Reading in the dark
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Kestrell" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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01:17 pm
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Free remixable audiobook of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Here's the announcement from Cory, and you can read my review of the book in the post previous to this one:
block quote start
My next novel, Little Brother, officially goes on sale today! In
addition to the US print edition, there's a DRM-free audio edition
(there's also forthcoming editions in the UK, Greece, Russia, France and
Norway, with others pending) from Random House Audio. My deal with
Random House is that they're absolutely not allowed to sell the book
with DRM on it, which, sadly, means that Audible (the largest audiobook
store in the world) won't carry it -- they insist on selling books with
DRM, even when authors and publishers don't want it.
Instead, you can buy the audiobook from Zipidee, a retailer that Random
House uses -- they have the spiffy embeddable Flash sales-object you can
find on Craphound.com (feel free to paste it into your own blog or
whatnot), and there's also a static URL for those of you who can't use
Flash.
The audiobook comes with my own sampling license: once you own it,
you're free to take up to 30 minutes' worth of material from it and
remix and then redistribute it as much as you like, provided that you do
so on a noncommercial basis, make sure that it's clear that this is a
remix and not the original, and make sure that you tell people where to
find the original. This is in addition to all the fair use remixing that
you're allowed to do without my permission (of course!).
I'll also be releasing (as always!) a free, Creative Commons-licensed
version of the text of Little Brother, just as soon as I get back to
London (I'm presently in Toronto, visiting my family with my newborn
daughter). It'll likely be Monday or so -- there's a bunch of little
clean-uppy things I need to do with the Little Brother distribution site
that I need to be in my office with uninterrupted time to accomplish.
Random House's page for Little Brother:
http://www.randomhouse.com/littlebrotheraudiobook
Buy Little Brother audio:
http://www.zipidee.com/zipidAudioPreview.aspx?aid=c5a8e946-fd2c-4b9e-a748-f297bba17de8
Buy Little Brother:
http://us.macmillan.com/Retailer.aspx?isbn=9780765319852
block quote end
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood:  excited
Tags: audiobooks, books, coryd, ebooks, science fiction
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04:39 pm
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Free download of Mothers and Other Monsters by Maureen McHugh
Small Beer Press is offering a
free ebook download of Maureen McHugh's _Mothers and Other Monsters_
http://lcrw.net/mchugh/index.htm ;
if interested, here is a review I did of this book for Green Man Review
http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_va_fictionquartet.html
Current Location: aerye
Current Music: www.937mikefm.com
Tags: books, ebooks, science fiction
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02:07 pm
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Bookshare.org Partners with Don Johnston to Provide Free Text Reader for Print-Disabled Students
From the Daisy Talking Book mailing list
Bookshare.org Partners with Don Johnston to Provide Free Text Reader for Print Disabled Students
Special education publisher (Don Johnston) partners with non-profit online library (Bookshare.org) to provide free assistive technology software for students with print disabilities.
Palo Alto, CA and Volo, IL
) March 13, 2008 -- Bookshare.org and Don Johnston have announced a partnership to provide qualified print disabled students with a free text reader to access electronic books from the Bookshare.org library.
This technology access partnership announced at the 2008 CSUN conference in Los Angeles, CA, will serve an estimated 1-3% of the total K-12 student population, specifically those who receive special education services and qualify under the 1996 Chafee Amendment.
We chose Read:OutLoud because of its strong support tools for students with reading disabilities and its ability to read DAISY files that have the richness that comes from the NIMAS publisher files. Benetech and the team at Don Johnston are working closely together to create more equality for students with learning disabilities and special needs.
Beginning at the start of the 2008-09 school year, qualified students will have the opportunity to use Don Johnston's Read:OutLoud Bookshare.org Edition text reader (Windows Version) to access more than 36,000 books, magazines and newspapers in the Bookshare.org library.
The Read:OutLoud Bookshare.org Edition text reader offers embedded reading comprehension strategies and instructional supports that align with state educational standards. The text reader software includes audio feedback, electronic highlighting and note-taking features that allow students to effectively capture ideas. A Mac version will follow in 2009.
( continued below cut, links at bottom )
Current Location: aerye
Tags: accessibility, bookshare, ebooks, education
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10:40 am
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Demented DRm: Have you ever had to print an ebook or e-doc and then scan it in order to access it?
I've heard of blind students doing
this
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080303/004057404.shtml
in order to access PDF docs with a high level of security on them, but I didn't realize librarians were reduced to this ridiculousness.
This always reminds me of those medieval libraries where books were literally chained to the shelves.
Unchain our ebooks!
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood:  disgusted
Current Music: www.937mikefm.com Only the Good Die Young
Tags: drm, ebooks
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12:41 pm
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More about access to virtual worlds + In which formats do blind readers get their books?
The AFB AccessWorld Extra just arrived in my inbox, and it included the results from a set of questions sent out in December regarding where blind readers get their books and in what formats they like to read. I am including that information here, but I also wanted to mention that the March issue will include an article titled
Exploring Methods of Accessing Virtual Worlds by William S. Carter and Guido D. Corona
We provide an introduction to virtual worlds and propose ways of making them
accessible to people who are blind.
Here is the book info, and I just want to note that I am in a minority due to my preference for text over audio.
block quote start
In December, we asked about reading electronic books. We received 100
responses.
( continued below cut )
Current Location: aerye
Current Music: www.937mikefm.com
Tags: accessibility, books, ebooks, virtual worlds
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01:21 pm
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Cataloguing, cross-referencing, and copyediting my eBooks
Both ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) freerange_sanrk and alexx_kay have discussed proofreading electronic texts (okay, I'm not sure alexx_kay outed himself previously, but he does).
I admit I do this also, but it sometimes causes a conflict between my "the text is canon and should not be tampered with" side and my "but the author misspelled the word!" side.
Add to that the many scannos that occur when one is using a scanner and an OCR program. One example: typefaces which use extended headers and footers often cause the OCR to misrecognize the word "the" as "die." Do you know how often the word the, or similar words such as "Them" and "Their" are usedin an average text? And how carefully, if one reads a lot of mysteries, one must read to make sure that the word really is "the" and not "die"?
But mysteries cause the least of my copyediting quandaries. Science fiction writers, as a group, really like getting cute with language.
A couple of weeks ago I was scanning Rudy Rucker's _Mathematicians In Love_ and realized scores of articles were missing. Now, I realized that, this being science fiction, there might turn out to be a perfectly valid reason for this (there was, but it wasn't brought up until the last third or so of the book). Anyway, I think I slipped in a few articles before I felt really confident that Rudy was just messing with me.
On the other hand, in recent years, copyediting on the part of publishers has definitely gotten more slapdash, to a point where missing words or repeated words or even misspelled words are not that unusual. I just read a book on writing where the author misspelled "urbane" as "urban" throughout the entire book.
( more copyedting quandaries and a peek into my library )
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: www.937mikefm.com
Tags: books, ebooks, hermione inclinations
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02:21 pm
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Verner Vinge's _Rainbow's End_ available free online
This one falls into one of my narrative fetishes: it's about a library (possibly a sentient library?).
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: bookish
Current Music: Little Red Rooster www.wmbr.org
Tags: books, ebooks, etexts, science fiction
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04:10 pm
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And I thought just hauling the Riverside Shakespeare to class everyother day was a killer...
http://consumerist.com/consumer/protest/man-to-run-nyc-marathon-carrying-textbooks-to-protest-high-cost-of-college-texts-317784.php
block quote start
meet Andre Ditto, the 47 year-old vegan personal trainer who is going to run the NYC marathon carrying 30lbs of textbooks both to protest the high cost
of college textbooks and as a promotion for ebook retailer CaféScribe.
In return, CaféScribe will be paying for Mr. Ditto's daughter's textbooks for a year. We've always considered running marathons to be insane behavior (even
without carrying a backpack full of books) but Andre is confident that he can do it.
According to the press release that came sailing into our inbox, Andre will be carrying (among others) the world's heaviest textbook: Art History by Marilyn Stokstad. We have a degree in Art History. Good luck, Andre. You're going to need it to defeat Stokstad."
block quote end
Current Location: library
Current Mood: amused
Tags: books, ebooks, education
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12:33 pm
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Holiday reading: Sleepy Hollow +a fictionalized account of Aleister Crowley by Maugham
First, because someone requested the url be reposted
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=41
and, newly added to Project Gutenberg,
The Magician (1908),A NOVEL By Somerset Maugham based on his relationship with Aleister Crowley.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=14257
block quote start
I took an immediate dislike to him, but he interested and amused
me. He was a great talker and he talked uncommonly well. In early youth,
I was told, he was extremely handsome, but when I knew him he had put on
weight, and his hair was thinning. He had fine eyes and a way, whether
natural or acquired I do not know, of so focusing them that, when he
looked at you, he seemed to look behind you. He was a fake, but not
entirely a fake. At Cambridge he had won his chess blue and was esteemed
the best whist player of his time. He was a liar and unbecomingly
boastful, but the odd thing was that he had actually done some of the
things he boasted of.
block quote end
Current Location: library
Current Mood: macabre
Current Music: Kate Rusby, I Am Stretched On Your Grave
Tags: ebooks, horror
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08:16 am
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Free audiobook: Man Who Was Thursday
Learn Out Loud is offering this free mp3/podcast.
I had forgotten how surreal the story was until I read the following description:
Listen to G. K. Chesterton's metaphysical thriller The Man Who Was Thursday. Chesterton sets this novel in turn-of-the-century London, as Scotland Yard
sends a poet named Gabriel Syme undercover to investigate a group of anarchist poets. He is soon elected to the Central Council of Anarchists and given
the code name Thursday. Chesterton includes many metaphysical and theological discussions in the book. This audio book is unabridged and well narrated
by Zachary Brewster-Geisz. It is available on MP3 download and can also be subscribed to as a podcast through iTunes.
The Man Who Was Thursday Podcast
http://www.learnoutloud.com/Catalog/Literature/European-Classics/The-Man-Who-Was-Thursday-Podcast/24756
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: insufficiently caffeinated
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: audiobooks, books, ebooks, sf
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11:22 am
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Accessibility: Free text-to-speech program+learn about digital books and converting text to mp3
1. If you register with GiveawayOfTheDay
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/
you can try out all sorts of free programs, and today's is
2nd Speech Center is an award-winning text-to-speech player that lets you listen to documents, e-mails or web pages instead of reading on screen. In addition
to text, 2nd Speech Center also allows you to convert text to MP3 or WAVE files for listening later with your portable MP3 player.
Proceed to download page
http://www.wikifortio.com/383406/2ndSpeechCenter.zip
2. EASI is presenting two free webinars that may be useful to those interested in alternate format books:
DIGITAL BOOKS & PLAYERS, AN UPDATE
( descriptions of free webinars below cut )
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: getting better
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: accessibility, ebooks, education
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11:25 am
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University of Florida makes audiobooks coolection freely available through iUniversity
Via LearnOutLoud.com
The University of South Florida's
Lit2Go collection,
http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/
of MP3 audiobooks is now freely available. It is aimed at K-12 students and, while the classification of books according to grade seems sort of random to me, there is lots of classic literature that begins appearing from the grade six grouping onward.
The grade 9 listings include Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and The War of the Worlds, while the 10th Graders listing includes The House of the Seven Gables, Wuthering Heights, The Woman In White, and Lewis Carroll's Symbolic Logic.
There are more math and logic books for 11th and 12th graders, and lots of books about Florida.
Current Location: in the library with coffee
Tags: books, ebooks, education
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02:54 pm
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Juno Books makes books available as ebooks on Fictionwise
Paula Guran, editor at Juno Books
http://www.juno-books.com
just posted to the Juno Books blog that some of the Juno titles are now available on Fictionwise. Since these ebooks are available in Fictionwise's multiformat, this means blind readers can use a pdb converter to make these formats accessible.
Guran is one of the most knowledgeable editors around in both the horror and romance fields, in regard to both genre and audiences. She edited the first
Best New Paranormal Romance anthology
http://www.juno-books.com/paranormal.html
and her
Introduction to Best New Paranormal Romance: What Is Paranormal Romance?
http://juno-books.com/downloads.html
essay is one of the best pieces of writing on this genre-crossing of horror and romance.
Added: Paula just pointed me to an audiobook edition of Jade Tiger
http://www.amazon.com/Jade-Tiger-Jenn-Reese/dp/0809562235/ref=ed_oe_a/
which is a fun story with a female protagonist who is a kickass martial arts expert with a dash of Indiana Jones.
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: books, ebooks, paranormal romance
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06:43 pm
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Harlequin releases catalog in eBook format
Kes: I have noticed that sites like Fictionwise are seriously catering to the romance--including paranormal romance--audience. Additionally, a number of those titles on Fictionwise are queer romances. Any idea on why eBooks might be more appealing to female and queer readers? Maybe men just read less in general? (Sorry if that last one sounds sexist, just, in my experience in taking college classes, female students seemed much more likely to be reading for fun than male students.)
http://press.eharlequin.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=77&Itemid
=
Toronto, (September 24, 2007) Harlequin Enterprises Limited, one of the world's leading publishers of women's fiction, announced today that they have become the first major publisher to make their complete front-list catalog available in the eBook format. Harlequin releases more 120 titles per month, and their
complete list can be found at
www.harlequinebooks.com.
Harlequin entered the eBook marketplace in October 2005 and has experienced unqualified success since that time. Romance novels have proven to be one of
the most popular categories of digital publishing, and Harlequin titles regularly top eBook bestseller lists. [...]
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: bookish
Tags: books, ebooks, reading
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11:16 am
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Gender, genre, and the art of covering up
Kes: jesse_the_k sent me the link
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/technology/circuits/09basics.html
to a New York Times article on eBooks and eBook reading devices, along with her own note ":Crappy gender politics towards the end (color me shocked)."
I could tell precisely which sentence that provoked this comment because my snark meter kicked into gear also:
block quote start
As the readers and the devices become more common, e-book publishers
are noticing a shift in tastes. The early best-seller lists were
dominated by science fiction novels and other titles favored by men,
who, not coincidentally, also tend to buy gadgets.
But lately, the lists are led by romance and women’s fiction. The top
seller at Fictionwise yesterday was “Lady Beware” by Jo Beverley. The
top seller at both Mobipocket and eReader recently was “The Secret
Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever” by Julia Quinn.
“The public’s attitude is that electronic media is disposable,” said
Nick Bogaty, the executive director of the International Digital
Publishing Forum. “Mystery and romance are priced lower, and there’s
an argument to be made about trade e-books that the consumers want a
lot of product, and they want it relatively inexpensively.”
Another advantage of the format, he said, is that “on the subway, you
don’t need to be embarrassed by the cover.”
block quote end
Aside from the fact that I have been known to gloat that no one knows how much porn I have on my Book Port (=an accessible mp3 player for blind readers), this gave me the idea of demonstrating some romance reader pride by creating something from book covers. A laptop bag, perhaps? Maybe a laptop cover that velcros closed? Hm, I know someone made a bodiceripper bodice at Arisia a number of years back: are there any sites for how to create things from book covers?
If I figure out how to do this, I may be asking people for scandalous book covers...
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: www.937mikefm.com
Tags: ebooks, gender, genre
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10:40 am
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Cory explains "Free(konomic) E-books"
Kes: I'll give Cory credit for still attempting to provide persuasive arguments in what I have come to view as another religious war with way too much of people's individual personalities wrapped up in the argument to ever really have a chance of changing their minds. To some degree, I think the digital book is viewed with great suspicion in our culture, it messes with the American idea of definitive ownership. I also think, however, that there is a small but vocal contingent of readers--many of them critics and academics--who have gotten a lot of mileage out of claiming that nobody reads "real" books anymore, and that they are themselves the last defenders of the shining light of true literacy, the only thing standing between civilization and the barbarians who are clamoring at the gate.
Myself, I wish they would get off the cross--I could use the wood for more bookshelves.
Posted by Cory Doctorow:
My latest column in Locus Magazine has just gone live. Called
"Free(konomic) E-books," it's an attempt to enumerate the evidence that
Creative Commons and other scheme for giving away free ebooks works to
sell printed books. In my next column, I'l expain how Creative Commons
works, and how science fiction writers can use it.
> Many of us have assumed, a priori, that electronic books substitute for print books. While I don't have controlled, quantitative data to refute the proposition,
I do have plenty of experience with this stuff, and all that experience leads me to believe that giving away my books is selling the hell out of them.
>
> More importantly, the free e-book skeptics have no evidence to offer in support of their position — just hand-waving and dark muttering about a mythological
future when book-lovers give up their printed books for electronic book-readers (as opposed to the much more plausible future where book lovers go on buying
their fetish objects and carry books around on their electronic devices).
Column:
http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2007/09/cory-doctorow-freekonomic-e-books.html
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: all pixel-stained
Tags: books, ebooks, pixel-stained technopeasants
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12:13 pm
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New service launched for converting educational materials into accessible formats
A professional acquaintance of mine, Dan Berkowitz, has launched a new service which promises to be invaluable to students with disabilities. DigiLife is a service dedicated to converting educational materials into accessible formats. Dan is probably the most knowledgeable person I know when it comes to the digital conversion process, in addition to being a smart and funny guy (not to mention, the coolest DSS provider ever and the only one I know who is on Facebook).
So, if you are worried about how to get all your texts converted into accessible formats, consider contacting Dan at DigiLife.
Original announcement of DigiLife:
Myself and a colleague have created DigiLife Media,
LLC. DigiLife Media is a private company apart from my full-time job and
was created to serve the needs of educational institutions providing
services to their students with print impairments and other
disabilities.
DigiLife has the ability to scan, cleanse/edit, and produce digital
versions of textbooks and other print materials in a variety of formats
( more info below cut )
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: bookish
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: accessibility, blindness, books, ebooks, education, etexts
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11:13 am
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Samizdat.com announces free kids ebook of the week mailing list
Kes: Richard Seltzer at Samizdat.com, who sends out a free weekly ebbok, has just announced that he will be starting a free kids ebook of the week list, also. More info in the newsletter below.
Following up on a great suggestion..., I'm going to start a
separate new mail list for "free kids' book of the week" (in addition to the
"free ebook of the week"). If you'd like to get the books (as email
attachments), just send me an email requesting to be added. Also, please
send me your suggestions for what books to include.
Meanwhile, I just updated our American DVD, adding 544 books, for a total of
2991. An incredible bargain, this one DVD includes the full contents of 20
of our CDs, using the same organization:
American Literature (2-CD set)
US History
( more information about Samizdat eBooks and CDs>
American Revolution
Civil War
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln
Theodore Roosevelt
California,
Southwest
West
Old New York
Old New England
The Old South
Old Mid-West
Black American
Slave Narratives
Native Americans
Papers of the Presidents
Brook Farm
For details see
http://samizdat.stores.yahoo.net/amdvd.html
I also updated our Historical Novel CD, nearly doubling it, adding 285 books
for a total of 645. For details see
http://samizdat.stores.yahoo.net/historical.html
You can see the list of what was added to this one at
http://samizdat.stores.yahoo.net/updates.html
or at
http://www.samizdat.com/update.html
Coming soon:
New CDs -- Charles Spurgeon (a British Baptist minister from the 19th
century, renowned for his sermons); Early Geography/Geology; Early Medicine;
Robert Michael Ballantyne; Harry Collingwood; Benjamin Disraeli; George
Manville Fenn; W.H.G. Kingston; and Captain Marryat.
Suggestions always welcome.
Best wishes.
Richard
Richard Seltzer,
seltzer@samizdat.com
<
mailto:seltzer@samizdat.com> ,
617-469-2269
Book collections on CD and DVD
http://samizdat.stores.yahoo.net/
As featured in the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/arts/09conn.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slo
gin
Blogging About Books
http://www.samizdat.com/blog
Fuzzy Thoughts About Big Questions
http://www.samizdat.com/blog/?cat=15
and
http://www.samizdat.com/fuzzy.html
)
Current Location: aerye
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: books, ebooks
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11:15 am
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More fantasy available on Fictionwise in accessible format
While checking out the new ebooks on Fictionwise last night, I noticed that there were a number of exceptional fantasy books available in "multiformat," which does not have the DRM security settings imposed upon it which ultimately locks out screen readers (additionally, with some converter programs like Mini-Reader http://www.blindbookworm.org/minireader.exe you can convert the files to plaintext and port them to devices like braille displays and your Book Port).
Some of the titles I noticed were _Undertow_ by Elizabeth Beat, _Generation Loss_ by Elizabeth Hand, _Endless Things_ by John Crowley*, and _Water Logic_ by Lori Marks.
I do not know how such decisions are made, but hurray for at least some fantasy ebooks being available in accessible formats!
* _Endless Things_ is the fourth book in the AEgypt tetrology, and you can find the previous three books in electronic braille format through the NLS if you are a subscribed member with Web braille privileges.
Current Location: aerye
Current Mood: bookish
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: accessibility, books, ebooks, fantasy
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10:04 am
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Cory Doctorow writes about the dangers of DRM as "junk science"
Kes: As someone who has attempted in the past to challenge the digital rights management settings which have denied screen reader users access, especially when it denies students with disabilities equal access to educational materials, I have often had to confront educators who had obviously been whipped into a hysterical frenzy by "experts" who told them that any relenting of digital security would immediately result in students copying every file they could and then uploading it to the Internet. These "experts" are DRM rainmakers who get paid by educators to make sense of copyright issues and digital rights management, and instead misinform the educators about DRM, often to the disadvantage of students with disabilities whose access technologies cannot penetrate the proprietary software or security settings imposed by this junk science DRM. I spent two years as an undergrad denied access to all my online course materials because the university I attended had received some very bad--and one-sided--advice on DRM, which made me aware that these business models also impact education models for digital materials.
Posted by Cory Doctorow:
I've started writing a column for the MediaGuardian, the British website
for media professionals, critiquing DRM and explaining "copy-friendly"
business models. My first column is up today, explaining the way that
DRM is like the Soviet Union's Lysenkoism, a form of ideologically
correct junk science.
> The companies that sell this stuff are, at best, bunkum peddlers and, at worst, out and out fraudsters. Their wares simply can't work - not without changing
the laws of physics, maths and information science.
> DRMs are often designed by ambitious, well-funded consortia, with top-notch engineers from every corner of the industry. They spend millions. They take
years. They are defeated in days, for pennies, by hobbyists. It's inevitable, because every time you give someone a locked item, you have to give them
the key to unlock it too.
Column:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jul/31/comment.drm
Current Location: aerye
Current Music: www.wumb.org
Tags: access, drm, ebooks, education, etexts
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