TSS: Lower Standards for Self-Published Work?

I've seen some discussions on Twitter recently between readers about lower standards for self-published work. Should we have lower standards for self-published eBooks? Some say no, because you still have to pay for self-published books; and if you're spending money on them, they need to be written and edited to the same standard a traditionally published book would be. But the fact remains that they aren't traditionally published, and they can have a lot of errors.

From what I can tell, most of the disagreement stems from publishers' claims of being "gatekeepers" to published work. If publishers are holding books to higher standards, it would make sense (-ish) that self-published work wouldn't meet those standards. But the gatekeeper argument lost any credibility with me a long time ago. If you're going to publish a non-fiction book that cites Wikipedia as a source--not once, but numerous times--and expect people to pay $17 for it, you don't have the right to claim you have standards of ANY SORT (see my review of The Founding Foodies here). And I think we've all encountered books published by the Big 6, especially eBooks, with spelling, grammar, and formatting problems.

Even though I think traditional publishers necessarily have higher standards, though, at least with a traditionally published book you know it went through some sort of process. An editor at least looked at it. You have no idea what the process of publication is for a self-published work. I know several self-published authors who hire editors and their work is very professional and polished; then are others who also hire an editor, and their books are riddled with errors. And then there are those who don't hire editors at all. All of these books are equally available in the digital market, and not necessarily priced accordingly. Should we approach them equally?

Honestly, I don't think you can hold everything to the same standard. When I teach, I don't have the same expectations for a gen ed class as I do an upper division course. I have a higher standard for books by my favorite authors than I do books by unknown authors; or even books with prettier covers versus plain ones. I'm not sure there's any such thing as approaching a book completely unbiased, but if there is, it doesn't happen very often.

Personally, I don't think the customers' standards should even be an issue--everyone has different standards and expectations. The question that really matters is what are the producers' standards? If the people producing content don't take pride in their work, one has to wonder why they're even bothering to write and publish in the first place.

Do you have lower expectations for self-published work?

The Sunday Salon: Parallels Between Publishing Today and the Birth of Modern Art

Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt at the Louvre, 1879. Image courtesy of the Met.

We're studying impressionism in my art history course this week, and I couldn't help but notice some similarities between the art world during that time period and the publishing world today--specifically, the impact eBooks, self-published or otherwise, are having on publishing. For instance:

• Deskilling A common statement about modern art is that, "my five-year-old could do that." And when you compare a Pissarro to a Vermeer, the former does look pretty bad. But people don't care about skill! That much. They care more about the ideas behind the pieces and that they're something new and different. Similarly, self-published eBooks are often criticized for grammatical mistakes and lack of editing. But people don't care! I mean, I care, but if Fifty Shades is on the NYT Bestseller List obviously there are a lot of people who don't. They just want to read something new and different! But not too different, like different in the sense that you feel uncomfortable while reading it. Also, being really cheap or free helps. Moving on...
  
• Establishment vs the Salon des Refusés Whenever you have a system to evaluate the worth of something and promote that which is judged superior, there are going to be rejections and hurt feelings. However, in 1863, the Academy Salon in Paris rejected 3,000 pieces of art, far more than they ever had before. It was so extreme the French government sponsored a salon of the rejected work, which included what are now some of the most famous pieces of 19th century art. Basically all these young artists who set the groundwork for the crumbling of the Salon wanted to be let into the establishment in the first place. They didn't set out to tear the system down, but the Salon had become too conservative and didn't want to be shaken up by new ideas. Similarly, one of the complaints I hear from self-published authors are that the Big 6 publishers don't support mid-listers anymore, which is where most new authors would start out (keep in mind all my information is hearsay, and this may only be a few people's experience). It makes sense that, as the economy gets worse, publishers are buttoning down the proverbial hatches and not taking chances on lesser-known writers anymore; but where are those writers going to go? They'll probably self- or e-publish.
• Technology Impressionists are famous for painting scenes of modern life, not allegories with cupids or historic scenes. Their images included trains and factories, and they were interested in the latest and greatest technology, science, theories, and newspaper reports. I don't think one could say the total opposite was true of Salon artists of the same time period, but the work of artists like William-Adolphe Bouguereau, whom Degas and Monet believed would be the most famous artist of their generation (with more than a little disgust), definitely has a completely different sensibility. I.e., frolicking cupids. In a similar way, it seems like some publishers are being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century--not just in their acceptance of eBooks, but also in their business models.

Obviously, none of these parallels are exact because we're looking at two different centuries, art forms, and cultures. But from my perspective as a reader, this is a very exciting time period in literature. The rules of how and what is being published are shifting rapidly, and that offers a great opportunity for writers to experiment, as well as an audience open to reading their work. Will we soon have the literary equivalent of modern art? Is Fifty Shades our generation's Impression: Sunrise?

Gawd. I hope not (but then I do confess I have a soft spot for Bouguereau).

KINDLE vs NOOK

For Christmas I got a Nook Simple Touch. Now that I've had both a Nook and a Kindle for a few months, I thought it would be useful to compare them. It's not quite like comparing apples to apples, as my Kindle is over a year old (yet weirdly seems like I've had it forever) and is not a touch screen like the Nook is.

Cover

It may seem shallow to start with a cover as a selling point, but for me the covers of eReaders really add or subtract to the experience of reading on them. They help me to feel as if I'm reading a paper book, and that's important.

The Kindle covers are awesome--sturdy, comfortable to hold, and very nice-looking. I've had the same Kindle cover for over a year and it looks as nice as the first day I bought it, and I definitely haven't been light-handed with it.

The Nook covers, on the other hand, SUCK. There are lots of choices, but the vast majority of those choices are either ugly or boring. I chose the "Charm" cover, above, because it was one of the few I thought was pretty. It cost $60, which is comparable to the Kindle cover I own; unlike the Kindle cover, however, this one is very cheaply made (the fabric started bubbling up a week after I bought it), flimsy, and not comfortable to hold. You fail me, Barnes & Noble.

Screen Quality

With eReaders there's a "flash," or what I like to call the Etch-a-sketch effect. It's a flash of black between turning pages or changing screens before all the words and images reform the way they're supposed to be. Sometimes there's also an afterimage of the previous page or screen saver that appears; this goes away after you change the screen (or should).

The Nook definitely has a shorter flash than the Kindle, and the images are much sharper, so that's a definite plus. Keep in mind I don't know if this would be the case with a new Kindle, and when I'm reading I don't don't notice the flash that much, anyway.

Touch Screen vs Buttons

The main reason I wanted a Nook in the first place was because it had a touch screen. "How convenient!" I thought to myself. I love making notes on Kindle, but the tiny little buttons drive me crazy, and it's a pain to add things like question marks and apostrophes (you all know I hate me some dropped apostrophes). I also thought a Nook would be preferable over a touch-screen Kindle because there are side buttons to turn the page, so I don't HAVE to touch the screen if I have jam on my fingers or something.

The reality is, touch screens are a pain in the ass (unless it's a good touch screen, and only iPad has that right now). The Nook screen is extremely sensitive, but not accurate; I have to fight with it every time I want to highlight anything, as it never seems to follow my fingers. As for the side buttons on the Nook that I wanted, it take a lot of effort to press them, and my thumbs quickly become fatigued. The side buttons on the Kindle are sooo much better.

Ease of Sideloading/Uploading

One of the things I love about Kindle is that I can buy books from my device, or from the webbernets, and immediately have them on my Kindle to read. I can also delete or archive books directly from my Kindle. It's so easy you never even have to think about it.

I wasn't expecting things to be any different with Nook, but they are. For one, it's a bitch trying to get it to connect to our wifi at home. Turns out since December 2011, Nook devices aren't compatible with wireless routers from certain companies. HOW. CONVENIENT. What, shall I traipse over to the nearest Barnes & Noble just to download my effing books? Come on! (My mom's reaction to this news: "I'm done with them." I have to echo that sentiment.)

Plus, I can e-mail myself files to read on Kindle. You can't do that with Nook. Since I download a lot of files from Project Gutenberg and other sites, it seems like I have to sideload onto my Nook a lot--much more than with Kindle. I also can't delete those files from the Nook once I'm done with them; I have to plug it in and delete them from my computer. Another inconvenience, if minor.

Formats

Of course, a plus point in Nook's favor is that it allows more formats than Kindle, including the beloved ePub. I was excited by that as well. But you know... with Calibre and de-DRM programs, it's pretty simple to reformat ePubs for my Kindle. Turning mobi files from Amazon into ePubs, on the other hand, is something I haven't puzzled out yet (if someone has any clue, please feel free to share--keep in mind I have a Mac). I've found myself thinking, "Good thing I have a Kindle," a lot lately. Number of times I've thought "Good thing I have a Nook" so far: zero.



Do I like my Nook? Yes, I like certain things about it. And I'm happy to have two eReaders so I have two options to read books on (as well as being grateful and aware that I'm very technology-spoiled). But if I could only have one, I'd chose the Kindle. The Nook gives me headaches that the Kindle has never ever given me; whether those headaches are due mostly to the touch screen, the cover, or the device, is up in the air at the moment. But I definitely feel a fondness for my Kindle that just isn't happening with the Nook.


Do you have an eReader[s]? What are the features you like/dislike?

Kindle Mini-Reviews: CANDY HOUSES, HIGH SCHOOL REUNION, and NOCTURNAL WHISPERS

Candy Houses by Shiloh Walker

Greta is a Grimm, someone who fights demons. Pulled to Ann Arbor, Michigan, she encounters an old flame who is hunting one of their own.

I decided to read Candy Houses after Colette from A Buckeye Girl Reads told me she thought the new Grimm TV show might be based off this series (it's not). It's essentially an urban fantasy with the twist being the characters are from fairy tales. Greta is really Gretel from Hansel and Gretel, and her fellow Grimm is Rip (it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out which fairy tale he was from). I usually love fairy tale twists, but here it felt like a gimmick because the characters really have nothing to do with their fairy tale counterparts and are actually angels fighting demons. Why not just write about angels then, one wonders? Plus, the "real" versions of these fairy tales, told from the perspective of the characters, are pretty lame. Especially in Rip's case--I would rather be left with the original fairy tale version.

That being said, I did love the romance between Greta and Rip. It was sweet and romantic, and really saved the entire novel.

If it wasn't for Rip, though, I would have been really bored. I skimmed through the unnecessarily long descriptions of demons and felt like the novel should have ended in the middle.



High School Reunion by Marlene Sexton

Jerry is dragged to his high school reunion by a friend, but finds himself in a pity spiral because, unlike many of his classmates, his life is a mess. He's divorced, living in a crappy apartment, and only gets to see his kid every other weekend. Then an attractive woman strikes up a conversation with him, and they wind up going back to her place. It's only then that Jerry finds out "Denise" is actually a Dennis.

I downloaded this erotica short story after KatieBab's review of it at Babbling About Books and More. How many books with transgender main characters does one come across, after all? Personally, I've never heard of single one, so I was intrigued to read something so unusual.

The writing style is 3rd-grade-ish, there are some serious LOLlines ("Jerry hadn't really considered that option... However, Denise could do it. She had a cock." ahahahaha), and Jerry seemed to take the fact that Denise had the body of a man a little too in stride, too quickly; but overall it was okay. The ending was lame and nonsensical, but it was free! (Please note that it's not free anymore, however.)




Nocturnal Whispers by Caridad Piñeiro

I bought this novella (50-ish pages) because it had a mummy's curse in it. I can't resist a mummy's curse! Lord Alec is 200-years-old, having been cursed by a mummy he took from Egypt to live forever and have sexy dreams of fellatio every night. Sounds onerous, eh? All he has to do to end the curse is reunite a child mummy with the mummy of its mummy. This has taken him OVER 100 YEARS even though he knows where both mummies are. Oh, and anyone who touches the baby mummy immediately turns into a nymphomaniac and starts humping people, preferably Lord Alec.

This book was bloody AWFUL. The writing was really terrible--one bad, cheesy sentence followed by another--and there was a lot of tell-not-show going on (actually no "show" at all). The "plot" reminded me of something from a porn movie, i.e. a totally ridiculous and lame excuse just to get people to have sex, into which the author put zero thought. Added to all this, the book was ALSO boring: it put me to sleep, twice, in the space of fifteen pages.

Maybe High School Reunion wasn't significantly better, writing- and plot-wise, but at least it didn't put me to sleep and was free. I'm kind of disgusted with myself for wasting time and money on Nocturnal Whipsers. I'd rather give those three dollars to a homeless person on the street.

Book Review: DANGEROUS DESIGNS by Dale Mayer

Story Dalton is a 17-year-old high school student trapped in a small town with no friends. All the people who lived there and shared her interests in art moved away except for her, and she and her mom are treated as outcasts thanks to her mom's hippie candle shop and Wiccan religion. So to put it bluntly, Story's not happy.

Then she finds a pencil on the ground and weird things start happening. She loses stretches of time. She can't concentrate in school at all, she can't stop drawing, and sometimes she finds herself trapped in an abandoned mine shaft on the edge of town with no idea how she got there. Luckily, the handsome new guy at school, Eric, is around to keep rescuing her. In fact, it's downright odd how he keeps showing up, almost as if he knows where she is.

Colette from A Buckeye Girl Reads recommended this book to me, and I'm really glad she did--it's totally up my alley. It combines sci-fi elements with YA romance and an artistically inclined heroine. The beginning was a little slow, but once I got about 20% into it, the story just flew by. It was really fun.

That being said, this is one of those books that Jane from Dear Author might say proves readers don't care about quality. I don't know if Dale Mayer has an editor look over her work or not, but if she doesn't, she needs one; and if she does, she needs to find another one. And possibly ask for a refund. This book is riddled with so many errors I had to stop highlighting all but the most annoying. Things like using too instead of to, it's instead of its, question marks where there should be exclamation marks, mixed metaphors, continuity issues, leaps in logic, using words incorrectly, and repetition. The mixed metaphors were probably the funniest of the mistakes--would you like to "come out smelling like a queen bee"? No? Okay then (I think Mayer meant "smelling like a rose" there).

Because of all the mistakes, I can't really call this book good. It's definitely not up to the standards I'd expect from a hold-in-hand book; and if it had been a paper book, I probably would have started snarling in annoyance and never finished it. I did honestly enjoy reading it, though, mainly because of Eric and his romance with Story, but also because it was just plain entertaining. It's a sweet story with some quirky geekiness thrown in, and I really identified with Story. I kind of want to give this book a hug (and I would, if it was a paperback).

I guess Jane is right and readers don't care about grammar, even picky readers like myself. What can I say, I guess my standards are lower for eBooks, especially self-published eBooks. The bare bones of a good story are there, but it doesn't have the focus to develop any larger themes, and it certainly doesn't have the polish of a novel published by one of the major NYC publishers. If you don't think that will bother you, then you should give Dangerous Designs a try. It's a damn site better than My Blood Approves, that's for sure.



Musical Notes: "Two Against One," by Danger Mouse and Jack White

TSS--Insufficient Reading

From Booking Through Thursday:

I’ve seen this quotation in several places lately. It’s from Sven Birkerts’ ‘The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age’:

“To read, when one does so of one’s own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one’s life or one’s orientation toward it.”

To what extent does this describe you?

I know I'm really late with responding to this (as usual), but after considering it, I thought it was worth a post.  Then the post turned into a rant and I decided to make it my Sunday Salon post.

I think a bibliophile's first reaction to the above quote is probably defensive, especially in regards to the "insufficiency" portion.  After all, it's probably been assumed for most of us--at least by some people--that we read because we don't have a life, not because we enjoy it.  Of course that's bull, but it's still annoying. 

However, I don't think that's what Sven Birkerts is talking about at all.  I think he's saying that by opening a book and reading it, voluntarily and purely for our own enjoyment or edification, we're admitting we don't know everything there is to know.  Books open up another viewpoint to a reader (that's what I love about art, by the way--not just books but all art--that it gives you a chance to experience the world from another person's point of view), and by searching out that viewpoint and agreeing to go on the journey of the book with the writer, we're admitting that our own world view and experiences are insufficient for understanding the world or our own lives.  So I actually think that describes most readers to a tee, at least in the general sense.

That being said, I don't agree with the majority of Birkerts' ideas.  Robin from My Two Blessings wrote a great response to this quote where she actually read The Gutenberg Elegies and listed some of his main theses.  I recommend you go to her blog to read the whole thing, but suffice it to say that Birkerts thinks civilization is going the way of Babylon, and it's all because of reading electronically.  Language and historical perspective are all deteriorating because we're hooked on computers.

People who make claims like this strike me as elitist snobs.  Whatever issues you have with reading eBooks, being able to access them online has made learning, academia, and knowledge much more egalitarian.  Why are universities like Princeton and Yale famous?  It's not because they're "better schools" than any place else--a student will learn or not learn whatever they put their mind to no matter where they go.  It's because of their libraries.  Universities are repositories of knowledge because of their libraries, not because of their students or their professors.  The better the library, the better the school.  Now, however, you don't need to attend or teach at the big schools to access their libraries, because you can access them anywhere, online.  The "historical perspective" Birkerts values so highly is in all likelihood a historical pedagogy that he feels is being undermined by broader access to people who haven't jumped through the hoops of higher ed.  As Birkert says in an article in The Atlantic (side note:  isn't that magazine going bankrupt?), "The book is part of a system....  Literature—our great archive of human expression—is deeply contextual and historicized."  Yes, it is, especially when that context is provided by a system that just happens to favor those who are wealthy and of a particular race and gender. 

Furthermore, while I would agree that language is becoming less formalized (English, anyway, I don't know about other languages), that's not a result of the interwebs.  That's been happening since, oh, the eighteenth century???  To go along with our society as a whole becoming less formalized.  I wouldn't say I want to read an entire book in netspeak, but personally I don't have a problem with language changing.  It happens when people are using and engaging with words; get used to it.  Or better yet, celebrate it.  But trying to stop it is like sticking your finger in a dam.

People like Birkerts want to limit reading--he says you should only read "real" books.  I'm sure he also thinks you should only read "real" literature--as defined by him, of course.  It's just all rather restrictive, isn't it?  Yes, eBooks have their issues and problems, but they are just a format--it's what the format allows for that Birkerts objects to.  Although I'm sure he knows a lot about reading, I don't think crying the sky is falling because of Kindle is helping readers at all.

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Reader Sites

Apparently, my current method of managing my TBR pile--with, you know, the books being in actual physical piles or resting mercifully on the bookshelf and not running around the room wreaking havoc and giving the dog papercuts (which will never happen again, do you hear me, books? *shakes fist*)--is woefully outdated. So I decided to try some of the book managing (or "library") websites to see if they could at all add to my reading experience. Or at the very least give me something I could waste more time on while not reading.

There are tons of sites out there ready and willing to help you manage your library, but the three major ones are Good Reads, Library Thing, and Shelfari (just a quick note: I'm going to be looking at sites that are more focused on TBR managedment instead of buying or trading books or getting recommendations). These three sites have pretty much the same features: social networking options, recommendations, widgets for your blog, links to buy or trade, and ways to sort and keep track of your books. But each site seems to be focused more on one than the others. Here's a rundown of the pluses and minuses of each site:

Shelfari



I've been a member of Shelfari for a few months now, although I admit I'm a desultory one. Of all the library sites, Shelfari is the best-looking. The site design is awesome and makes it really convenient to add and edit books on your shelf.



All you have to do is roll your mouse over the cover and you can quickly change which shelf the book is on, give it a rating, remove it, make it a favorite, put it on your wish list, or add it to your "own" list (never saw the point of that last one). You can also get a pop-up window where you can write a quick review by clicking the "edit" button, or click on the cover for the book's page, where you can see related reviews, discussions, a link to buy the book on Amazon, etc.



To get recommendations, people can click on the "Should I read this?" link and Shelfari will ask people who have read the book if you should read it or not. This is an interesting feature, although why you would want a bunch of totally random people telling you what to read, I don't know. There are also reviews on the site, as mentioned before; but the reviews are typically more along the lines of, "The book wer gud, I liekd it," so they aren't of much value.



As for social networking, Shelfari has book groups, and you can leave notes or friend members. I don't really use this feature that much, but in the interest of scientific inquiry, I decided to try to start a conversation with users I didn't know but who are reading the same book I am (easily accessible from the drop-down menu). So far I've received no replies, but it was easy to find potential people for discussion.

Shelfari also has widgets you can put on your blog with a lot of different choices in how to design your virtual bookshelf, so that's nice as well. However, Shelfari doesn't let you sync your bookshelf with other social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, which both Library Thing and Good Reads does, so that is a major negative point for the site.

Overall--Shelfari is a great-looking site, and the easiest of all the sites to add books to, but lacks social networking options.


Library Thing



When I first went on Library Thing, I was really impressed with it. Signing up is a snap, and they have nifty features like getting ARCs from publishers or signing up for book givaways.



However, as I played around more on the site, I became more and more frustrated. Winning the drawings for advance readers' copies seems like a long shot considering the number of applicants, and they didn't even have any books I'd be really interested in reading. The pool to get books from others is more of a, "Hey, I finished this book and I don't want it anymore," kind of thing, and there can be literally a thousand people requesting a single copy.



But by far the most frustrating aspect of this site was adding and managing books. There is no rollover menu like there is at Shelfari, so every edit of a book (for example, if I wanted to move a book from currently reading to read) requires a separate click and waiting for another page to load. Also, say I'm trying to add books from an author that I love, so I've read A LOT of books by her/him. I get a list of that author's books on the right (see above), but once I click on one book, the page returns to my self. So I have to search again to get back to the list of the author's titles (using the back button just takes you back to the home page). Très inconvenient. This site definitely gave me the most fatigue for adding books out of all the sites.

I also tried my socializing experiment on Library Thing. The book pages do connect you to recent reviews and book discussions, but it doesn't link directly to them. In the end I got frustrated and gave up (I really have no patience when it comes to that kind of thing). However, Library Thing does connect to Twitter and Facebook, and you can create a widget for your blog, so those are plusses in its favor. The widget is a little bare-bones and doesn't offer many design options like the Shelfari widgets, however.

Overall--the site has a lot of great ideas floating around, but the site design could stand to be more user-friendly.


Good Reads



I had the opposite first impression to Good Reads that I did to Library Thing: at first I didn't like it at all. The first thing they have you do is look through your e-mail contacts to see if your friends on the site. That's fine, I guess, but I got annoyed in this instance. Then they give you a "book test," which is a list of books for you to rate and check. Siiiiiiiiiigh. So you finally get to the home page and it's pretty bare bones.



BUT! This just demonstrates that I should never make up my mind too quickly, because Good Reads improved exponentially upon closer acquaintance. Like Shelfari, the site offers a convenient roll-over menu that lets you quicky add a book to one of your shelves and rate it. You can also create your own types of shelves (by genre, like mystery and romance, or by any other category such as "to be reviewed," "top 20," etc.) and put books into them by tagging.



You can also post what book you're reading and even your progress to Facebook and/or Twitter, with a convenient pop-up window you can access directly from your shelf. And, when you've completed a book and have reviewed it, another pop-up window gives you the option of posting the review to your blog or sharing it through e-mail via Hotmail, AOL, etc.



For my social networking experiment with Good Reads, I clicked on the book I was currently reading and was immediately directed to people who had already read the book and posted reviews of it. I was able to comment on the reviews very easily. Also, the reviews on Good Reads seem much more valuable than the ones on Shelfari; more along the lines of what one would expect to see on a book blog. I actually learned a lot about the author and the book I was reading while perusing these reviews, which gave me a new perspective.

There are lots of other interesting features on Good Reads that I haven't had a chance to explore properly yet, like trivia questions, events, groups, and quotes. I also think they may have an offer similar to Library Thing's ARC lottery, but I only saw it in passing. And of course there are widgets, although again these aren't as fancy as Shelfari's.

Overall--Good Reads is a book lover's paradise. Of all the library sites, this one offers the widest variety of ways to organize your bookshelf digitally, connect with other readers, integrate with your blog, and do just about anything else you could want from a book site. It's not as shiny as Shelfari is, but it has more bells and whistles and the website design is actually just as convenient, if not more so.


So the winner of this informal study is Good Reads, with a great variety of features and site functionality.


As for my old-fashioned shelving ways, am I converted to keeping track of my books on library websites? Ummm... not really. The fact is, for me putting books online and keeping track of them that way is just a waste of time--an entertaining waste of time, perhaps, but a waste nonetheless. Even though my TBR shelf (or any of my shelves, for that matter) is not organized in any sense of the word, I know where every book I own is at any given moment; so I don't need to organize my shelves.

That being said, with the growing popularity of e-books, I can see that there will be a need to have a digital library shelf soon enough. With "real" books, you can organize them physically, and look at them and decide which one you're going to read by going through a few at a time. But organizing a whole mess of e-book files could be problematic. That's where I think the real benefit of library sites will prove to be in the future: a virtual shelf for your digital library collection.

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