LISNews: Librarian News

Self-publishing made easy online is a C|Net story on Blurb.com."access to a computer can make a book and get it professionally printed. The company offers free downloadable software, called BookSmart, which enables people without design experience to easily lay out the pages, choose background colors and fonts and edit photos. The design templates were created by book design experts."

In the span of just a decade, over half of the nation's independent bookstores vanished. This revealing documentary tells the stories of three such stores fighting for survival. In Capitola, California, a developer's plans to bring Borders to town prompts a fierce debate over the rights of "big box" retailers to locate in a place famous for its small town charm. In Palo Alto, news of the closing of Printers Inc. Bookstore prompts a local citizen to mortgage his house to try to save it. And in Santa Cruz, when a Borders moves in down the street from the town's oldest bookstore,Bookshop Santa Cruz, protests and vandalism ensue. This compelling film follows these stories and raises tough questions about the place of local culture in an increasingly homogenized world.

After 34 years, it's curtains for Mystery Ink here in New York City. The New York Times has the story.

Some Good News about an Indie Bookstore for a change. It was a strategic move by Ed Kaufman that turned a small independent bookstore into the largest mystery specialty store on the West Coast.
Not that he ever figured to reach that lofty status, but Kaufman deliberately chose the mystery niche when he opened "M" is for Mystery 10 years ago in downtown San Mateo.

It was a genre he loved and knew a lot about, and in an industry dominated by chains and online giants, it was a survival move. The decision to focus on the mystery genre by Kaufman and his wife, Jeannie, proved to be the key to their success.