Some recent information culled from various sites

Some interesting stories culled from recent headlines:

• A Canadian couple saved 360,000 books from being burned. Sad side effect: the sheer weight of the books is destroying their house. See full story at UPI.com.
• Reuters reports that spam has hit the Kindle, “clogging the online bookstore of the top-selling eReader with material that is far from being book worthy and threatening to undermine Amazon.com Inc.’s publishing foray.”
• According to a PR.com press release, in a recent survey of bibliotastic.com users, when asked where they will get their books from in the future, more than 50% cited free eBook sites as their main source, but only 2% admitted to pirate eBook sites. About 25% of respondents said online book retailers, while bricks-and-mortar book stores and libraries both scored under 10%.
• In “Pressing Beyond E-Books,” Inside Higher Ed author Steve Kolowich notes that university presses are not shrinking from new modes of communication, but rather are looking to harness them to reach new audiences and preserve regionally oriented publishing.
• Gov. Rick Scott is opening the door for E-Readers in all public school classrooms in Florida, writes Mercy Pilkington in Good E-Reader Blog. While most consumers see e-readers in terms convenience, such as massive storage capacity, instantly downloadable e-books, and go-anywhere portable libraries, Gov. Scott sees the devices as potentially revolutionizing public education.
• In TeleRead, Robin Birtle writes a first-hand report from Tokyo on  the Japanese eBook market in 2011. His summary: “The Japanese eBook industry is crowded and awash with activity but is making no progress.”
• Denis Papathanasiou writes in his blog about using the SVG image element in illustrated eBooks with EPUB. He shows how he marks up EPUB’s XHTML files at eBookBurn.com.
• Hongkiat.com, a design weblog dedicated to designers and bloggers, presents 20 of the best websites to download free eBooks. Worth checking out.