KMLM List

["Cynthia Hodgson" <hodgsonca@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

There were a couple presentations at the NISO E-book Forum on October 18-19 that touched on textbooks, although not necessarily “open” textbooks. Thought these might be of interest.

 

Steve Paxhia, President, Beacon Hill Strategic Solutions, gave a preview of two surveys they had done for the Book Industry Study Group. There were a number of interesting questions related to use of e-textbooks from the second one “Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education” and the very different views that faculty and students had.  The one item I recall in particular that struck me was that to be really usable and valuable the e-textbook needed to be integrated into a whole e-learning “system” (meaning more of a curriculum than specifically an information “system”).  Unfortunately, the slides from this presentation aren’t available as yet. The consumer e-book study results were still being compiled and aggregated at the time of the forum so the presenter doesn’t want to post slides that might have some minor changes in numbers. I believe he will send his slides when the numbers are finalized. I’ll send another email when that happens with a link.

 

The second interesting presentation with some specific implications on textbooks was by Jean Vail at Eink. Their next generation of Eink is focusing on capabilities that are particularly needed for textbooks and for use by students. They are doing some pilots now and are working on color e-ink (since color is much more important for textbooks than for leisure reading) and also a “flexible” reading device that has no glass in it. She showed a prototype at the forum that isn’t currently available -- but if you could have bought it I think she would have made quite a few sales right there. (I wanted one!) She even dropped it on the floor to show it would still work.  Her slides are available here: http://www.slideshare.net/BaltimoreNISO/the-future-of-ereaders. The “future” stuff that relates to textbooks starts on slide 26.

 

Regards,

 

Cynthia Hodgson

Technical Editor / Consultant

National Information Standards Organization

hodgsonca@xxxxxxxxxxx

301-654-2512

 

From: ebooksiginfo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ebooksiginfo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of McKiernan, Gerard [LIB]
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2012 8:08 PM
To: ebooksiginfo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; ETEXTS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: McKiernan, Gerard [LIB]
Subject: [ebooksiginfo] Open Textbook Adoption Presentations

 

*** Spoiler Alert > Possible Duplicate Posting ***

 

Colleagues/

 

Before There Was OATs: Open Access Textbooks

 

http://digital-textbooks.blogspot.com/2012/10/oats-open-access-textbooks-il-2012.html

 

There Was ...

 

Adopting Open Textbooks

 

http://digital-textbooks.blogspot.com/2012/10/adopting-open-textbooks.html   

 

It's An Open Book: Adopting Open Textbooks

 

http://digital-textbooks.blogspot.com/2012/10/its-open-book-adopting-open-textbooks.html 

 

Open Learning Through Open Textbooks

 

http://digital-textbooks.blogspot.com/2012/10/open-learning-through-open-textbooks.html

 

Open Textbook Adoption

 

http://digital-textbooks.blogspot.com/2012/10/open-textbook-adoption.html 

 

BTW: I Am Greatly Interested In Any / All Initiatives That Seek To Promote The Adoption of Open Access Textbooks ; Please Inform As A Comment On Any Of The Postings As Well As The List(s).

 

Thanks !

 

/Gerry 

 

Gerry McKiernan

Associate Professor

and

Science and Technology Librarian

Iowa State University 

152 Parks Library

Ames IA 50011

 

http://digital-textbooks.blogspot.com/