It’s the start of a new month, which means it’s time to reflect on what we learned in July. And that means it’s time for our second ebook collection, The Future of News As We Know It (*as of July 2012).

Just as we did last month, we swept up our most interesting stories from July into one easy-to-download package for e-readers. It’s designed to look best in Apple’s iBooks, on iPads and iPhones, but it’ll also work well on Kindles, Android phones, or desktop or laptop computers.

This was another good month at the Lab, with a nice mix of breaking news, analysis, and commentary, from our own staff and from outside contributors. (It’s a little bit shorter than June’s ebook — 263 iPad pages vs. 376 for June — but hey, we took a couple days off around July 4, okay? Stop pressuring us.)

As with last month, it’s available in two formats, EPUB and MOBI. EPUB is the best choice for everyone unless you want to read it on a Kindle — then you’ll need the MOBI. (Amazon’s stubbornly refused to get on the EPUB-as-standard bandwagon.)

Q: How do I install this ebook in my ereader?

A: For iBooks on your iPad or iPhone, any of these methods will work:

— Visit this webpage on your iDevice, tap the EPUB download link above, then select Open in iBooks.

— Email the EPUB to yourself and open that email attachment on your iPad or iPhone.

— Move the EPUB into your Dropbox folder and then open it from the Dropbox app on your iDevice.

For other EPUB readers (Nook, Sony Reader, etc.), follow the directions that came with it. You can probably load it via email or USB. If your device has a web browser, downloading it from this web page might work too.

For Kindle, you can load it onto a device by USB or by emailing it to yourself at your Kindle email address. All the options for iBooks will also work for the Kindle app on your iPhone or iPad.

Q: I don’t have an ereader, iPhone, or iPad. Can I read this?

A: Yes! There are a number of good EPUB readers for other devices.

Desktop/laptop computers: There’s the cross-platform Calibre, which is available for Macs, Windows, and Linux. Barnes & Noble’s Nook has apps for Mac, Windows, and Android that will read the EPUB file just fine. Adobe Digital Editions works on Windows and Mac.

For readers interested in sharing: I rather like Readmill, which bills itself as “a curious community of readers, sharing and highlighting the books they love.” It lets you read share highlights within and comments about your EPUB books with other readers. It’s built around an iPad app and stores your books in the cloud.

In browser: You can also read .epubs directly in your web browser, using EPUBReader for Firefox or MagicScroll for Chrome. I’m sure there are others.

Android: There are also a number of EPUB apps for Android. I’ve heard the best is Aldiko.

Kindle apps: The MOBI version of our ebook will open in any of the various Kindle apps, including for Mac, Windows, iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7, Android, and BlackBerry — or on the web via the Kindle Cloud Reader.

Note that ebook readers are still a growing field, and different platforms choose to display books in different ways. If you do have an Apple device, iBooks will give you the best results.