Scholars continue to look for content through electronic platforms, and university presses are trying to meet the wishes of those readers and writers.

Now both the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) and iPublishCentral have joined forces in finding a new way to realize both those goals.

The AAUP, a nonprofit organization of academic publishers recently announced a cooperative agreement with iPublishCentral, a self-service e-content delivery platform from Impelsys, to support its 130 members in pursuing electronic publishing. The partnership provides AAUP members with a discount for using iPublishCentral’s e-publishing platform and services.

iPublishCentral will also allow participating AAUP members to market books on the Internet, sell content online and promote brands and titles across the Web.

In the first year of the agreement, AAUP members will receive complimentary content hosting services available through iPublishCentral. In following years, members will pay sliding-scale fees based on the number of books they upload to the iPublishCentral site. AAUP will share a small percentage of revenue made from transactions that occur on the AAUP portal using iPublishCentral.

Through iPublishCentral, AAUP members can also launch their own publishing portals, creating online content products and bundles.

Both the economy and the emergence of new technology are taking its toll on traditional publishing companies. This partnership is a good example of two companies deciding to join together, embrace new technology and find a way to thrive during this time.

You may not have heard of the next generation of great scientists yet. Here’s your chance to get acquainted: Read What’s Next? Dispatches on the Future of Science. The book’s editor assembled a cast of up-and-coming smart people and asked them to look into their space-time continuum portals for a look to the future of science. Among things they saw is a migration northward as climate change continues, and one doomsday scenario: The extinction of the human race. Homo sapiens exstinctus. The folks at VSL were appropriately terrified.

Publisher Random House says, “This wide-ranging collection of never-before-published essays offers the very latest insights into the daunting scientific questions of our time. Its contributors—some of the most brilliant young scientists working today—provide not only an introduction to their cutting-edge research, but discuss the social, ethical, and philosophical ramifications of their work. With essays covering fields as diverse as astrophysics, paleoanthropology, climatology, and neuroscience, What’s Next? is a lucid and informed guide to the new frontiers of science.”

By Diane Evans, DelMio.com

Looking for something to do this summer? Go to the library.

You might find more than you expect. And the best part is it’s free.

In addition to innovative summer reading programs and other interesting activities, libraries are also a source of free computer access.

This is a big deal for many communities. In one recent survey, more than 70 percent of libraries identified themselves as the only source of free access to computers and the Internet in their area, according to the American Library Association (ALA). And, Internet services are escalating rapidly within the nation’s libraries. The ALA also reports that more than 76 percent of all public libraries provide Wi-Fi access, up from 65.9 percent one year ago.

In the national debate over stimulus spending for broadband networks, library proponents make an effective argument that libraries can play a significant role in bridging the digital divide. In a recent conversation, Sari Feldman, president-elect of the Public Library Association (a division of ALA), pointed out that libraries not only provide public access to Internet service, but they also give people needed support – in figuring out how to fill out an online job application, for example. A majority of large retailers, Feldman noted, now require online applications.

The Cuyahoga County Public Library in Northeast Ohio, where Feldman is executive director, is an example of a library system with dozens of programs that help level the playing field for those with no Internet access in their homes. People receive help with job searches and applications, for example. In another initiative, college-bound students learn to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

These are ways libraries stand to further elevate their relevance as places where people can go to help improve themselves and seek new opportunities. They can be a place to go, especially for those otherwise shut out of opportunities that require Internet access.

No surprise libraries figure prominently in the debate over how to provide Internet access to those under-served or not served at all.

Yet even in the best-case scenario, one where all public libraries provide public accessibility to high-speed, high-capacity Internet service, that alone isn’t enough to break down economic, social and educational barriers that result from the digital divide.

The other part of the equation: People must take the personal initiative to use the services available to them in order to reap the benefits.

I’m reminded of my 83-year-old dad who not long ago went to the doctor complaining of various aches and pains. He was really complaining of being shut out – of playing golf, for example, or bocce.

“Go to the gym,’’ the doctor kept telling him.

Finally, after hearing it enough times, he went to his version of the gym – the one he set up in his basement. His health improved dramatically.

Looking for a new job? A more effective, efficient ways to learn new skills? How to do better in school? Ways to beat the summer heat?

Go to the library.

By Diane Evans, Delmio.com

The declining state of traditional book publishing could be read very clearly at the recent Book Expo 2009 tradeshow in New York. If anything, the show exposed how an elite industry is having trouble coming to terms with an information-based culture, full of self-publishers with digital devices that know no barriers to entry.

The annual Book Expo is where publishers typically come out in force to tout new titles and cozy up to customers, including the nation’s librarians. But since the last Expo in New York in 2007, the number of attendees this year dropped by 11 percent to about 12,000, not counting exhibitors.

A few telling nuggets from this year’s event:

* Major publishing houses, such as Random House and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, cut so far back on floor space that they held meetings in windowless basement rooms.

* The Associated Press described this year’s Expo as “a low-budget, low-celebrity convention, with fewer parties and fewer advanced copies of books than in the past, and a sense that the best way to meet expectations was to lower them.”

* Instead of continuing as a three-day weekend show, next year’s Expo is likely to be scaled down, maybe held mid-week over two days, and maybe open to the public. In detailing the despair evident at this year’s Expo, New York Magazine’s Boris Kachka suggested that opening next year’s event to the public would turn the Expo into “a nerdier Auto Show or a less nerdy Comic-Con.”

(Never mind that comic-book publishers – large, small and independent – have taken advantage of the interactivity to showcase new titles and products while allowing fans to meet the industry’s top artists, writers and creators.)

In fairness, Expo organizers did try different strategies this year, such as promoting the new, iPod-inspired e-reader, Cool-Er, and handing out 1,000 copies of Joshua Ferris’ second novel, “The Unnamed.”

But writing in their blogs, even exhibitors at the show questioned its future.

Clearly, digitals formats have turned traditional publishing on its ear – in effect toppling the Ivory Tower where publishers once lived. Now it’s as if the industry is becoming unmasked.

We always knew it was smug. But we could at least hope for a level of respect, or even a desire to understand the real customer, which is the everyday reader.

What would happen if the public were invited in, say to stand in line for free copies of Ferris’ novel?

Publishers would come face to face with the customers they are trying to know better. They might also learn a few things about what average readers think, what they want and how they intend to consume books in the future.

There is an old saying in business, something along the lines that if you don’t eat your lunch, someone else will eat it for you.

The threat to publishers is not whether the public will come to next year’s convention. The threat is that the tables will turn, and elitism will take such a turn that the book-buying public will one day say to publishers, “Let them eat cake.”

Book News:  Deaf Biker Lady’s new book is based upon her personal road journeys and love for the open road and riding motorcycles.

Hard Road, Easy Riding: Deaf Biker Lady is now available on amazon.com.  

Deaf Biker Lady is a motorcycle journalist and writer.  She lives in Norfolk, Virginia, and she rides highways on a motorcycle she calls “Run Escape.”

For more information, visit www.deafbikerlady.com.

Book News: Deaf Biker Lady’s new book is based upon her personal road journeys and love for the open road and riding motorcycles. 

Amazon.com is now selling First Editions of Hard Road, Easy Riding: Deaf Biker Lady.

About Deaf Biker Lady:  She is a motorcycle journalist and writer of the book Hard Road, Easy Riding: Deaf Biker Lady, which captures the spirit of a woman riding motorcycles on life’s open highways. She lives in Norfolk, Virginia, but she can usually be found riding the highways on a motorcycle she affectionately calls “Run Escape.”

For more information, visit www.deafbikerlady.com.