If your life is like mine, everyone is asking you, the librarian, for your personal and professional opinion on e-books and e-readers.

So, to prepare you for the family, neighbourhood and friends’ BBQ’s this weekend, here’s some interesting tidbits to throw about in conversation:

First read the full post for this one:

Top 10 Myths about our e-Book Future

Here’s the highlight list:
1. Due to an avalanche of self-published and poorly edited e-books, readers will be submerged in a big pile of suck.
2. Publishers are going to disappear.
3. Paper books will disappear.
4. E-books are going to destroy libraries.
5. All authors will have an equal shot.
6. The book world will be divided into a few megabestsellers and everyone else selling only two copies. It will be impossible for authors without platforms to get anyone to pay attention to them.
7. We’re all going to drop our e-readers into our bathtubs amid a massive, world-wide power outage and multi-government e-book deletion conspiracy that causes us to permanently lose every book the world has ever published.
8. The reading world will be divided between those who can afford an e-reader and those who can’t.
9. Bookstores will disappear.
10. E-books will evolve into all-knowing robots that will implant carnivorous baby e-books inside our brains and devour our heads from within.

Of course the big news was Amazon’s anouncement:

Amazon: Paper Books Are Dead, Or Something

“Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books.” Peace. Out. Trees.

KINDLE DEVICE UNIT SALES ACCELERATE EACH MONTH IN SECOND QUARTER;
NEW $189 PRICE RESULTS IN TIPPING POINT FOR GROWTH
Amazon.com now selling more Kindle books than hardcover books

“SEATTLE-July 19, 2010-(NASDAQ: AMZN)-Millions of people are already reading on Kindles and Kindle is the #1 bestselling item on Amazon.com for two years running. It’s also the most-wished-for, most-gifted, and has the most 5-star reviews of any product on Amazon.com. Today, Amazon.com announced that Kindle device unit sales accelerated each month in the second quarter-both on a sequential month-over-month basis and on a year-over-year basis.

“We’ve reached a tipping point with the new price of Kindle-the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189,” said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “In addition, even while our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format. Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books-astonishing when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months.”

Kindle offers the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read. The U.S. Kindle Store now has more than 630,000 books, including New Releases and 106 of 110 New York Times Best Sellers. Over 510,000 of these books are $9.99 or less, including 75 New York Times Best Sellers. Over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are also available to read on Kindle.

Recent milestones for Kindle books include:

Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books. This is across Amazon.com’s entire U.S. book business and includes sales of hardcover books where there is no Kindle edition. Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the number even higher.

Amazon sold more than 3x as many Kindle books in the first half of 2010 as in the first half of 2009.
The Association of American Publishers’ latest data reports that e-book sales grew 163 percent in the month of May and 207 percent year-to-date through May. Kindle book sales in May and year-to-date through May exceeded those growth rates.

On July 6, Hachette announced that James Patterson had sold 1.14 million e-books to date. Of those, 867,881 were Kindle books.

Five authors-Charlaine Harris, Stieg Larsson, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, and Nora Roberts-have each sold more than 500,000 Kindle books.

Readers are responding to Kindle’s uncompromising approach to the reading experience. Weighing 10.2 ounces, Kindle can be held comfortably in one hand for hours, has an e-ink display that is easy on the eyes even in bright daylight, has two weeks of battery life, lets you buy your books once and read them everywhere-on your Kindle, Kindle DX, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, Mac, PC, BlackBerry, and Android-based devices-and has free 3G wireless with no monthly fees or annual contracts-all at a $189 price.

To reiterate, those stats don’t include free Kindle books. A tipping point indeed. ”

Of core,you’ll want to remmeber that: Amazon isn’t only place peole buy books and e-books, the Kindle isn’t the only reader, some people borrow books (grin), paperback books are by far the biggest part of the market and Internet buyers and brodband users represent a different demographic than the average or general population at this time.

See this post:

How Many Kindle Books Has Amazon Sold? About 22 Million This Year By Jay Yarow (Silicon Valley Insider)

“Yesterday Amazon announced a big milestone: In the last month, Amazon’s e-book sales outpaced its hardcover sales on Amazon.com nearly two to one.

It’s a nice stat, but what does it actually mean? How big are hardcover sales, anyway?
According to Nielsen Bookscan, only 23% of total dead-tree book sales this year come from hardcover books.
The rest are from paperback books. In other words, assuming Amazon’s book business reflects the overall industry, Amazon is still probably selling twice as many paperback books as Kindle books.

Amazon is estimated to have 19% of the book market, which implies the company sold 15.6 million hardcover books so far this year.

In its announcement yesterday, Amazon said it sold 143 Kindle books for each 100 hardcover books last quarter. (Last month alone, it sold 180 e-books sold for every 100 hardcover books sold.)

If we use the ratio from the last quarter, it implies Amazon has sold around 22 million Kindle books so far this year. That’s just the equivalent of 6% of the total print book market, which remains tiny.

Another factor that Amazon doesn’t mention is that it makes less money per e-book than it does on print books, and in some cases is losing money on e-books. It’s good for Amazon to attack the e-book market and try to own it, even if costs a little early on, but let’s not forget that e-books don’t generate the same income or sales.”

Five Reasons Amazon E-Books are Outselling HardcoversBy Steven

PC Worlds – “Are you still holding out to see what happens with this whole ebooks “fad” before deciding whether to embrace it for your business? Well, the times they are a changin’ and there are a variety of reasons that ebooks are outpacing printed books. Amazon reports that ebook sales are three times higher than last year, and that Kindle versions of books have outsold their hardcover equivalents by 43 percent over the last quarter. The traditional written word printed on paper will not be fading to oblivion any time soon, but here are five factors contributing to the success of the ebook”

1. Cost.
2. Portability.
3. Accessibility.
4. Cross-Platform. (A device like the iPad provides access to various e-reader platforms.)
5. Conservation.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/07/20/urnidgns002570F3005978D800257766005BA5CF.DTL#ixzz0v6aeSFx4

Lastly, we have your first million seller (downloads) this month with Steig Larson.
It’s a shame he didn’t live this milestone.

Stieg Larsson is the first author to reach one million books sold on Amazon …

So there’s some interesting soundbites to throw about over hot dogs. Hey, you’re the book professional so you’re in the know!

Stephen

“Here are some standout facts and observations that give additional perspective to the Internet usage of the top countries on the Internet.

•There are a total of 1.8 billion Internet users in the world.
•There are 32 countries with more than 10 million Internet users.
•The top 10 countries on the Internet together have 1.17 billion Internet users. That’s 65% of all Internet users in the world.
•The top 20 countries on the Internet together have 1.47 billion Internet users. That’s just under 82% of all Internet users.
•India is the fourth largest country in terms of Internet users in spite of having an Internet penetration of a measly 6.9%. This thanks to its huge population.
•China takes the top spot both in terms of population and Internet users. China has almost twice (1.8x) as many Internet users as the United States.
•China together with the United States, the top two countries, make up half of the Internet users in the top 15.
•Out of the top 20 countries, the five with the highest Internet penetration (not users) are: United Kingdom (82.5%), South Korea (81.1%), Germany (79.1%), Japan (78.2%), United States (76.3%).”

Stephen

The Centered Librarian pointed to LifeHacker’s survey about what their readers thought was the best book recommendation service on the web…

Here’s the chart with the results:

“In first place was GoodReads (39%), a book lover’s web site with lists, lists, and more lists to fit your interests. Second was the recommendation engine at Amazon.com (27%), followed by Shelfari (13%), and then LibraryThing (11%). In last place were “Other” (7%) and GetGlue (5%).”

So I am interested that libraries would have a difficult time making the list since our efforts are both face to face and quite diffused throughout the land and ver many sites. I think we’d be ner the top – except for this lack of concentration.

The Gypsy Librarian points to an interesting article in Salon.com (and makes some good points too) which “is basically describing what a good librarian skilled in reader’s advisory does.”

“The Fine Art of Recommending Books” by Laura Miller.

Anyway, my question is, “Has anyone seen a great site in libraries that highlights the wonderful reader’s advisory services in a modern and interesting way?” I like the work of Bibliocommons and LibraryThing for Libraries, but what else is out there?

Stephen

Analysis: What are the Web’s Top Sources of Referral Traffic?

It is interesting to see which social sites and which links have the potential to generate the most traffic.

Stephen

How Libraries Stack Up: 2010
2 page PDF.

As usual, there’s a few great and fun library factoids here with lovely graphi presentation.

Print out a few for your bulletin boards and link to it from your websites.

Stephen

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – July 23, 2010
CONTACT: Jim Scheppke
Oregon State Librarian Phone: (503) 378-4367 E-mail: jim.b.scheppke@state.or.us

STATE LIBRARIANS’ REPORT SUGGESTS WAYS TO ADVANCE EBOOK SERVICES

“Lexington, KY) – Librarians needn’t worry about the availability of low-cost eReaders and other devices that will allow public library users to take advantage of downloadable eBooks from their local libraries. That is one of the findings of an internal report released by the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA).
The COSLA eReader Task Force has spent the past six months working with consultants to learn from knowledgeable librarians and industry experts about the direction of the eReader and eBook marketplace, and more generally, what public libraries need to do to continue to grow and improve their downloadable eBook services.

When COSLA formed the Task Force last year, state librarians were concerned about the high cost of eReaders like the Kindle, and the fact that the Kindle and other devices might not be compatible with the downloadable eBook services libraries were developing. The report released by COSLA concludes that the availability of low-cost, library-friendly devices will not be a problem. The market is evolving rapidly, and prices are falling close to $100, and will probably drop below that price point in the near future. This means devices will be affordable for many library users and some libraries may even be able to afford to purchase devices to demonstrate and to lend to library users.

Having concluded that state librarians needn’t worry about eReader devices, the report goes on to suggest many ideas that state libraries and others should consider in efforts to grow and improve eBook services in public libraries. More needs to be done to improve library purchasing power through consortia purchasing and similar strategies. New technologies like the Internet Archive’s BookServer ought to be explored as a way for library users to more easily discover the services that are available. The certification of eReaders for library use should be pursued with participation by public librarians. Research is needed to demonstrate to skeptical publishers that library ebook services are not a threat to their bottom line, but in fact will help their bottom line. Public libraries should be champions of self-publishing and should feature self-published books in their eBook offerings. Libraries need to foster greater awareness and conversation about copyright and fair use issues that might threaten their eBook services. And as traditional printed book lending shifts more and more to downloadable eBooks, libraries should take advantage of the opportunity to repurpose their space and experiment with new services.

The COSLA eReader Task Force was led by Oregon State Librarian Jim Scheppke. Other members were California State Librarian Stacey Aldrich, Kansas State Librarian Jo Budler, and Massachusetts State Librarian, Rob Maier. They worked with Eva Miller of Pinpoint Logic, a Portland-based research and design consulting firm, and Tom Peters of TAP Information Services, and Kansas-based library consulting firm.
Copies of the report are available for download on the COSLA website: www.COSLA.org or directly through http://www.cosla.org/documents/COSLA2270_Report_Final1.pdf.

COSLA is an independent organization of the chief officers of state and territorial agencies designated as the state library administrative agency and responsible for statewide library development. COSLA’s mission is to identify issues of common concern and national interest, to further state library agency relationships with the federal government and national organizations, and to initiate, maintain and support cooperative action for the improvement of library services. COSLA offers to its membership mutual support and the opportunity through group action to influence federal policy and national organizations. COSLA promotes its leadership role in the library community and with other organizations of state officials in order to affect policy of importance to library and information delivery. COSLA is a dynamic diverse organization, which encourages open discussion of issues.”

Access the Complete Report (53 page PDF)

Stephen

Stephen

So, here’s a recent comic from PoesyGalore (Emily) of Shelf Check asserting that only 2 or 3 of the original 23 Things are still relevant . . .

This strip appeared, then disappeared, and reappeared. It’s now back.

I usually love Emily’s strip a lot so I got concerned that maybe I was not remembering 23 Things well. So, I went to check on the original 23. Here they are:

1. Read a blog posting & find out about the program.
2. Discover a few pointers from lifelong learners and learn how to nurture your own learning process.
3. Set up your own blog and add your first post to track your progress.
4. Register your blog on the site to begin your Learn & Play journey.
5. Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site.
6. Have some Flickr fun and discover some Flickr mashups and third-party sites
7. Create a blog post about anything technology-related that interests you this week.
8. Learn about RSS feeds and setup your own Bloglines or Google Reader RSS account
9. Locate a few useful library related blogs and/or news feeds using a blog search engine.
10. Play around with an online image generator and create some library marketing fun.
11. Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books.
12. Explore Twitter and post some tweets.
13. Learn about tagging and discover del.icio.us (a social bookmaking site).
14. Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the future of libraries, and blog your thoughts.
15. Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them.
16. Add an entry to the wiki sandbox.
17. Take a look at some online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools.
18. Explore any site from the Web 2.0 awards list, play with it, and write a blog post about your findings.
19. Explore CML’s own Tool Box of great Web 2.0 tools.
20. Discover YouTube and a few other sites that allow users to upload and share videos.
21. Discover some useful search tools for locating podcasts.
22. Take a look at the titles available on MOLDI and learn how to download audiobooks.
23. Summarize your thoughts about this

So, in the process potentially all library staff would have all gotten to the same place with new basic skills (remember that this was almost 5 years ago – a long time in internet years) in about 9 weeks and be able to share using these tools:

1. Blogging
2. Blog Search Engines
3. Graphics and Picture tools (Flickr)
4. Image search
5. RSS Feeds
6. LibraryThing
7. Twitter
8. Tagging
9. Web 2.0 opportunities
10. Wikis
11. Cloud Apps (Zoho, Google Apps)
12. Streaming Media (YouTube)
13. Podcast search tools
14. Downloading audiobooks
15. New Learning methods
16. Group collaboration tools

Many updated versions of 23 Things (some are 21 or 29 or whatever) include others like Facebook or MySpace but these above are the originals.

As the strip asks, “Which are the 2 or 3 that are still relevant to libraries? Are there actually any on the list that are irrelevant to libraries?” I think none and I think that Helene Blowers (formerly with Charlotte & Mecklenberg Library and now with Columbus Metropolitan Library) was prescient in her choices from the plethora of so-called Web 2.0 tools available at that time to build training programs around.

Since the program was launched it has spread virally (and for free) around the world to include many languages, many countries, all types of libraries and tens of thousands of participants. Research on the effectiveness of the program from both the employers’ and learners’ points of view show that it was and remains a succcessful method to bring library teams up-to-speed quickly and cost-effectively.

Did people waste their time learning Web 2.0 stuff? I think not. I worry about libraries, library folk and information pros that don’t keep up enough. 23 Things is one way to address the problem of large scale training for professionals who choose to invest their time in their own development.

I’m on vacation for the next two weeks but I thought I had to blog this defence of the libraries, library associations, librraians and library staff who engaged, voluntarily, in learning new things. I guess I am thin skinned and I will take the next two weeks to get a little tougher.

Stephen

Facts Versus Arguments

“”Recently, a few political scientists have begun nto discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information,” Joe Keohane writes for teh Boston Globe. “It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actualy make misinformation even stronger.”"

Wow! Can’t say that I haven’t seen this in action. Watching television political talk shows lately and visiting summer BBQ’s when topics like BP oil spills, global warming, politics of any stripe, it seems clear that some people just don’t need facts to have a strong opinion.

It’s even more worrisome when they’re librarians!

Stephen

Librarians Go Gaga: 9 Of The Funniest Library Videos Ever
Huffington Post

Stephen