reading

Mac Slocum
September 4, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Create Digital First (Martyn Daniels, Brave New World)

Today we are the start of a digital consumer offer but it is in the main based on yesterday's physical cost model, processes and perceptions. Merely taking the finished book and generating a digital rendition that mirrors the physical one is what music did with CDs. Is it logical to merely replicate the book and create just another rendition? We don't envisage the same demand change as music experienced in selling just fragments (tracks), but it is possible to see the selling of installments or part works, where all the complete 'book' may not be bought.
(Via the Reading 2.0 list)

The Elements of a Perfect eReading Device (Dear Author)

I think that there is a technological gap between what readers would like in the perfect ereader and what can actually be done. If you don't like LCD screens, then you are limited by refresh rates and the inability of eink technology to actually perform some multi function device programs. If you don't like to be limited by refresh rates, want a backlight, and ability to play video, browse the web, and even do a lot of typing (or editing of manuscripts), then eInk devices aren't for you.
(Via Electric Alphabet)

Google Chrome is Bad for Writers & Bloggers (Edward Champion, Edward Champion's Reluctant Habits)

Anyone who uses Chrome will technically own the copyright, but who needs copyright when the Chrome user effectively gives up her right to distribute this content in all perpetuity and without royalties? So if Joyce Carol Oates is using Chrome and types an email to someone, she "owns" the copyright. But Google has the right to use anything that Ms. Oates types into Chrome for any purpose. Google responds. (Via Jose Alonso Furtado's Twitter stream)

Related:

• TOC News
• TOC Analysis and Opinion

Survey Results: Students Rely on Digital Tools for Research

Mac Slocum
June 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Results from Ebrary's 2008 Global Student E-Book Survey show that students working on research projects use digital reference tools more often than print materials. From Publishers Weekly:

Respondents say they use Google and other search engines as well as e-books more than print books for research assignments; online encyclopedias and Wikipedia are only slightly less used than print books, according to the survey. Print books, however, are deemed the most trustworthy sources, as well as far better for cover-to-cover reading.

Post-survey analysis included in the Ebrary report notes a gap between the resources students trust and the resources they use:

While four of the top five trusted resources are print, four of the top five resources students reported using are electronic (Google, e-books, e-reference, and Wikipedia). Students will use whatever information resource most efficiently gets the assignment done within acceptable parameters for the desired grade.

Related Stories:

• Aggregated Ebook Service Suits Research Publisher
• What OpenID Can Do for Academic Publishers
• Open Source Textbook Adoption Grows