E-books article: references

Just nipping in from holidays to give you some links.  Earlier this year, ASLA NSW asked me to write an article on e-books, and if you are a member, your August 2009 edition of  info@aslansw features E-books: Trading Ink for Pixels, or Devices and Desires by yours truly.

While I can't put the whole piece here (wouldn't be fair), here's the final paragraph:

 It isn’t just about what we of longer memories and older bones may think is the ‘right’ technology, but about ways of connecting our students with reading. Stories. Narratives. Language. The blueprint of our minds. “We read to know we are not alone,” says a character in the film Shadowlands. There are plenty of articles online about committed print book readers who found their mind changed by the experience of a Kindle, for example. An e-book isn't the end of the world, or the last straw, or anything like it. It's a story in a different format. A chance to read. A fishing opportunity to catch another reader. The world we grew up in, before we became teacher librarians, is changing all the time. We have a responsibility to encourage our students to read in any way we can, to develop their skill and understanding of the world around them through all the technologies we can harness to that purpose.

(In case you feel tempted, can I remind you that this, as is the case with this whole blog, is © copyright?).

For those who may come visiting this blog as a result (hello!), or who may really not wish to type in the references provided at the end of the article from their print copy (members can read it online in .pdf form), here they are, live and ready to click:

References


If you only read one article on e-books, read this one:
Steven Johnson: How the E-book will change the way we read and write

• Amazon
• Angry Robot Books
• DailyLit
• Dymocks
• Google Book Search
• Harlequin
• HarperCollins launches global e-book program for J.R.R. Tolkien
• Stephenie Meyer: Midnight Sun
• Project Gutenberg
• Motoko Rich: Book Fair Buzz is not contained between 2 covers
• Suvudu Free Book Library
• The World Ebook Fair
• Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Step inside Barcelona's Secret Library

In researching the article, there was SO MUCH material that could have been included (if there was an infinte word count, which there wasn't).  And after I'd submitted it, I kept finding more and more articles/info/discussions on e-books.  Very much in the news, right now.  I don't pretend to be an expert, but an interested amateur with a particular (school library) perspective.

Cheers, Ruth