More on e-books

E-Books Summit: There is an e-books library summit coming up September 29, 2010! Co-sponsored by Library Journal and School Library Journal, it is aimed at Public Libraries, School Libraries and yes, Academic Libraries, too. It is a Virtual Conference which runs 10 AM - 6 PM EDT, with archives available October 1 - December 31, 2010.

Keynote speakers include Ray Kurzweil, David Lankes, and Kevin Kelly. OOTJ readers may recognize Kurzweil as the developer of the Kurzweil reader and the long-awaited (still waiting, Ray!) Blio free e-reader platform that will have such mongo read-aloud features because he works closely with the vision-impaired community. And OOTJ readers who were at AALL in Denver in July, 2010 may recognize David Lankes as the keynote speaker there, who gave a very high-energy talk to us (it's mentioned on the link page shown here). OOTJ readers who also read Wired will recognize Kevin Kelly's name from that context.

On a related note, http://ecogeek.org/ blog has a very nice analysis of the Kindle and its environmental impact. You have to replace more than 20 NEW books with a Kindle to balance the environmental impact of the heavy metals and plastics and energy of its manufacture, and power for its maintenance.