Re: eBook-List Discussion List

["David H. Rothman" <rothman@clark.net>]

People on liblicense-l are curious about the eBook-List Discussion List.
As a list denizen, I can say it's basically a mix of e-publishers, writers
and techies right now; we even have a few poets. Michael Hart of Project
Gutenberg is there. So are folks from the companies behind the RocketBook
and others.

The sponsor of the list is Modern Age Books, which provides digital
publishing services, and Chris Pooley is Modern's President and CEO. I'm
taking the liberty of reproducing a post from him, one indicating that
librarians certainly would be welcome; I'm sure he won't mind my spreading
the word to liblicense-l folks!

Warning: The eBook list may prove to be very disconcerting to librarians
who see e-books as sci-fi. The display tech and the rest aren't quite
there yet, but they're getting closer and closer, and posts in the vein of
"It'll never fly" won't get you very far.

*   *   *

Of special interest to librarians might be an offer from eBook list member
Eric Eldredge <eldred@mediaone.net>, who, due to the outrageous copyright
extension act, is shutting down his site where he offers free classics.
It's a fine assortment ranging from Democracy to Principles of Scientific
Management, and Eric has invited everyone to pick up his files for
noncommercial uses under terms he describes. Drop by and see his beautiful
site at <http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/> before it disappears on November
11.

Back to the unfortunate copyright extension: Let me also call attention to
the Online Books Page at CMU <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/books.html>, which
includes links to info on copyright records
<http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/cce.html>.

David H. Rothman | rothman@clark.net | 703-370-6540
Coordinator, TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home:
  http://www.teleread.org
Related U.S. News & World Report Article:
  http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980504/4tele.htm

Note: The URL for info on eBook list is: 
<http://www.mabooks.com/eBook-List>
____________________________________

Reply-To: eBook-List@mabooks.com
From: "Chris Pooley" <cpooley@modernagebooks.com>
To: eBook-List@mabooks.com (eBook-List Mailing List)
Subject: [eBook-List] - WebBooks: Identification, Acquisition, and Management
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 08:03:48 -0500

Gerry,

You raise some interesting points.  One thing that I sense is missing from
the electronic book world is librarianship.  Librarians are the best
collectors in the world; books, microfilm, periodicals, CD-ROM, online
reference capabilities and more.  They organize these materials for their
patrons.

In the electronic book world the librarianship needs to be added so that
we can enable collection development of lots of electronic books from a
wide variety of sources.

chris pooley
Modern Age Books