On June 20 of 2009, I gave what I consider my most significant speech to date, at the Association of American University Presses’ annual meeting, entitled “Scholarly Publishing in the New Era of Scarcity.”  It was the last presentation in the last Plenary session of the meeting, and allowed me to talk about the two [...]

Empires, by definition, begin their decline at their peak.  Today Amazon bestrides the publishing world like Caesar, and it may seem far-fetched to think of this company slipping from its dominant position.  There is some doubt, however, that Amazon can continue to augment its control over so many facets of the industry.  Although there may [...]

     The Kindle is a watershed event in electronic publishing.  It is not the first ebook device, and it may not ultimately be the one that will prevail (it could of course be one of several). But its appearance marks the point where ebooks move from theory to actuality.  Whether the leading device is the [...]

I got my Kindle at the beginning of Christmas week. The holidays gave me a chance to show it to a number of friends and relatives who don’t read ebooks, don’t know about ebooks, and have never tried reading on a screen. Several of them had heard about the Kindle and were primed to see [...]

In an essay at Ars Technica, “Nobel winner blames cultural decline on ‘blogging and blugging’” Nate Anderson discusses the near-loathing that the esteemed SciFiction writer Doris Lessing pours out on Internet communications, generally speaking. Lessing is quote as saying: And just as we never once stopped to ask, How are we, our minds, going to [...]