TechTalks Event
Do E-Books Sit on E-Shelves at Your University?
with guest experts Calvin Lowe, President of Bowie State University, and Karen Coyle, of the California Digital Library
April 5, 2001
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What is an e-book? Is it the hardware or the digitized book itself? How will (Will they?) e-books, the web, and print books work together? What are the reasons that e-books are attractive? What's wrong with physical books? How will students/faculty pay for e-books? Do e-books interact with other online and print content content? Should an e-book just supplement print content? Do students need to be able to print an e-book or parts of it easily? If they can, what are the consequences? Should IT folks or others be proactive in promoting the use of e-books? If so, how can they do that?
Guest Experts
Calvin Lowe was recently named President of Bowie State
University. He earned his doctor of science degree and his master
of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In his most recent position as Vice President for Research and Dean
of the Graduate College at Hampton University, was instrumental
in developing the University's international and national reputations
in research, particularly programs in physics and atmospheric sciences.
He is also credited with securing a $10 million grant from NASA
to establish HU's Research Center for Optical Physics. Hampton University
was the first historically black institution to make the "America's
Most Wired Colleges" list. His recent paper at the
Electronic Book 2000 conference last September was entitled,
"E-Books; A Component in the Technology Plan of a Small University."
Karen Coyle is a specialist in digital libraries at
the California Digital Library at the University of California.
She is chairing the American Library Association's task force on
e-books and participates in a variety of e-book standards bodies
such as the Open Ebook Forum.
She began her career with a UN agency in the 1970s that had developed
an early computerized library catalog. She created the first computer-generated
list of periodicals for the university system in Italy before returning
to the United States to work on the University of California's pioneering
online union catalog. This system has grown into an impressive all-digital
library with access to literally millions of journal articles plus
archives, statistical data, and the beginnings of a full scholarly
communication network.
Co-Hosts
Howard Strauss (above, left), Manager of Academic Applications
at Princeton University, is TechTalk's Technology Anchor.
Judith Boettcher is the Executive Director of CREN.
Together, Howard and Mark will ask the really tough questions—and relay the questions you email to them at expert@cren.net.
Background & Resources
Some form of digital books may be headed toward your campus sooner than you think. Here's a recent note about a new, huge deal to create digital versions of hundreds of popular college textbooks - and supplementary eLearning Web sites - by next Fall!
But are those books going to be better for print-disabled people than printed books? The DAISY Consortium's mission is to establish "the International Standard for the production, exchange, and use of the next generation of "Digital Talking Books."
0375504443 And, Nicholson Baker is one very interesting person who is not exactly an e-book enthusiast. Or, is he? His latest book is called Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper and is said to be available soon as an e-book.
This site, E-Book Connections, is clearly enthusiastic about e-books, and a good resource for what's current at the consumer level.
President Lowe was a presenter at the recent conference, Electronic Book 2000:Changing the Fundamentals of Reading, sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Another reference conference specifically addressed e-books and libraries, Triconference 2000: Can e-books improve libraries?
Here are an initial batch of articles from the popular literature:
