Electronic paper gets high resolution. US-based displays developer E Ink unveils its latest prototype - an electronic book Optics.org http://optics.org/articles/news/9/5/22/1 via TeleRead http://www.teleread.org/blog/

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Press Release from eBooks Corporation:

eBooks Corporation partners with the home of the world wide web to develop eBook Library. eBooks Corporation moves a step closer to achieving its goal of “Any book, anywhere”

Los Angeles, May 28th 2003 /eBooks Corporation/

At Book Expo America today, eBooks Corporation announced that it is collaborating with leading international university and research libraries to develop an ebook lending platform.  Ebook Library or ‘EBL’ is scheduled for release in select university and research libraries in September 2003 and will be officially launched in January 2004.

EBL will feature Non-linear Lending™, a multiple-concurrent lending model which allows a single title to be checked out simultaneously by multiple patrons.  Other features of EBL include digital interlibrary lending, unique ebook reserve functionality and lending by the chapter.  eBook titles can be browsed online and then downloaded to a desktop, laptop, or hand-held device for use offline. The system will allow patrons to perform full text searches across their library’s entire ebook collection.

The impetus to develop EBL was client driven.  Unable to find an existing ebook library solution that was suitable for his specialized research environment, Jens Vigen, Scientific Information Officer at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva approached eBooks Corporation.  CERN’s Education and Technology Transfer Division is now working closely with eBooks Corporation to shape an ebook lending product that meets the special needs of research and academic libraries.

Vigen says,  “CERN gave the world the Word Wide Web in the early 1990’s.  It is appropriate that we should continue to work on projects that promote innovation in the transfer of information and technology.”  He explains, “CERN Library has been involved in electronic publishing since the Web began.  With the development of electronic

eBooks Corporation partners with journals we realized too late that we should have put in a foot earlier, as it has taken great effort to convince publishers to redesign their products after they had been released.  With this in mind, we are now actively doing something for the electronic book so that the industry will come up with products that correspond to the needs of scientific libraries.”

eBooks Corporation has specialized in the production and distribution of digital books since 1997, and launched one of the world’s first ebook stores (www.ebooks.com) in 2000.

Stephen Cole, Founder and Managing Director of eBooks Corporation says, “We have refined the distribution of ebooks in our retail channel and are now expanding our distribution to academic libraries.  We come to the library arena with a deep understanding of ebook technology and its uses.  Building on our experience we’re creating a lending platform which will bring tremendous flexibility to library patrons and deliver real efficiencies and cost savings to academic and research libraries.

“We’re very conscious of the many commercial and ideological sensitivities surrounding digital libraries, and are determined that EBL will live up to the expectations of patrons, libraries, publishers and authors. EBL will do what everyone thought digital libraries were supposed to do.

EBL will offer an extensive academic catalogue with a particular focus on STM titles and will feature  an extensive listing of listing of ebooks by Australian publishers.

CONTACT:   Kari Paulson

Director Library Services  eBooks Corporation         

Tel (Aus): +61 8 9386 3112

Tel (US): +1 617 249 0460

Fax:  +61 8 9386 1844

Email: kari.paulson@ebooks.com

Web: http://ebl.ebooks.com

5:23:33 PM    

PluggedIn: E-books catch on, but only for hardcore fans so far SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) 2003.05.27/ Forbes.com  http://www.forbes.com/business/newswire/2003/05/27/rtr983044.html

Le livre électronique, seulement pour internaute à la page SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) "Même s'il est apprécié par des passionnés d'innovations, le livre électronique - ou e-book - présenté comme étant l'alternative au livre imprimé, est loin de l'avoir détrôné." Yahoo Actualité 2003-05-28, Lisez plus: http://fr.news.yahoo.com/030528/85/386un.html

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