It is a fun parlor game to speculate about what the future of books will look like. The author wonders whether stories will be read on screens and supplemented with gaming, illustration, video, and multimedia riddles. In this essay, the author shares his vision of the future of reading and describes what he learned from writing a story based on…

The author believes that publishers and authors will, in the digital age, benefit from freely sharing information, and that digital rights management (DRM) and other protection mechanisms are crazy. He has argued on behalf of libraries that ebooks and other digital content deserve the same First Sale rights that physical purchases have. But that…

Open source, open content and open access are set to fundamentally alter the conditions of knowledge production and distribution. Open source, open content and open access are also the most tangible result of the shift towards e-science and digital networking. Yet, widespread misperceptions exist about the impact of this shift on knowledge…

Discusses Fair Use and the public perception; models for funding information services; publishers illusion that information is/should be free; Internet's role in making information freely available; scholarly communication systems: Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) and BioOne (an electronic aggregation of bioscience…

New digital technologies for learning should be attractive, effective, and accessible. Forms such as side channels, the Internet, and educational software are limited only by imagination, money, and responses of agencies responsible for lifelong learning. (SK)

Rich Greenfield examines the basics of today's net neutrality debate that is likely to be an ongoing issue for society. Greenfield states the problems inherent in the definition of "net neutrality" used by Common Cause: "Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be able to access any web content they choose and…

This article, based on the Periodicals Prices Survey of 2006, evaluates the changing trends of electronic periodical marketplace in 2006 and indicates what to expect in 2007. The 2005-2006 academic year was one of competing realities: the buying and selling of electronic journals continued apace, while the posting and crawling of every kind of…

Summarizes the GartnerGroup's views on issues in the information technology and telecommunications (IT&T) industry debate in Australia. Topics include attracting overseas investment to create a globally competitive industry; the government's role; perceived problems; the Internet and electronic commerce; and future issues, including…

This paper discusses the reasons for and means of publishing research or making research available. The first section discusses why it is important to publish. The second section discusses what should be published, and the third section provides information on where to publish (books, journals, Educational Resources Information Center database,…

This special report on the electronic content industry covers three interrelated areas: technology, rights/legal issues, and pricing/business models. Articles include: "Content Anywhere, Anytime"; "Content Management Technology: A Booming Market"; "Entering the Content Space: Carry Your Lawyer at All Times"; Content Unchained: The New Value Web";…

What will Google do next? Representatives of the company divulge few details of their projects -- a policy that, in the case of its partnerships with university libraries, probably only fuels the buzz. In this interview, Adam M. Smith, a senior business-product manager, discusses Google's work with publishers and libraries on expanding its…

Describes the Internet as a useful tool for communication between instructors and students via electronic mail and as a research engine using the World Wide Web. Delineates its potential use in education as a means of information delivery and access to sophisticated programs and as an additional link to the community. (VWC)

This document presents an Internet discussion that took place on a number of electronic forums about scientific and scholarly journals and their future. Six principle discussants and about two dozen others advance both radical and traditional views. Topics include housing a comprehensive scientific electronic publishing system, responsibility for…

Presents the second part of an interview with Vinton Cerf on issues of information technology. Discusses reading with laptop computers; the "extinction" of books; technological experiments by publishers; copyrights, intellectual property, and ownership; cable companies; the impact of the Internet on education; and the future of the…

Discusses the state of the Internet. Highlights include the magnitude of the infrastructure, costs, its increasing pace, constraints in international links, provision of network capacity to homes and small businesses, cable television modems, political and cultural problems, the digital library concept, search engines, the failure of personal…