Now that Amazon and Overdrive have completed their deal to make Kindle titles available through Overdrive’s client libraries, the web has been astir with commentary on the roll-out, which was announced last week. It was a much awaited moment for Kindle owners, who have decried their inability to borrow books from the public library, as…
Book Spam: Seven Steps to Identification for Teachers and Students
by Will DeLamater
There was a news story this summer that has been a long time in the making: SPAM hits the world of e-books. Anyone who has been following the Amazon Digital Text Platform since its beginnings has seen this coming a long way off. A search for a copy of Pride and Prejudice as recently as…
Why We Won’t Purchase More Kindles at The Unquiet Library
by Will DeLamater
Editor’s note: This post is reprinted here with permission from The Unquiet Librarian blog by Buffy Hamilton, who is the school librarian at Creekview High School in Canton, Georgia, as well as highly influential writer, teacher, and speaker. Why We Won’t Purchase More Kindles at The Unquiet Library by Buffy Hamilton We’re back in The Unquiet…
What Educators Need to Know About Kindle Synchronization
by Will DeLamater
Should Amazon Offer Education Discount like Apple?
by Will DeLamater
Why not? It is an accepted practice that hardware and software vendors offer reduced pricing for educators. I mean, even Microsoft does it, and these guys are not known for leaving money on the table. So why not Amazon and why not the Kindle? The practice is not all generosity of spirit for Steve Jobs,…
Buying E-books, Thirty-Eight Cents at a Time
by Will DeLamater
The transformation of books into a fully-fledged digital medium took a giant step recently when HarperCollins announced new terms for the ebooks it sells to public libraries. Many librarians first heard about the policy change from Overdrive, the supplier that handles digital media loan programs for many libraries. The news was grim: HarperCollins will “sell”…
Beg, Borrow, But Please Don’t Steal: How to Share E-Books at School (and at Home)
by Will DeLamater
UPDATE: Read the latest instructions for sharing a Kindle book: How to share your Kindle books How to share e-books among as many readers as possible is a matter of great interest to educators. Right now, there are basically three ways to leverage e-books to increase distribution of titles in schools: 1. Sharing (books among…
One Little Control That Makes a Difference for Educators
by Will DeLamater
One of the most consistent questions over the years about Kindle management concerns how to disable the ability to make purchases directly from the device. For educators, this is almost a show-stopper with Kindle. This uber-consumer reading device, designed with book purchases in mind, makes it just too darned easy to buy a book, and…
NOOKcolor: A First Look
by Will DeLamater
When my NOOKcolor arrived right on time yesterday, I thought about calling this post “Barnes and Noble Pulls an Amazon.” What I mean by that is, for the first time in the brief history of the universe, B&N got the drop on their cross-country rivals. And part of how they did that was by tearing…
6 Reasons to Love the Textbooks from CK12
by Will DeLamater
The free and open textbook industry has made great strides in the past few years. There are numerous open source textbook projects cranking away right now, and one of them Flat World Knowledge, even intends to build a business on the concept. A quick Googling of the words “open source textbook” will give you a…