LISNews: Librarian News

Jean Srnecz, senior v-p of merchandising for Baker & Taylor, was one of the victims of the Continental Connection Flight 3407 plane that crashed last night, February 12, outside the Buffalo airport. Srnecz, who was on a trip to visit family, was a highly regarded and well-known member of the publishing industry and served on the boards of the Book Industry Study Group and Educational Paperback Association.

Full story at Publishers Weekly

The Kindle 2 has a feature which allows the book to be read out loud. And wow, does this have the Author's Guild up in a tizzy.

"They don't have the right to read a book out loud," said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. "That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law."

Amazon is moving forward with the rather logical opinion that there's no way a person would confuse the computerized text to speech voice with an audiobook.

So all of you youth librarian types doing story time? STOP IT. You're violating copyright and you're probably doing it more ways than one since you're not only reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom out loud, but you're putting on a public performance.

Boing Boing Gadgets has the run down. More on this story from the Wall Street Journal.

Arnie Birren writes in the UWMLeader :

"Just imagine, one day we'll tell our kids about books. The way they smelled when first purchased, the graceful aging of the yellowed volumes that lined the shelves of resale stores and the satisfaction of turning that final page.

Start saying goodbye to the paperback. Say farewell to off-tune punk ballads bleeding through the low-ceilinged basements of Riverwest. Kiss your art goodbye Milwaukee. It's leaving you behind.

March 31 will mark the final day of operation for Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, a Milwaukee staple since 1927. Not only a bookshop, Schwartz also serves as a venue for book and poetry readings. It connects the loose network of local readers and writers to nationally touring authors. It has been a place to talk about books."

The Washington Post reported today that it plans to close its stand-alone magazine Book World as of mid-February.

In dropping one of the few remaining stand-alone book sections in American newspapers, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said that the coverage will be shifted to the Style section and a revamped Outlook section. Shea said that The Post would publish about three-quarters of the roughly 900 reviews it has carried each year. The change will take effect Feb. 22.