David Rothman warns of a new trend exemplified by a Kansas school district. It is replacing licensed elementary school librarians with regular teachers with technical training who oversee makerspaces.
David Rothman argues forcefully for uniform, immediate government and industry support for and implementation of text-to-speech technology. Rothman highlights Amazon’s use of Bluetooth-based TTS in the new $80 Kindle. The reader permits blind individuals as well as those with reading challenges to use Bluetooth headphones to hear the TTS via a wireless connection without the requirement for any special adapter.
David Rothman has been proactively and consistently engaged in an effort to increase visual usability of the Kindle for K-12 kids, the elderly and others with contrast-sensitivity problems. He has requested the company implement either an all-text-bold option or the ability to use a slider to vary the boldness.
E-book pioneer and advocate David Rothman’s commentary shines a critical light on the reading habits of Microsoft founder Bill Gates who reads his average 50 books each year, in print format. The potential impact of Microsoft in the e-book market as well as in funding support of e-books for public libraries has been muted. Rothman’s insights include hope to win over much needed support for free public sector digital libraries.
David Rothman offers his insights and perspective on the work and challenges that await the next Librarian of Congress. He calls for an individual who is not only steeped in the requisite expertise of research, technology, learning, teaching and freedom of information, but in following with a cause he has long championed he states “we need someone with “a love of reading—including the e-book variety.”
David Rothman calls out an increasingly pervasive dichotomy of action by some of America’s wealthiest corporate philanthropists in regard to supporting libraries, literacy and equal access to comprehensive public library collections. As Rothman documents, Omaha Public Libraries’ spending per capita is substantially below that of surrounding communities and the current national average on library content spending is $4 per capita – or less than the price of a Big Mac. The National digital library endowment is certainly in need of public and private support on a significant and transparent level, and Rothman continues to advocate for progress to achieve this goal.
David Rothman shares a recent story about a boy whose quest to read in spite of even minimal resources was captured and shared around the world, resulting in a flood of free books, thanks to the mail carrier who took the time to listen, and the initiative to help. At the heart of this example of action is David’s continuous work promoting a national digital library endowment and well-stocked national digital library systems.
David Rothman writes that the Voice Dream Reader comes with wonderful navigational and annotative capabilities as well as a rich assortment of voices. It is integrated with DropBox, Google Drive and EverNotes, and you can even download it directly from Project Gutenberg.
David Rothman provides critical insight into the inequities in the availability of public school library resources between different areas within DC, but which are not at all unique to this city.
E-book sales are not posting impressive sales increases, at least not among big publishers. One major reason is that much of the technology is difficult to use. Even increased library statistics for e-loans are not resulting in corresponding increases in funding and support for libraries around the country. Based on more than two decades of writing about e-books, David Rothman suggests seven library-and-consumer friendly ways to boost e-book growth.