Author archives

David Rothman is the founder and publisher of the TeleRead e-book site and cofounder of LibraryCity.org. He is also author of The Solomon Scandals novel and six tech-related books on topics ranging from the Internet to laptops. Passionate on digital divide issues, he is now pushing for the creation of a national digital library endowment.

Toward a durable, dictator-proof Washington Post

David H. Rothman’s timely, outside the box commentary addresses the growing wave of news outlets abruptly closing down their websites, laying off staff, and in some cases, eliminating access to their respective archives. Rothman proposes an alternative to “how do I charge them enough” to stem the tide of closures, an avenue he prompts billionaire Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, to consider. A good-sized trust or corporate equivalent would enable the Washington Post to be run as a sustainable enterprise in the public interest, rather than as a mere profit generator.

Read more

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Economy, Ethics, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, KM, Leadership, Management, Social Media, Technology Trends

Scribe faces a strong Chinese rival able to turn handwritten notes into searchable text

David H. Rothman may have identified one reason why the Kindle Scribe has gone on sale. For $400, Lenovo later this year is to sell a Scribe rival able to record lectures with two built-in mikes and turn handwritten notes into searchable text. Handily, you can sync the audio recordings with notes. Perhaps a tool for journalists, too, not just students?

Read more

Subjects: E-Books, KM, Libraries & Librarians

The national library endowment vision must evolve

The LibraryEndowment.org started around nine years ago. A national library endowment would reduce the inequalities of the U.S. library world, especially those tied to geography, class, and race. David H. Rothman shares his personal views on topline issues this project faces moving forward: how libraries could accept money from the super-rich while retaining their independence, and the increasing desirability of national digital library systems funded by the endowment, among other sources.

Read more

Subjects: Education, KM, Librarian Resources

Why David Rothman wrote Drone Child: Lemba Adula’s Q&A with him

I, Lemba Adula, happen to be the hero of Drone Child: A Novel of War, Family, and Survival. So here I am, a Congolese villager turned self-taught hacker turned child soldier turned military drone expert turned sea-going pirate turned university student turned entrepreneur turned major industrialist. Just why did David Rothman write what he says is my fictional war memoir? Rather presumptuous, if you ask me. But here’s Monsieur Rothman’s side of the story about that detail and a few others.

Read more

Subjects: Education, Libraries & Librarians

Will Amazon’s new ePub capability help the anti-DRM movement?

David H. Rothman has been writing about the issues inherent in publisher control of e-books and e-readers and the impact of digital rights management for many years. Whether you use personal devices or institutional devices, the issues Rothman raises here will impact you.

Read more

Subjects: Copyright, E-Books, Information Management, KM, Law Library Management, Legal Research, Libraries & Librarians, Library Software & Technology, Licensing, Software

After the Ivory Tower Falls: A Book Review

Among the main strengths of this important, highly readable book, says David H. Rothman, is its history of how we got into the mess in the first place. We blew our chance by not making higher education more of a tax-supported public good with academic values prevailing over commercial ones. The GI Bill and other measures helped, but what if the aid had been even more extensive with far less reliance on the marketplace? Even elite Ivy schools got caught up in the mania—wildly overpaying administrators and indulging in ever-more-expensive dorms and gyms and other luxuries to compete for the students from well-off families most likely to donate. So much for the poor and middle class, even with scholarships. The result was that America squandered brainpower.

Read more

Subjects: Book Reviews, Economy, Education, Financial System, KM

Black and Hispanic people more ‘engaged’ with books than most Americans are: New report from Panorama Project

David H. Rothman, cofounder of LibraryEndowment.org, discusses the new Panorama Project report that covers a variety of topics, ranging from piracy to synergies between books and other media. Specifically significant to Rothman is the report’s data indicating that avid book engagers (4+ books/month) are more ethnically diverse and younger than the general survey population.

Read more

Subjects: Education, KM, Libraries & Librarians

How the well-connected Panorama Project could help give us a national library endowment

David H. Rothman advocates on behalf of the Panorama Project which he says is not just an effort of librarians even though it’s benefiting from the input of Alan S. Inouye, the ALA’s director of public policy. Among the others involved have been people from the Book Industry Study Group, independent booksellers, Penguin Random House, and OverDrive, the largest supplier of books for libraries and schools. One of the recurring themes in the project’s research is that synergies can exist not only between books and other media, but also between the library and retails models. For example, among several thousand readers surveyed, “38.31% of respondents had bought a book online that they first found in a library (within the last 12 months.” Local bookstores also benefited, and the project intends to explore this further. The findings are just preliminary, but based on earlier work by researchers for OCLC and OverDrive, Rothman doubts there will be surprises in regard to synergies between libraries and retail.

Read more

Subjects: E-Books, Economy, Education, KM, Libraries & Librarians

Blogger-gamer-techie Chris Meadows mixed brains and kindness: “How can I make your day better?”

David Rothman, TeleRead Founder and Editor-Publisher has written as about his friend and colleague, Chris Meadows, who passed away from injuries sustained in a hit and run accident on October 8, while riding his electric bike. Rothman writes that “several people died later in the hospital – The blogger. The gamer. The documentation writer. And the ultimate tech support guy. Chris won a National Merit Scholarship in high school and read two books a day when in the mood, and he typed more than 120 words per minute. On deadline for the TeleRead blog on ebooks and related topics, he might race along at that speed or close to it. As “Robotech_Master,” Chris was internationally known to thousands in the games world. He wrote The Geek’s Guide to Indianapolis: A Tour Guide for Con Gamers and Other Visitors and hosted strangers who found themselves without another place to stay in Indy. But ten words from his life stand out most of all: “This is Chris. How can I make your day better?”…”

Read more

Subjects: Communication Skills, Digital Archives, E-Books, Gadgets/Gizmos, KM
➤