How do you sign an ebook? It’s a common argument that comes up in the print vs. digital debate: printed books provide a tangible, physical artifact for author book signings.

GalleyCat (“Authors Signing eReaders Instead of Books“) mentions that ebook signing is becoming slightly more en vogue with the eReader crowd. But I don’t know. On the one hand, it’s an amusing idea. And yet, having a Kindle or iPad signed is something different, primarily because the author isn’t really just signing that single ebook. To put it in non-digital terms, an apt comparison would be like having an author sign your bookshelf — the eReader happens to contain a particular ebook, but you don’t associate the existence of that ereading device with a single ebook. Or, maybe it’s just me.

Other intermediary solutions presently exist, such as the Sony Reader Touch Edition which has a stylus for writing in a digital sort of way on the ebook itself.  The New York Times (“Would You Sign My Kindle?“) brings news of Autography, a new app that provides a seemingly more elegant solution for ebook signings – 

“Authors sign a temporary signature page until the customer has completed the online (or in store) purchase. The retailer’s online store merges the autograph page into the ebook and transmits to the customer’s eReader device.

* Hey, Obama iPad autographs must be a new fad. (“Obama Signs Another iPad in Europe“)

Funny Borders signs — might as well do something while waiting for bankruptcy doom, right? (thanks @bookbench for the news link). You can find the rest of the pics at the Bitter Borders Compilation.

For those that are interested, the Wall Street Journal has a handy rundown by the numbers of the Borders history from beginning to end (Borders Bankruptcy: Everything You Need to Know).

According to The New York Times (“‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ Sells More Than 1 Million Digital Copies“), Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has made ebook history:  it’s the first book title to sell one million ebook copies, an impressive total. As The Times had reported elsewhere (“A Scandinavian Hit Sets Publishers Seeking More“), the Larsson novels have sold well over 35 million copies worldwide — about four times the entire population of Sweden, to put that into perspective.

How popular are Larsson’s books? The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest are being sought out by eager readers to the tune of half  a million copies of all formats (hardcover, ebooks, audio books, etc.) a month: “Knopf, part of Random House, said the combined digital sales for all three books in the blockbuster “Millennium” series, which includes “The Girl Who Played With Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” is now more than three million copies. The trilogy is selling at a clip of more than 500,000 copies a month in all formats.”

Digital Trends has a few other interesting tidbits.

Google Books Library Project - It would be impossible to talk about digital library collections without mentioning Google — one of the most impressive and most-discussed of all of the digital book scanning projects. The stuff from Oxford’s Bodleian Library is a must-see for Isaac Newton’s Mathematical principles of natural philosophy from 1729, the first edition of Jane Austen’s Emma. I’m a fan of the Inside Google Books blog — especially when spotlighting things such as Nietzsche’s mustache.

Columbia University Digital Collections – The Digital Collection is a mix of things. The Digital Scriptorium is neat, in an esoteric kind of way. The best stuff by far are the online exhibitions from the Rare Book & Manuscript Library — “Shakespeare and the Book“ (which includes the rarest of the rare, Shakespeare’s First Folio) and “Our Tools of Learning”

The British Library Online Gallery – Arguably one of the best digital collections in the world. The Shakespeare collection is second to none. The Leonardo da Vinci notebooks and sketches are amazing; and the original, handwritten and hand-illustrated manuscript of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is one of the library’s most beloved treasures.

Oxford Digital Library – It probably goes without saying, but there’s a lot of stuff here. If I had to pick a favorite, it’d probably be the First World War Poetry Digital Archive.

Princeton University Library Digital Collections – Check out the DeBussy, Handel, and this remarkable Aristotle artifact.

New York Public Library — I wish more of their stuff was online. Which isn’t to say there isn’t neat stuff to see. The Walt Whitman manuscripts and William Blake books are excellent.

Digital Collections@Stanford — Couple of neat items in The American Enlightenment collection (some neat items ranging from Thomas Paine, Edward Gibbon, and others).