As a few more libraries begin lending the Kindle, the e-book reading device from Amazon (AMZN), the company continues to offer ambiguous messages regarding its policies. Asked by the Howe Library, Hanover, NH, if it was OK to lend a Kindle, an Amazon support staffer said yes–and the library has proceeded to do so, with much positive response.

Read the rest of this post

Is more always better?

Hulu has expanded its content library considerably since its launch a year ago. The Internet video site has grown from 50 content partners to more than 130 and has nearly 40,000 pieces of video.

Now, in addition to the full-length TV shows that made the site popular, it has an expansive, somewhat chaotic library. The site contains everything from two-hour feature films such as Universal’s “Liar, Liar,” starring Jim Carrey, to short instructional Web videos such as “How to Make Stuffed Crust Pizza.”

Andy Forssell, Hulu’s senior vice president of content and distribution, says the goal is to provide users and advertisers with more options. Hulu is a joint venture of General Electric’s (GE) NBC Universal and News Corp., (NWS) which owns Wall Street Journal (and AllThingsD.com) publisher Dow Jones.

Among the newest content partners is Condé Nast Publications Inc., the people behind magazines like Vogue and Wired. Videos from the company’s online destinations, such as Epicurious.com, a site for food aficionados, are now appearing on Hulu. They’ve added content from four sites: Epicurious, Wired.com, Style.com and Men.Style.com.

Read the rest of this post

It’s hard not to love Amazon’s (AMZN) new e-book reader. For starters, it’s gorgeous. Unlike its bulky predecessor, the redesigned $359 Kindle, which came out this week, is light, thin, and disappears in your hands. If you think there’s no way you could ever get used to curling up with an electronic reader, you haven’t given the Kindle a chance. Load up a good book and you’ll soon forget you’re reading plastic rather than paper. You’ll also wonder how you ever did without it. The Kindle makes buying, storing, and organizing your favorite books and magazines effortless. You can take your entire library with you wherever you go and switch from reading the latest New Yorker to the latest bestseller without rolling out of bed. In my few days using it, I was won over: The Kindle is the future of publishing.

And that’s what scares me. Amazon’s reader is a brilliant device that shanghais book buyers and the book industry into accepting a radically diminished marketplace for published works. If the Kindle succeeds on its current terms, and all signs suggest it’ll be a blockbuster (thanks Oprah!), Amazon will make a bundle. But everyone else with a stake in a vibrant book industry–authors, publishers, libraries, chain bookstores, indie bookstores, and, not least, readers–stands to lose out.

Read the rest of this post

How can we navigate through the information landscape that is only beginning to come into view? The question is more urgent than ever following the recent settlement between Google (GOOG) and the authors and publishers who were suing it for alleged breach of copyright. For the last four years, Google has been digitizing millions of books, including many covered by copyright, from the collections of major research libraries, and making the texts searchable online. The authors and publishers objected that digitizing constituted a violation of their copyrights. After lengthy negotiations, the plaintiffs and Google agreed on a settlement, which will have a profound effect on the way books reach readers for the foreseeable future. What will that future be?

Read the rest of this post

Information is exploding so furiously around us and information technology is changing at such bewildering speed that we face a fundamental problem: How to orient ourselves in the new landscape? What, for example, will become of research libraries in the face of technological marvels such as Google? How to make sense of it all? I have no answer to that problem, but I can suggest an approach to it: look at the history of the ways information has been communicated.

Read the rest of this post