Category Archives: Websites

Google Docs gets an interface upgrade

Posted on June 28, 2007 by Keren

We featured Google Documents a while ago, back when it was still Writely.  Now Google’s updated their online document and spreadsheet web app to allow better file organization.

Mark Frauenfelder, in his blog Rule the Web, writes:

Today, Google Docs & Spreadsheets has unveiled a a whole new look. Now, files are organized into folders, which makes navigating through your various documents a breeze. No more lost files.

If you haven’t given the service a look, now is an excellent time. GD&S does all kinds of nifty things that MSWord doesn’t, like let you collaborate on a document at the same time as someone else at another browser. It also saves automatically as you go, so someone could theoretically blow up your PC mid-sentence and your document would be safe, scattered around Google’s various servers. It would take a worldwide electromagnetic pulse to really get rid of a document stored with Google.

Link

Posted in Resources, Websites |

Scribd: 'free online library'

Posted on April 10, 2007 by Keren

Scribd is a new site that lets you upload, read and share documents in a variety of formats (.doc, .txt, .pdf and much more) and perform high-quality conversions between them – to html, jpeg, even to robot-read mp3. In addition, you can also embed the content on your own website. A great way to read and share files like pdfs without having to mess around with multiple programs.

Link (via The Best Media in Life is Free)

Posted in E-books, Resources, Websites |

Copyright renewal database for books from 1923-1963

Posted on April 7, 2007 by Keren
Stanford offers a tool to determine whether books published in the US between 1923 and 1963 have entered the public domain – important for anyone who wants to digitize and distribute copies of these books, or use their content in any other way without shelling out money to do a Library of Congress search.

The period from 1923-1963 is of special interest for US copyrights, as works published after January 1, 1964 had their copyrights automatically renewed by the 1976 Copyright Act, and works published before 1923 have generally fallen into the public domain. Between those dates, a renewal registration was required to prevent the expiration of copyright, however determining whether a work’s registration has been renewed is a challenge. Renewals received by the Copyright Office after 1977 are searchable in an online database, but renewals received between 1950 and 1977 were announced and distributed only in a semi-annual print publication. The Copyright Office does not have a machine-searchable source for this renewal information, and the only public access is through the card catalog in their DC offices.

In order to make these renewal records more accessible, Stanford has created this searchable database. Building on the work done by Project Gutenberg to transcribe the 1950-1977 renewals, and on early conversion efforts by Michael Lesk, we have converted the published renewal announcements to machine-readable form, and combined them with the renewals for later years made available on the Copyright Office’s website. Note that this database covers only renewals, not original registrations, and is limited to books (Class A registrations) published in the US.

Posted in Resources, Websites |

Publishers allow book browsing

Posted on February 27, 2007 by Mark

From Reuters:

The dusty world of book publishing has taken a step into cyberspace as Random House and HarperCollins letting customers browse books online.

Random House, whose writers include Danielle Steel and Norman Mailer, said on Tuesday it will let consumers search and browse through more than 5,000 of its titles on the Internet through a new service called Insight.

Continue reading on Reuters.co.uk. 

Posted in Publishers, Technology, Websites |

Oort-Cloud: new sf "social publishing" site

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Keren

Oort-Cloud is a new writing site that lets readers and writers be part of a “social publishing” experiment. It uses web 2.0-style features, such as tag clouds, rss feeds and post rating that makes it easy to keep track of a favorite author and find other good writers.

…authors create and distribute their work, and readers, individually and collectively, including fans as well as editors and peers, review, comment, rank, and tag, everything.

For writers, Oort-Cloud offers….

A place to share experiences in writing, publishing and help one another in dealing with the challenging decisions associated with copyright.

A place to reach out to readers, develop stronger ties to them, find new ones, and keep them up-to-date about new and coming works.

A place to learn what ideas and issues readers are interested in.

A place to help readers understand the issues concerning writers, especially in light of intellectual property issues.

A place to share opinions about trends in science-fiction and encounter new ideas that might inspire new creativity.

Oort-Cloud is geared mainly toward science fiction and fantasy writers, but genre definitions are flexible: “there’s nothing to say your science-fiction or fantasy contribution could not also be, in part, a romance, mystery, horror story, or even a western.”

Link (via BoingBoing)

Posted in Resources, Science fiction/fantasy, Websites |

A Baghdad librarian's journal

Posted on February 11, 2007 by Heidi Kathleen

For a month now, Dr. Eskander’s intermittent diary entries have been appearing on the Web site of the British Library (bl.uk/iraqdiary.html), and they detail the daily hurdles of keeping Iraq’s central library open, preserving the surviving archives and books and, oh yes, staying alive.

The New York Times article can be found here, and the journal itself is here.

Posted in Education, Libraries, Library, Resources, Websites |

Penguin launches wiki novel project

Posted on February 4, 2007 by Keren

Based on the principles of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, the novel, called A Million Penguins, is open to anyone to join in, write and edit. None of the words, characters or plot twists will be attributed to any individual and – and this is the element of the project most likely to bruise delicate egos – participants are free to edit, chop and change other writers’ work.

“To be honest, we don’t know exactly what is going to happen or how this will turn out,” says Jeremy Ettinghausen, Penguin’s digital publisher. “We hope people will enter into it in the spirit we intend and leave their egos at the door. It’s not about individual work and individual brilliance – it’s about people working together as a community”.

Link to the Guardian article; link to the A Million Penguins wiki.

Posted in Articles, Publishers, Websites |

Scriblist: Collaborative story writing project

Posted on January 25, 2007 by Keren

Scriblist founder, Patrick Horne, says:

Scriblist.com is a new creative writing website which offers something just a little bit different. Aspiring authors are invited to enter submissions for the first chapter of a story with all entries posted directly onto the site. Each user then has the opportunity to vote for their favourite submissions and a panel of judges will select the winning chapters from the highest rated entries. The competition in each succeeding month will be to write further chapters to follow on from the winning entries.

This project began with a concern about the dramatic decrease in reading and writing, particularly for young people, even in the era of Harry Potter. Young people are all familiar with the Internet and Scriblist.com will use modern technology to help revive interest in creative writing. The site is open to anyone of any age who is interested in writing. We believe that many people working collaboratively can produce work which is as good as or even better than anything that one person might produce by themselves.

The project offers prizes for the author of each chapter chosen for publication (a delicious-looking iPod Shuffle) as well as royalties from the published book. As an added incentive to encourage younger authors, Scriblist.com will also offer prizes to schools, colleges and universities should any of their students provide one of the chosen winning contributions.

The submission window for the first chapter closes February 4.

Link to the Scriblist home page.

Posted in Contests, Websites |

An American Idol of books?

Posted on January 12, 2007 by Mark

From Reuters, via Yahoo News:

A major U.S. book publisher is hoping its new Web-based writing contest can tap into the popularity of interactive competitions like hit television show “American Idol.”

As part of the “First Chapters” contest, aspiring first-time authors and members of www.gather.com can post manuscripts on that social-networking Web site, organizers from publisher Touchstone Fireside and gather.com said on Thursday.

Full story here.

Posted in Contests, Publishers, Websites |

Title of final Harry Potter revealed

Posted on December 21, 2006 by Mark

The title of the last book in J.K. Rowling’s series was revealed on her website today: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. What this may be referring to is anyone’s guess, but I’m sure there will be no lack of speculation in the months to come.

Several articles on other websites are posted below. The information each covers is the same, if lain out a little differently:

Also, if anyone is interested:

Posted in Upcoming releases, Websites |