The Atlantic logo“Over the years I’ve often quoted David H. Rothman of Alexandria, Va., a pioneer in the entire field of electronic reading devices,” writes James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, in an article about U.S. infrastructure that was published earlier this morning on The Atlantic‘s website. “[Rothman] was talking about his “Teleread” proposal many, many years [before] products like the Kindle, Nook, or iPad had been conceived.”

Teleread founder David H. Rothman
David Rothman

In the same post, Fallows also emphasizes Rothman’s philosophy of e-readers as “‘public goods’ and indispensable parts of the modern infrastructure of the 21st century, in much the way public libraries were in Europe and North America through the 19th and 20th centuries.”

The remainder of Fallows’ post is essentially a teaser of Rothman’s most recent argument for the creation of two national digital library systems (one public, and one academic), which we republished on February 11.

Click here to see the Atlantic piece … and congratulations, David!

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• For even more of Rothman in the mainstream media, click here to read a June 2012 guest post, also for The Atlantic, about the ‘iPad Stimulus Plan.’

• Then click here to read a November 2010 Rothman piece, again in The Atlantic, about the many potential benefits of a well-stocked national digital public library system.

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  1. Congrats to David. Back in 2006-2007 when I was working on the Smashwords business plan, David’s writing at Teleread helped inform me about not only where the ebook revolution would go, but where it *should* go to best serve the needs of authors and readers alike.

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