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Sources for Free Ebooks and Ereader Software
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by Paula J. Hane
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In late May, BookExpo America week kicked off with IDPF's annual Digital Book 2011 conference. Judging from the product announcements and buzz from the events, ebooks are hot, hot, hot! Kobo, which partners with Borders, announced that its new $130 E-ink touchscreen reading device would be available in June. Barnes & Noble announced a $139 black-and-white E-Ink touchscreen e-reader. Amazon dropped the price of its $189 3G Kindle with Special Offers to $164. Amazon also reportedly told U.S. publishers that it will begin accepting files in EPUB format in the near future, and these files will be readable on the Kindle. With the acceleration of sales of ebook readers and so much interest in ebooks, it seems as if it's a good time to look at good sources to get free ebooks. I will also discuss free ereader software as an alternative to buying dedicated devices.
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New Britannica Ebook Service for Schools and Libraries
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Students in elementary school through college can easily access hundreds of high-quality books on the subjects they're studying through a new web-based ebooks service available to schools and libraries from Britannica Digital Learning, a division of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. The new service makes it easier than ever to use Britannica's expert-written single-volume titles for research, papers, homework, and projects. More than 300 nonfiction digital books are now available. They cover the full range of curriculum, including math, science, language arts, social studies, and health.
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Content from Brill Academic Publishers Coming to WorldCat Local
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A recent agreement between OCLC and Brill Academic Publishers will make Brill's reference, book, and journal content available to library users through WorldCat Local, the OCLC discovery-to-delivery service that offers users integrated access to electronic, digital, and physical library materials.
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YouTube Adds Creative Commons Attribution License
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YouTube added the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY) as a licensing option for users. Now when users upload video, they can choose to license it under CC BY or to remain with the default "Standard YouTube License." Users may also change the license on existing videos by editing each video individually.
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Update on the Digital Public Library of America
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by Paula J. Hane
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The dream of a national digital public library is inching closer to the planning stage. The Berkman Center at Harvard University convened a large and diverse group of stakeholders to define the scope, architecture, costs, and administration for a proposed Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). This initiative was launched in December 2010 with generous support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Since then, it has pulled together a steering committee, described the initiative, launched a planning initiative wiki, established "workstreams," elicited a lively and sometimes quite heated debate on the DPLA's listserv, and given many people hope for the broad, ambitious, collaborative effort.
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