Young people hate books and dead tree publishing is finished. Yes?

Found this YouTube video via Lucacept.



And Lucacept's discussion about the issues facing libraries lending files (e-books, audiobooks) is most relevant and not, at present, finding answers from publishers.

Watch the video on YouTube here if you the one above doesn't work for you.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Weq_sHxghcg&feature=player_embedded
It's a brilliant video.  Brilliant.  Bravo DK/Penguin USA.

Cheers

Ruth

PS. And the format of this strikes me as having possibilities for writing, too.

E-books and e-book readers in Australia

This blog entry began with one newspaper article, and has grown like Topsy; I've added more links to ebookery as I've found them.

Sydney Morning Herald columnist Elizabeth Farrelly had an opinion piece published at Easter about her Kindle e-reader.  Her major criticism (and it's my criticism too, in relation to e-books and audiobooks): the limited availability of up to date copyright content to Australian-address customers.  Amazon won't tell you ahead of time what you can't get here (thousands fewer titles than to US subscribers), and Audible hides lots if you log in as yourself (ie as a subscriber in Australia - I'm on the point of cancelling my Audible subscription for precisely this reason, unavailable content.  I'm not talking about, for example, audiobooks that don't exist - the recordings do, and if I was in the US I could buy them). 

Publishers, authors and agents need to get themselves sorted on rights for audiobooks and e-books so that we in Australia can read and listen to the same range as readers/listeners in the UK and US.  It's crazy that you can buy a print copy (eg of a multimillion bestseller) but not, for example, a Kindle copy if you're an Australian-address buyer.  Their choices are sabotaging our use of this technology, and limiting their profits (a very odd thing in a capitalist world, imho).  Buyers are willing to pay for copyright content, but publishers, authors, agents (and Amazon - if I was i/c there I'd be chivvying the others like crazy) are just saying no.  Do they realise their daftness?  Into the vacuum they create the pirates are, I'm sure, oh-so-willing to provide an alternative - with no profits to authors, agents, publishers or Amazon.  Daft.

A quote:

But I did want something to read. Something compressed and intelligent for the plane or the swag. But apart from The Spectator and The New York Times, it's like an airport bookstore with the good bits removed. Kindle Australia has four readable books. Three Stieg Larssons and Stoker's Dracula. I've read them.



Everything else is called Midnight in Madrid or How to Make A Million Bucks with a Gleaming Smile and a Flat Belly. You can't search alphabetically, and much as Amazon vaunts its relationship with publishers you can't get Pete Dexter or Tim Winton or A.A. Gill and if you search Carl Hiaasen you get three Lee Goldberg westerns and a self-helper called Active Senior Living.


and her rather nice final line:

Hmm. Burnt by kindling. Hot cross you, April Fool me.

Read all about it: Easter: when a Kindle surprise turns into a curate's egg, by Elizabeth Farrelly.

Here endeth this rant.  Well, for now.  Haven't even touched on e-book and audiobook rights in a library/lending context as opposed to an individual reader/subscriber.

There's another good and long article about e-books in Australia here: The e-book revolution is coming to a screen near you, by Charlotte Harper - SMH/Canberra Times.  It points out that the US-centric focus of Amazon also means few Australian books available for Kindle yet; and reiterates the point that piracy will take up the space left by dawdling publishers.

A shorter blog piece at the Committed Sardine, entitled, Don't believe the e-book sceptics includes these four principles for considering change:

(Farhad) Manjoo lays out four principles for more successful predictions about our digital future:


1. Good predictions are based on current trends
2. Don't underestimate people's capacity for change
3. New stuff sometimes come out of the blue
4. These days it's best to err on the side of (technological) optimism


The last piece also refers to a well-known 1995 Newsweek essay by Clifford Stoll, entitled (entrancingly), The internet? Bah! Read an evaluation of this piece here, which points out that while Clifford Stoll may have been proved totally wrong on many things...

Let's get this over with. Here is a list of things Stoll calls "baloney" on—each and every one of which has a thriving utility in 2010:


•telecommuting
•interactive libraries
•multimedia classrooms
•electronic town meetings
•virtual communities
•taking a computer to the beach
•getting books and newspapers online
•e-commerce, online shopping, and e-payments
•booking airline tickets and restaurant reservations

...he is also, in 2010, a good sport about his essay being cited over and over for its lack of prescience. (Nick Summers: Let's talk about the 1995 Newsweek piece that says the internet will fail).

Author Alan Baxter blogs that ebooks are the future. (Found via Darcy Moore's blog)

There are so many e-book articles around - if you want to contribute links in the comments to any which you have found useful/informative, please do.

Cheers

Ruth

Skulduggery Pleasant book 4: Dark Days (+film news)

Here's the answer to a question I know I'll be asked week one: it's called Dark Days, it's out on 1 April 2010 and it's got a purple cover (as opposed to orange, lime and aqua).  It's Skulduggery Pleasant book 4.  And I've had a waiting list for this since April 2009, when Skulduggery Pleasant book 3 came out.  I will be requiring several copies (and have been advised so by young persons at school.  Repeatedly.)

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Here is the blurb from the publisher's Australian site (which seems to have the wrong release date on it, methinks):

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What can we say, without giving too much away?

Not much, is the answer.

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But what we CAN say is that this book is hilarious, it′s tense, and it′s packed with all the eye-popping action, crackling one liners and imaginative set pieces you′ve come to expect. There′s a new threat to our plucky heroine, of course. But that′s not all. There′s also the little fact of the Big Bad, the uber-baddy who′s going to come along and really, really destroy the world. (Really.) And what we learn about that villain in this book will literally make your jaw fall off and your hair go white with shock. (Not really.)

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Will Skulduggery make it out of the Faceless Ones′ dimension? Who knows. The problem is, he may not have much to come back to...

Ah, there's a useful bit of information with which to start the new school year in 2010!

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Cheers

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Ruth

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PS If you've not heard the audio book versions by Rupert Degas, you've missed a treat.  And not just for the lovely Irish accents. Download from audible.com or buy on CD from bookdepository.com.

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PPS. According to IMDB, there is a film of Skulduggery Pleasant in the works.  Current listed release date is 2010, but I wouldn't hold my breath - seems like there isn't much info yet.
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PPPS. There are several interviews with Derek Landy on YouTube, like this:


PPPPS, or however many P's are right... Hey, welcome to a new school year!  I was at the Australia Day celebrations at Katoomba yesterday and saw the Bushwackers play - great stuff!

Skerricks in the world: word walls and other inspiration

As you can see from the blog header, and elsewhere in this blog, our word walls are an important part of the library, our billboards and statements of purpose. (And beautiful, and fun, and more - we love them and the kids like them too).  I was originally inspired by seeing work done by the Robin Hood library initiative in New York.

It was lovely to see, cruising around blogs in the bloglist over there on the right, that MissLibrarian (at ButYou'reTooLoudToBeALibrarian) has taken this idea and worked out how to use it in her different library space in the UK (hey, that's three continents - US, Australia, Europe!).  Take a look at progress on her word banners here.  Applause!

Jill at CLC Eltham painted a word wall in her library, inspired by ideas she found here - hers looks FANTASTIC!  See it here.

Fiona over at Reader's Random Ramblings has mentioned Skerricks a few times, too - thank you.  I was interested to read her thoughts on learning to be a teacher librarian here and 'what is a library?' here,  and she had some thoughts about whether audiobooks are 'reading' here.

Mrs Mac's extensive and varied ideas for Book Week 2009 (theme: Book Safari) also draw on ideas she's found here - thank you for the mention!

What I love most about this is the stew and soup and brew of ideas we are all sharing, passing around, working out in our own ways, the aha! moment of mine that becomes a fresh aha! moment in your hands, and then travels on its way to others.  I learn so much from others - and appreciate what I do learn, what inspires and encourages me - that it's just grand to be able to return the favour and be a part of the sharing culture of teacher librarianship.

Cheers

Ruth

Is listening to an audiobook 'reading'?

I listen to audiobooks every day in the car while commuting (weekdays) or going from here to there and back again (as can happen any day of the week).  Favourites include the Diana Gabaldon Outlander series, the Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse series, Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant books as read by Rupert Degas, William Hope and Laurel Lefkow's brilliant reading of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife.  Robin McKinley's Sunshine.  Bill Bryson travel books. 

So, mostly popular fiction/nonfiction (well, I am driving) and favourites have been listened to more than once.  I've pretty much given up listening to the radio (it was ABC702) in favour of stories/audiobooks.  I've come across a few duds, too - whether the narrator just didn't rock my socks, or the book just didn't grab me.... Mostly, but not always, they are books I've already read in 'book' aka print form.

In my waiting list is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and I think the very respectable English lady narrator (you can hear a sample of it over on Audible.com) will add a delicious po-faced layer to this mashup of Austen.  And I haven't read the print book yet.

Enough about me.  Except to say, it didn't occur to me that this isn't 'reading'.  Then I read this literary agent's blog entry, and saw the poll results (pretty much even when I saw it) and read through the many comments.  Lots of folks saying yes, but lots saying no: although I'm not sure all the reasons they put forward are sufficient to confirm their case. 

Setting aside the issues related to the disabled (eg. the blind, and even then there seems to be a braille vs audio argument going on) and abridged/unabridged (I generally go for unabridged, for myself)  the comments range over an interesting assortment of interpretations of what 'reading' is, how it works, and how listening and reading may be perceived as different things.  Certainly, when I'm listening to a book, I'm aware that the narrator is adding in voice/tone/pausing that may vary from what my eyes give my brain if I'm reading the print book.  On the other hand, William Hope's worldweary "It was a routine day in October..", or Laurel Lefkow's interpretation of Clare from The Time Traveler's Wife have both given me these characters as characters, and told me the story in a way that is every bit as rich as reading the print book - not the same, but not a lesser experience.  There is an immediacy given to you by the voice.

Another line of argument agin is that reading a print book is a single-focus activity, while audiobooks are often (but not necessarily always) listened to in a multi-tasking environment - driving, housework, exercise etc which may involve divided attention and therefore less attention to the text.  Although anyone who's plodded/strode/jogged away on a treadmill, for example, is unlikely to have too much of their brain space being occupied by that activity, leaving plenty to attend to the text.

There are free audiobooks around on the net, of varying quality, but they are a resource to which I can point the kids at school for another 'take' on those books (usually classics/out of copyright).  I'm still thinking out how to make audiobooks more available to my students, because I'd like to.  Certainly, there are schools with audiobooks in their school library collections (cost and management are two issues that need solving).  Some lend students with learning problems the audiobook and print book together, so they can read it more effectively.  With player options so cheap, at entry level, and player possibilities (including mobile phones and MP3 players) so very often in the possession of students, and so portable, it's an area for investigation.

For now, I'm still puzzling over the idea that the transformation of reading, eyes-words-brain, is to so many people a 'better' thing than hearing the same words, spoken words-brain.  Isn't it just the same, but different?

Final note: my audiobook experience has been marred by the problem with rights (and I'm sure this will be an e-book issue, too).  The range available here in Australia is smaller than overseas, and a lot more expensive.  In the area of digital downloads, many many popular works seem to be 'unavailable to this geographic area' - I've had to get hold of a couple of faves through overseas contacts, or laboriously upload the CDs I can buy, when I can't buy a digital download.  As a consumer, I'm bewildered by the idea that when there IS an EXISTING audio recording of a book, authors/agents/publishers are not acting to make these available to consumers so we can buy them and they can make an income.  Search Audible.com when logged in and identified as being from Australia, and you have far fewer choices than if you're not logged in and are just searching as though you were, say, an American reader. Digital downloads make so much sense - no postage, directly installed, cheaper than CDs - and yet there are titles where you can buy a CD, but not a digital download.  And plenty of titles where you can't buy either.

DailyLit (and Sherlock Holmes)

So if you've got kidlets paying attention, they may have twigged to the arrival at the end of 2009 of a new film version of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law (as Watson) and larded with explosions, smart dialogue, mystery, intrigue and other stuff likely to be enjoyable Boxing Day cinematic fare.
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And do you have a copy of the book in your library?  A nice copy?  And even then, is it too big or offputting for a Young Person to enjoy?
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Fear not, because you can offer them the chance to read it in bite sized pieces.  Delivered free, direct to their email, in 131 instalments.  Really.  It's what DailyLit does.  They're building their library of copyright material, and will charge you for that, but they also have a bunch of public domain material too (Pride and Prejudice? Romeo and Juliet? Yes, and yes again).  Five minutes a day, or less.  Achievable.  Amusing? Fun? Different? Worth trying?
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I think so.
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Thanks to Wonderbooks for alerting me to DailyLit (and for the lovely entry mentioning how a Skerricks idea had been useful, too!)
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Cheers, Ruth
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PS. I will be going to see the Sherlock Holmes film for assorted reasons, one idionsyncratic one being that it includes the actor William Hope.  Who?  He and Laurel Lefkow are the readers on the unabridged audio version of Audrey Niffenegger's novel, The Time Traveler's Wife, one of my favourite books ever ever ever (on the wrong side of the bonking line for a school library, though) and probably my favourite audio book.  The best audiobook readers may well be those who you don't know so well, so you don't get distracted by your preconceptions of them from elsewhere.  But Hope and Lefkow do the most brilliant job with TTTW as Claire and Henry.  I don't know how I'm going to cope when later this year the film of TTTW comes out, and Eric Bana becomes Henry (and, curiously, Rachel McAdams who is in the Sherlock Holmes film, is Claire in TTTW film).   If you want to listen to TTTW unabridged audio (note the unabridged, there is an abridged version with different readers), it's obtainable on CD from Amazon etc, or to download from audible.com - even in Australia, which is not always the case.
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But enough about me.  Try DailyLit.  Let your students know about it.