Planning Guide
Session Focus: E-books
MassBLAST goal(s):
Underlined goals are covered in this session..
1. Provide interns with a broad view of the roles of libraries and librarians, an overview
of behind-the-scenes library operations, and insights into the role of technology in libraries
2. Provide instruction in library research skills
3. Provide opportunities for better understanding of college and career skills
Student Outcome(s):
Interns will read portions of fiction, non – fiction, and reference e-books in order to get a
feel for what it is like to read online.
Interns will have an opportunity to use an online reference book.
Interns will understand issues/limitations around e-books such as copyright.
Materials:
A computer with sound preferably
Access to the internet
Access to Microsoft Word or other writing software
Related Resources:
I. BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON EBOOKS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
II. ONLINE BOOK COLLECTIONS
A. Selected Publicly Accessible E-book Collections
The Online Books Page at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
o This University of Pennsylvania website lists over 30,000 free books on the Web.
o You can browse the collection by author, title, and subject.
o The site is maintained by John Mark Ockerbloom. (onlinebooks@pobox.upenn.edu)
Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
o Project Gutenberg is the oldest and largest collection of free online books.
o Michael Hart founded Project Gutenberg in 1971.
o “The mission of Project Gutenberg is simple: To encourage the creation and
distribution of eBooks.”
ReadPrint at http://www.readprint.com/
o ReadPrint‟s collection of publicly accessible online books is aimed at students,
teachers, and readers looking for “classic” texts.
o The website provides biographical information about the authors.
o One whole section of the website is devoted to Shakespeare.
o The website is easy to navigate.
o ReadPrint is a commercial site on which one can purchase ebooks and does include
ads.
Bartleby at http://www.bartleby.com/
o Readers will appreciate the organization of the Bartleby site, which divides books by
type: reference, verse, fiction, and nonfiction.
o The verse, fiction and nonfiction lists start with anthologies and then list individual
authors and their works.
o Bartleby‟s is a commercial site on which one can buy ebooks and does include ads.
Electronic Text Center at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/
o Note that at the time this guide was written, the Electronic
Text Center site was moving to the University of Virginia‟s digital collections site.
Frances Schlesinger 1
UMASS Boston Library
February 2008
Information about the move can be read at
http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/etext/index.html.
o The etext collection includes “classic British and American fiction, major authors,
children's literature, American history, Shakespeare, African-American documents,
the Bible, and much more.”
B. Current Copyright Protected Books - Boston Public Library (http://www.bpl.org/)
Boston Public Library has several ebook subscriptions, which are available to all residents of
Massachusetts. These collections contain current copyright protected books.
To view them you need a Boston Public Library card. Any resident of Massachusetts can
register for a card online at
http://catalog.mbln.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=bpl1&menu=account#focus or go in person to
sign up for a card.
These online resources are available from the Boston Public Library‟s Electronic Resources
page.
o NetLibrary
The Boston Public Library‟s NetLibrary online book collection contains over
4,000 e-books published between 1953 and 2003.
Netlibrary also has a collection of books in the public domain.
o Overdrive Audiobooks, Ebooks, Music & Video
The Boston Public Library‟s Overdrive subscription includes audio books,
music and videos.
You can download them to your PC.
o Credo Reference
Credo Reference is a handy multidisciplinary reference collection that
includes dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri, quotation books as well as
subject specific reference books.
o Gale Virtual Reference Library
The Gale Virtual Reference collection includes encyclopedias and other
reference works covering a broad range of subjects including the arts,
biography, business, the sciences and social sciences.
C. Commercial Ebook Site Examples
Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/
o Amazon.com is an online bookstore that sells both print books and ebooks.
o It has the “Search Inside” this book feature which lets you search inside the book and
view sample pages including excerpts.
o Amazon is selling a new ebook reader called the Kindle. In addition to reading books on
it, you can use it to subscribe to newspapers and blogs.
eBook Mall at http://www.ebookmall.com/
o Ebook Mall offers a wide selection of ebooks for sale.
o Offers a choice of ways to read ebooks including HTML, plain text, Microsoft Reader,
Palm Reader, Adobe reader, MobiPocket, as well as other ebook readers. Your
choice of book depends on the ebook reader.
Frances Schlesinger 2
UMASS Boston Library
February 2008
Google Books at http://books.google.com/books
o Google Books contains both e-books that are still under copyright and those that are
in the public domain.
o You can search the text of the book. Depending on the copyright status and
publisher‟s permission, your viewing options range from just a snippet of text to the
entire book.
o To learn more about the Google books project go to the Library Overview at
http://books.google.com/googlebooks/library.html
D. Collaborative E-Book Examples (For Activity #2)
Flight Paths: a networked novel by Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph at
http://flightpaths.net/blog/
o “The initial goal of this project is to create a work of digital fiction, a „networked book‟,
created on and through the internet. … this will allow us to invite and encourage user-
generated content on this website and any associated sites; we would like to open
the project up to allow other writers and artists to contribute texts - both multimedia
and more traditional – as well as images, sounds, memories, ideas.”
o Flight Paths is about a stow away from the Indian Subcontinent, who falls from an
airplane over a grocery store parking lot and crashes onto a car of a British suburban
housewife.
Flight Path should raise awareness about issues including asylum,
immigration, consumer culture, Islam and the West
o For more about this project see http://www.flightpaths.net/blog/index.php/about/
A Million Penguins: a crowdsourced novel at
http://www.amillionpenguins.com/wiki/index.php/Welcome
o About the project http://www.amillionpenguins.com/wiki/index.php/About
“Crowdsourcing. The Wisdom of the crowds. Social networking. Collaborative
enterprise.”
“The buzz these days is all about the network, the small pieces loosely
joined. About how the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. About how
working together and joining the dots serves the greater good and benefits
our collective endeavours.”
A Million Penguins was a class exercise at DeMontfort University,
Leicester, England, to see what happens when many people contribute to
writing a novel. Does it work?
Vocabulary:
See MassBlast EBook Unit Glossary Handout
Description of Activity:
In this activity, interns will first discover what fiction e-books are and how to find them. They will
then have a chance to look at an online reference source to see what how e-book technology is
applied to these materials.
An additional activity during which interns contribute to an e-book is also outlined here. This could
be done during a second session.
Activity 1
Leader will lead an introductory discussion about ebooks. The 7 Things You Should Know about
Ebooks, which is listed in the Background Information on EBooks could be used as a handout
and as a basis for discussion or you could show the video called Ebooks on You Tube at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jW6mdzTcrI It is 8:08 minutes long and created July 27, 2007.
1) Have students read a short section from a work of fiction available from one of the online
resources listed on the Selected Publicly Accessible E-book Collections or ebooks available
through Boston Public Library.
(The leader may want to select the title in advance or let the students choose the book.)
Frances Schlesinger 3
UMASS Boston Library
February 2008
2) Have students look up a book on Amazon.com or Google Books.
Ask the students to jot down the name of the book and how much of the book they could
read.
3) Have students look up a subject related to ebooks in an online encyclopedia or other reference
book. (Boston Public has a nice selection of online reference works.)
4) Have the students discuss their ebook experience.
Activity 2
Activity 2 is a follow up activity for those who wish to further explore ebooks.
Leader will review ebooks and then lead an introductory discussion on collaborative ebooks.
Have one of the collaborative ebooks up on the screen or a computer monitor so students can
visualize what is being discussed.
1) Look at one of the collaborative ebooks listed in the Resource section or a collaborative
book of the leader‟s choice.
a. Go over the collaborative sections together.
2) Have students work on a brief entry for a collaborative work. It could be an addition to
one of the works in the resource list , of the leader‟s choosing, or a work done totally by
the students in the class. Students can write a paragraph and/or find videos, find music,
find images to enhance the story.
Possible Discussion Questions:
General ebook questions
Have you ever used or read an ebook before?
If so, what was it? Did you like reading online?
What do you see as good about ebooks?
Do you see any problems with ebooks? What are they?
Would you like to have your textbooks online?
Why or why not?
If you have viewed a book with audio or video links, do you like these additions?
For classes doing collaborative ebook activity 2
Do you like the idea that readers can add comments to text and make changes to a book? Why?
Do you see any issues that this might pose?
Assessment:
Activity 1:
After students have used an ebook and an online reference book, have them write down
one thing they liked about reading an ebook or online reference book and one problem they see
with online books or reference works.
Activity 2
Writing text for an ebook or augmenting it with a video link, etc. will show that the students have
an understanding of what a collaborative ebook is.
Facilitator’s Tips and Tools:
Interns will have a better understanding of the strengths and weakness of ebooks
o Depending on the texts selected they will be viewing ebooks with hyperlinks, with
multimedia including perhaps images, sounds, and video clips
o Depending on the texts selected they may be able to highlight text and take
online notes.
o They should have an understanding how ebooks differ from the printed book.
If the collaborative ebook activity is done, students will have participated in adding to an
online text, which may include writing a short piece and selecting appropriate video
excerpts or music to enhance the text.
Frances Schlesinger 4
UMASS Boston Library
February 2008