Two irreversible trends are at fault here, neither of which can be altered by even a really persuasive essay. One is that the illustrated book cover, like painted movie posters or newspaper comics, is pretty much dead. Fonts, stock photos, and Photoshop are cheaper than commissioning illustrations. With the imminence of Kindles and e-readers, this is all moot anyway; soon enough, book covers, like album covers before them—like albums themselves, or sheet music for popular songs, or dance cards—will be a quaint, old-timey thing you have to explain to the uninterested young, and there’ll be one fewer excuse to strike up conversations with pretty strangers on the subway.
July 2013
Food trucks inspire mobile bookstore
Combine a bookmobile with a food truck and what do you get? The Penguin Book Truck — and for good measure, the Penguin Book Pushcart.
By combining the concepts of bookmobile and food truck, book-publisher Penguin Group (USA) recently introduced its first mobile bookstore. And just like a good book, there’s a bonus inside: the Penguin Book Pushcart, which rolls out of the truck and down a ramp to make books even more accessible.
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130711/AUTO03/307110040
Library Board Member Shocked To Learn Libraries Have Things She Doesn’t Like, Quits
“I always understood that if one wanted to find materials on what I would find objectionable, they were there on the library shelves,” She wrote. “But I never thought I would see the blatant promotion of these materials.”
It’s Sooo Hot, But Cooling Center Libraries Are Closed
Four Brooklyn libraries will remain closed during the current heat wave due to busted air-conditioners.
The city typically urges residents to go to libraries to flee Mother Nature’s fiery wrath, but the Brooklyn Heights, Brownsville, Clinton Hill and Flatlands branches won’t be able to serve the steaming public.
“The library is one of the only options we have,” said Brooklyn Heights resident Lori Burch, 54. “It’s a problem for parents, teachers and even the seniors if there are no indoor activities for them in this weather.”
The four branches are part of an expanding list of 60 libraries in the system — including the central branch — that need $300 million in fixes for rundown roofs, broken boilers and aging computers and furniture.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/bklyn-library-branches-hot-customers-article-1.1399403#ixzz2ZK309x4u
Why librarians are needed more than ever in the 21st century
Post by Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing
Excerpt: In a 2010 interview with The Book Page, Neil Gaiman neatly set out the case for libraries and librarians in the 21st century; the remarks are even more relevant today, as libraries fight for a fair deal from publisher for ebooks, and with austerity-maddened local governments for their very survival.
SUV Crashes into Library in New Jersey
Why is it always the library? Fortunately it was closed and undergoing renovation at the time.
Video from ABC News about vehicle crashing into Hawthorne, NJ Library.
New Addition to the Little Free Libraries
“The Library Bench” (English, Chinese and Spanish) on New York’s Lower East Side. Designed by Chat Travieso.
How Scholastic Sells Literacy To Generations Of New Readers
Chances are you have had contact with Scholastic Publishing at some point in your life: You might have read their magazines in school, or bought a book at one of their book fairs, or perhaps you’ve read Harry Potter or The Hunger Games? From its humble beginning as publisher of a magazine for high schoolers, Scholastic has become a $2 billion business and one of the biggest children’s book publishers in the world.
Serendipity and Samples Can Save Barnes & Noble
And Libraries?
Online discovery — including everything from Twitter recommendations to authors’ Pinterest boards to Amazon pages — is growing, but it hasn’t kept up with online sales. People still seem more likely to buy books if they’ve had a chance to flip through physical copies. “Something is seriously missing with online retail discovery. It’s not working,” Peter Hildick-Smith, the founder and CEO of Codex told the Digital Book World Conference and Expo in January.
Mendeley and RefWorks Flow: The next, next generation of citation management software
A decade or so ago, ISI’s EndNote bought out most of the competition, practically obtaining a monopoly on the reference manager business. In the early Library 2.0 boom, web-based products like Zotero and CSA’s RefWorks became the norm. Thomson Reuters played catch up by introducing EndNote Web, and NoodleBib and other adware/freemium clones cropped up in what is now again a crowded marketplace.
Mendeley, recently purchased by Elsevier, has gained fame by offering social media integration and and sharing cababilities. It notably works on the old Questia model of selling itself directly to individual users, not institutions. ProQuest is also putting the finishing touches on RefWorks Flow, which features similar collaboration tools.
The way these newer products allow users to share articles with peers raises interesting questions about them potentially being used as a new “Napster for subscription journals,” especially since they are now both owned by major publishers. See my comment for some more philosophical questions….
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