January 2002

Lee Hadden writes: \”The Wall Street Journal has an article today (January 30, 2002), on
page B5D by Bruce Knecht, \”Hong Kong Bookseller Paddyfield.com Breaks Even
by Cutting Costs, Reaching Out.\”

\”In the US, library supply companies provide schools with information
about the best new titles, but schools in Hong Kong generally have had to
rely on long-distance relationships with individual publishers. Filling the
void, Mrs. Leung, a 40 year old mother of two young children, meets with
librarians as well as teachers and other parents to tell them about the
latest books.\”

The on-line bookstore competitor to Amazon.com now has over 700,000
titles available for their customers, and has been profitable for some
time.
See: paddyfield.com.\”

CNN Says Stephen King will only publish five more books, and a limited series for ABC, and then, he\’s ending his career in publishing.


Most people could hope to do that much in a life time.

\”You get to a point where you get to the edges of a room, and you can go back and go where you\’ve been and basically recycle stuff,\”

PUSH is dedicated to new authors and new voices.

They say… \”These writers tell it like it really is. No preaching. No false endings. No stereotypes or contrivance. Just an honest dose of reality. These books are funny, observant, heartbreaking, and heartstopping.\”

The Tm & © says Scholastic Inc, but there is little in the way of any more info.

From The New York Post…

\”Former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, wants to raise a hefty $20 million to fund an extensive library and urban center at a \”leading\” city university, an aide revealed yesterday. In addition to the money Giuliani raises, the schools may also contribute. The $20 million price tag would dwarf that of any living mayor\’s legacy.\” More

\”The demands of technology and higher academic standards are changing the roles of librarians, creating a new breed of educators who can shift gears from \”Hamlet\” to HTML, from Gogol to Google. Even their new title – \”media specialist\” – gives them a high-tech aura.\” More

A couple of interesting studies have been making the rounds that ya\’ll might be interested in.


Nature.com has Prosperity through punishment, where they learned Cooperation can flourish if the public-spirited majority can punish freeloaders.


The Small World Research Project seeks to answer the question, Can anyone in the world reach anyone else through a chain of only 6 friends?

WritersWeekly.com has This Story by Cathi Stevenson, on how to promote ebooks and print-on-demand books.


One of the biggest problems facing self-publishers and small publishers of ebooks and print-on-demand books is the perceived lack of quality control. Editors are expensive, but necessary.

fairuse.stanford.edu is a super collection of \”stuff\” on fair use.


It includes Primary Materials, Current Legislation, Cases and Issues, Resources on the Internet, and Overview of Copyright Law.

I was just greeted by This Page at google.


They say \”Google does not allow pop-up ads of any kind on our site. We find them annoying\”


So many reasons to love them….

News.com has a Great Editorial by Rick Boucher who says traditional \”fair use\” rights are at the foundation of the receipt and use of information by the American people, and those rights are now under attack.


He goes on to say Congress agreed to a fundamentally flawed bill, which created the new crime of circumvention–a crime divorced from over a century and a half of respect for the fair-use rights of consumers. The DMCA, as enacted, quite clearly tilted the balance in the Copyright Act toward complete protection and away from information availability.

\”Consider the implications. A time may soon come when what is available for free on library shelves will only be available on a pay-per-use basis. It would be a simple matter for a copyright owner to impose a requirement that a small fee be paid each time a digital book or video documentary is accessed by a library patron. Even the student who wants even the most basic access to only a portion of the book to write a term paper would have to pay to avoid committing a crime.\”