From the Magazine

Google Offers One Million ePub Titles

by
Adrian Versteegh
9.2.09

The ePub format continues to gain traction as an e-book standard. Last week, Google Books announced that it now has more than a million public domain titles available as free ePub downloads. The format, developed two years ago by the International Digital Publishing Forum, makes e-books accessible across a wide array of devices and platforms.

University of Michigan to Reissue Rare Books Through Amazon

by
Adrian Versteegh
7.28.09

On the heels of a similar project launched by Cambridge University Press, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, last week announced plans to make rare and out-of-copyright books from its library system available through BookSurge, Amazon’s print-on-demand division. The program’s initial offering encompasses more than four hundred thousand titles in languages ranging from Acoli to Zulu.

Unauthorized Orwell Works Pulled From Kindle

by
Adrian Versteegh
7.20.09

Amazon provoked a minor media furor late last week when it tried to quietly remove pirated e-books from hundreds of its Kindle devices. The titles in question: George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm. On Thursday, customers who had purchased certain editions of the dystopian classics found that the e-books had vanished and their money had been refunded.

Google Adds New Features to Book Search

by Staff
6.22.09

Even as the government continues its antitrust investigation of last year’s class-action settlement between Google and the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild, the online search engine is stepping up accessibility to its current collection of digitized books and periodicals.