The green book review week is coming!

This week we didn't have our Monday's green book review, but we have a good excuse: next week we're going to have a green book review not only on Monday, but on every day of the week!

Yes, we have too many books that are waiting on our review shelf (we have one..) so it's time to call ourselves to order and get these reviews written! And of course, more reviews mean more giveaways, so next week watch out for three giveaways in one week!

And I have to admit that these are really really good books and they cover a wide range of environmental-social themes, so you don't want to miss the opportunity to learn a little more about them.

And here's our plan for next week:

Monday: The Idealist.org Handbook to Building a Better World

Tuesday: Big Green Cookbook: Hundreds of Planet-pleasing Recipes and Tips for a Luscious, Low-carbon Lifestyle

Wednesday: Clean Body: The Humble Art of Zen-Cleansing Yourself

Thursday: The Gort Cloud

Friday: The Carbon Diaries, 2015

Now if you'll excuse us, we have some reading to do..

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

The new Kindle wants to offer students an offer they can't refuse

Amazon introduced today the Kindle DX, a larger version of the Kindle, targeted at readers of textbooks, newspapers and documents.

It is definitely larger than Kindle 2 - Kindle DX’s display has 2.5 times the surface area of Kindle’s 6-inch display. It's also more expensive - the DX costs $489, $130 more than the Kindle 2.

The new addition to the Kindle family is mainly focused on students and newspaper readers. When we talk about students, we talk of course about textbooks. And there's a good reason for that - the $9.8 billion textbook market which Amazon is hoping to penetrate.

According to Wired, Amazon said it had reached agreements with three major textbook publishers representing 60% of the higher-education market books available in the Kindle store: Pearson Education, Cengage Learning and Wiley Higher Education. Amazon also collaborates with six colleges and universities — Pace, Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, Reed College and the University of Virginia — to test the new device with students later this year.

The new Kindle is expected to face couple of challenges, especially when it comes to students. Firstly, it competes with laptop, a device more than 80% own and allow you to buy, download and read e-textbooks, usually on a larger screen. Also, the Kindle can't show video or color images, which is a big disadvantage especially with the growing power of video content (the Kindle DX is designed to mimic the experience of reading printed black ink on paper).

Another challenge is pricing. e-textbooks are usually cheaper in 50% than paper textbooks, so how much will Kindle's textbooks cost? will they also have price advantage in comparison to textbooks you can download to your laptop, or there won't be any difference. In the meantime, there's no information available yet - the Wall Street Journal reported that a spokeswoman for Pearson said its education division, which publishes textbooks for all grade levels, hasn't yet decided how many titles will be available or how much the Kindle versions will cost.

Besides convincing students why they need to buy Kindle in addition to their laptop (no student will buy the new Kindle instead of laptop), Amazon is facing competition from couple of other companies, as the New York Times reports today. Few companies, according to the NYT, are expected to begin selling portable reading devices in the next year, including Plastic Logic, a well-financed start-up which we wrote about last year, FirstPaper, backed by the publisher Hearst; and Apple.

Jeff Bezos said today that the new Kindle is a step in the direction of a long-dreamed-of paperless society. His vision of paperless society is definitely one we can identify with as it will be also an important step towards sustainable reading.

Nevertheless, we're still waiting for more assurance that Kindle is the right tool to achieve this goal, and that it doesn't have any environmental impacts that would be greater than its positive contribution to the environment. As soon as we'll have more conclusive data with regard to this issue, we will be able to look at the Kindle as a green solution, but at the moment we will lack the necessary information to be able to determine that.

More posts on Amazon:

Amazon did great on the first quarter. Can it also help the book industry to go green now?

Kindle2 series:
Part 1 - David Pouge and the final battle

Part 2 - Bezos on the Daily Show

Part 3 - How much money it will make?

Part 4 - Authors Guild and the read-aloud feature

Part 5 - Did you kindle today?

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Eco-Libris is partnering with neighBORROW.com

Bill McKibben says in his book 'Deep Economy' that in the developed world a sense of community is likely to make people happy much more than money. And he's definitely right. Therefore, we're very happy to announce our new partnership with a new venture that is looking to provide this sense of community - neighBORROW.com.

So what is neighBORROW?

neighBORROW combines the traditional notion of borrowing a cup of sugar from a neighbor with modern technology, using the Internet to facilitate borrowing and lending of nearly anything among people in existing local communities and other established networks.

another answer... neighBORROW is a free, interactive web site that boasts a real-time, centralized and consolidated database that identifies books, movies, CDs, and other miscellaneous items that may be available to borrow in your apartment building, office building, neighborhood, school, place of worship or from any group of people imaginable.

How it supports the environment? When people buy things and use things more efficiently, there is less of a demand for natural resources needed to make these items. For example, if you borrow a book from a friend, rather than buying a copy of your own, you are helping to save the tree needed to make that book. Not to mention the CO2 used for production of other items. Also, since neighBORROW is local, much of the items are shared locally, reducing or eliminating the need for shipping. More generally, more efficient use and conscientious efforts to waste less, gets everyone in better habits and helps everyone realize that the earth's resources are not something that we can take for granted.

Eco-Libris is partnering with neighBORROW to encourage neighBORROW-ers that lend/borrow books to balance out their books by planting trees with Eco-Libris. Eco-Libris will also be integrated into the rating system of neighBORROW, so when neighBORROW-ers use Eco-Libris, their rating (think about eBay sellers' rating) is being improved.

neighBORROW is a very cool idea.The web site instantaneously and electronically catalogs the aggregate collection of all of the items entered by its members into a searchable database. In essence, neighBORROW.com converts this group of neighbors, co-workers, classmates, (even verified strangers) into a fully functioning library of stuff.

The user-friendly interface allows for searching and browsing, and facilitates communication between lenders and borrowers to coordinate real-world exchanges of available, actual things within a neighBORROW hood.

And they aleady have over 5,000 people (neighBORROW-ers) in over 300 places (neighBORROW-hoods) saving money and the environment by borrowing from an inventory of over 10,000 things (neighBORROW-goods) listed and available. They are accepting new neighBORROW-ers in communities, on campuses, and at companies all over the world.

For more information and to become a neighBORROW-er visit their website at http://www.neighborrow.com/

You are also welcome to see Adam Berk, the founder of neighBORROW at MSNBC:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
http://www.ecolibris.net/

We have a winner on our giveaway of "The Legend of Honey Hollow"

Thanks to all the participants in our giveaway of "The Legend of Honey Hollow".

We got great response to our question what is the best way to teach children to appreciate wildlife both on our blog and on Green Options, where our review was published as well. It looks like the common rule of giving an example also works here, with the added value of presenting children with great stories that helps them learn about it, just like the book we have here.

And we have a winner! Our winner is Big Binder who presented an hybrid approach and wrote the following:

That's a really good question! We spend a lot of time at the Nature Center trying to do just that - they read a book, then take the kids out on a 'tour'. It's a tough balance to teach kids to appreciate wildlife without getting 'too close' and putting themselves in danger of disturbing a habitat.

Congrats to the winner who will receive a copy of "The Legend of Honey Hollow" by Jeanne McNaney. Eco-Libris will also plant one tree for this book!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

We did it! Our Facebook community has grown to over 1,000 members!

We are very happy to announce that we ended a very successful green campaign on Facebook.

The campaign that took place on April focused on our Facebook group and included tree planting, giveaway of green books and an effort to increase our Facebook group to 1000 members.

And we did it! On April 30 we reached our goal and on May 1, we had 1036 members! Now, we're going to plant a tree on behalf of all the 455 new members that joined our group on April, so all together we'll have 455 new trees to be planted with our planting partner AIR in Guatemala.

So it's time to say thank you to all the participants in our campaign - to the new members, to the existing members that encouraged their friends to join, to friends who helped us to spread the word and last but not least - to all of our partners that donated great books for the giveaways we had during the campaign. THANK YOU ALL!

Our work on Facebook though has not ended and we'll continue to provide our growing community with information and updates on our work and quest to make reading more sustainable, photos from the planting areas of course and special offers from our partners.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Looking for a good green laugh? the Goode Family is (almost) here!

Green issues are usually very serious ones, but then green can also be very funny.

Don't believe me? check out The Goode Family, a new cartoon from Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butt-head and the King of the Hill, is “an animated caricature of every Whole-Foods-shopping, hybrid-driving, African-orphan-adopting, vegan-dog-having do-gooder you’ve ever met.”

The show premieres May 27 on ABC (thanks to Grist for the info) and here's a little taste of it:



Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Our joint campaign with Barefoot Books 'Buy a Book, Plant a tree' continues for one more month!

We are happy to update you that our collaboration with Barefoot Books in the joint campaign 'Buy a book, plant a tree' continues for another month!

As we updated you last month, Barefoot Books released on April a great children's book entitled 'Earth Tales', and we're planting a tree for every copy sold in April. And now it continues to May - a tree will be planted for every copy sold this month.

Earth Tales is a very unique book. In this beautiful anthology of folktales, young readers learn how different cultures around the world live in harmony with the rhythms and patterns of nature. Discover how to tread lightly on our precious Earth by following the easy eco-tips and trying out some of the fun and creative activities that accompany each story. This is the perfect gift for any earth-conscious child! You can find our review of the book at http://ecolibris.blogspot.com/2009/04/mondays-green-books-series-part-2-earth.html

The book is available for sale at http://www.barefoot-books.com/us/site/pages/productone.php?pid=2432

And last but not least - we want again to thank Substance, a design agency based in Manchester, England with an interest in environmental issues, which created the beautiful poster you see above in celebration of our partnership with Barefoot Books.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net