A New Thing -- e-books

It seems that e-books get a more enthusiastic reception from students than from the more, hmh, mature persons, but how is it in practice? The teens in our house, otherwise avid readers, spend no time whatsoever on e-books although they seem to spend huge chunks of their lives staring at the screen. And do interactive features change the picture at all -- publishers keep trying but -- ? Informational e-books seem to have some following, if forced sometimes. Are they being purchased at an increasing rate for school libraries?

Thing 10

Reading Thing 10 -- copyright and plagiarism -- is instructive and confusing at the same time, just like I remember it in library school classes, although there wasn't enough on copyrighting there in any consistent manner, only much about fair use, to encourage us to use material rather than not, I presume? Working at a publishing company opened my eyes to dangers in commercial use -- every scrap of text, drawings, photos could potentially be grounds for a lawsuit if improperly used, and much time and effort went on checking back to ensure that no copyright law was violated. This was an arduous process when dealing with Hollywood, Disney and such; say, you want to use production stills for a children's book and need to somehow contact Tom Cruise's people -- shudder, shudder--

Still, it had to be done and was done, and of course, it's really better that way in the end, unless the item is truly in public domain and that takes a long time--

In school environment plagiarism is certainly more of an issue and well worth watching for.