LISNews: Librarian News

From the New York Times article entitled "Of Bugs and Books", author Ann Patchett (State of Wonder) speaks about books, ebooks, bookstores, best-sellers, reading habits, author appearances, cicadas (the bug part) and so on:

"Everything cycles back around. Things I didn’t think could ever make a comeback — Newt Gingrich and platform shoes — proved capable of startling resurgence. Now when someone tells me a trend is dead, I think, no, probably just dormant.

Take bookstores, for example. With the demise of the Borders chain and the shaky footing of Barnes and Noble, one might be tempted to write off the whole business. But as one who spent her summer on a book tour, I would like to offer this firsthand report from the front lines: Americans are still reading books. Night after night after night I showed up in a different bookstore and people were there with their hardbacks. Sure, I signed a couple of iPad covers, Kindle covers. I’ve got no problem with that. But just because some people like their e-readers doesn’t mean we should sweep all the remaining paperbacks in a pile and strike a match. Maybe bookstores are no longer 30,000 square feet, but they are selling books. "

Patchett and her business partner, Karen Hayes, and will open the doors to Parnassus Books in her hometown of Nashville in October.

In the film versions of “Pride and Prejudice” the music jumps and swells at all the right moments, heightening the tension and romance of that classic Jane Austen novel.

Will it do the same in the e-book edition?

Booktrack, a start-up in New York, is planning to release e-books with soundtracks that play throughout the books, an experimental technology that its founders hope will change the way many novels are read.

Full article in the NYT

The "Perspectives" department in the July/August 2011 issue of Public Libraries features op-ed essays on the HarperCollins/OverDrive controversy by Kate Sheehan, Anne Silvers Lee, A. Paula Wilson, Brett Bonfield, and Kristin Whitehair. None of the essays are featured (that is, available for free) on the PLA website, but Bonfield's piece, "Getting Paid," carries a CC0 license and is available for free on Scribd.

Are there any other ALA-published articles that now carry CC0 licenses? How much longer until the next one appears?

The printed book is doomed: here's why
By Shane Richmond, Head of Technology (Editorial)

A couple of weeks ago I spoke to a senior executive from a big Silicon Valley company. We talked about digital media and in passing he mentioned digital books. “I doubt that my daughter will ever buy a physical book,” he said. His daughter is nine.

Continued here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8680271/The-printed-book-is-doomed-heres-why.html