September 2012

In an earlier, more innocent era, the shocking rumors about the past of a former first lady of Germany would have stayed put in the drawing rooms of the political elite. Nowadays, they appear unbidden on Google.

Say a schoolchild writing a homework assignment about Bettina Wulff entered her name into the search engine. “Bettina Wulff prostitute,” Google’s autocomplete function would helpfully but perhaps slanderously suggest. “Bettina Wulff escort” would pop up for good measure.

“I was stunned,” Ms. Wulff, who vehemently denied the accusations, told the weekly newsmagazine Stern, one of several publications to feature her on the cover in recent weeks. “I felt powerless and cried a lot.”

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Note: Story posted because I am sure there are many librarians that have experienced the oddities of Google auto-complete.

For now, the estimable output of W. W. Norton, including Krugman’s End This Depression Now, will continue to be available at a variety of prices. But over the longer term, with possibly serious consequences for the viability of publishers and booksellers, the odds favor the public’s instinct to get the best bargain. To reiterate a crucial point I have made before: Publishers will always need the revenue to support authors and the staffs that edit, produce, and market their books, and to provide a reasonable profit for their owners. If the squeeze becomes too tight, the result will be fewer books that matter — like End This Depression Now — whether in print or digital formats.

YUCK!… The St. Clair County Library got a little bit more than it bargained for with some returned materials this week.

Library Director Allison Arnold said bedbugs caught a ride into the Port Huron branch of the library Tuesday with a package of materials that had been borrowed through the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.

Although it was a public relations concern at the time, the $80 library-card fee imposed on users not residing in the Santa Clara County Library District in July 2011 has since proven mostly beneficial to Los Altos and Los Altos Hills users.

Nearly 14 months after the fee went into effect, statistics show increased patronage of the Los Altos main and Woodland Branch libraries by local residents and more materials available to them with decreased competition from nondistrict users.

RWW has a nice look at How Public Libraries Are Using Social Media… “Like many of you, I’m connected to the Internet virtually every waking hour of my day – via computer, tablet and mobile phone. Yet I still regularly visit my local public library, in order to borrow books, CDs and DVDs. Which made me wonder: are these two worlds disconnected, or is the Social Web being integrated into our public libraries? In this fourth installment in ReadWriteWeb’s Social Books series, I aim to find out!”

Several colleges and universities have adopted a common read program, in which first year students read the same book during the summer, then discuss it when they get to campus.

NPR’S Neal Conan talks with Brooke Gladstone, co-host of On The Media, about her book, The Influencing Machine, a graphic novel that tries to decipher the rapidly changing media business and the ways people interact with it.

Full piece

Two powerful entertainment moguls, Scott Rudin, the film and theater producer, and Barry Diller, the chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp, are joining together to enter the turbulent world of book publishing.

Mr. Rudin and Frances Coady, a longtime publishing executive, have formed a partnership with Mr. Diller in a new venture called Brightline. It will publish e-books and eventually physical books in a partnership with Atavist, a publisher based in Brooklyn with expertise in producing electronic books and articles.

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On February 14, 1989, Valentine’s Day, Salman Rushdie was telephoned by a BBC journalist and told that he had been “sentenced to death” by the Ayatollah Khomeini. For the first time he heard the word fatwa. His crime? To have written a novel called The Satanic Verses: A Novel, which was accused of being “against Islam, the Prophet and the Quran.”

So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground, moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police protection team. He was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him by. He thought of writers he loved and combinations of their names; then it came to him: Conrad and Chekhov—Joseph Anton.

On February 14, 1989, Valentine’s Day, Salman Rushdie was telephoned by a BBC journalist and told that he had been “sentenced to death” by the Ayatollah Khomeini. For the first time he heard the word fatwa. His crime? To have written a novel called The Satanic Verses: A Novel, which was accused of being “against Islam, the Prophet and the Quran.”

So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground, moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police protection team. He was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him by. He thought of writers he loved and combinations of their names; then it came to him: Conrad and Chekhov—Joseph Anton.

How do a writer and his family live with the threat of murder for more than nine years? How does he go on working? How does he fall in and out of love? How does despair shape his thoughts and actions, how and why does he stumble, how does he learn to fight back? In this remarkable memoir Rushdie tells that story for the first time; the story of one of the crucial battles, in our time, for freedom of speech. He talks about the sometimes grim, sometimes comic realities of living with armed policemen, and of the close bonds he formed with his protectors; of his struggle for support and understanding from governments, intelligence chiefs, publishers, journalists, and fellow writers; and of how he regained his freedom.

It is a book of exceptional frankness and honesty, compelling, provocative, moving, and of vital importance. Because what happened to Salman Rushdie was the first act of a drama that is still unfolding somewhere in the world every day.

Joseph Anton: A Memoir

The Librarian of Congress has named an interim copyright royalty judge to serve for the next six months or until the vacancy is filled.

Richard Strasser has been appointed to fill the vacancy left by Judge Stanley Wisniewski, who retired at the end of August. James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, appoints copyright royalty judges in consultation with the register of copyrights.

Cancer support and information services will be offered in libraries across Glasgow in what is thought to be the first project of its kind in the UK.

Macmillan Cancer Support and Glasgow Life are working together to ensure every cancer patient in the city can get help within their local community.