Cory Doctorow isn’t writing about libraries, but I can’t help but want to apply this to libraries:
But just because an industry is socially worthy, it doesn’t follow that it is commercially viable. Today, besides newspapers, three other media are thrashing over their futures in a networked world, and as with newspapers, the rhetoric is mostly of the nonproductive “But I like it!” and “It’s good for society!” variety, with not enough thought given to whether these media are commercially viable in the Internet age.
Books
In the section about books there was this paragraph:
No, the bad news for books is twofold: First, the quantity and variety of titles carried outside of bookstores has radically declined, thanks to the rise of national big-box chain stores, who do all ordering from a centralized database. That means that it’s much harder than it’s ever been to stumble across a book at the grocery store that turns you into a lifelong reader. There’s some damned fine bookstores out there for people who know that they want a book, but it’s a lot harder to acquire that knowledge than it has been for a century or so.
This sentence is an eyebrow quirker: That means that it’s much harder than it’s ever been to stumble across a book at the grocery store that turns you into a lifelong reader.
Is grocery stores the place that we were looking to do that? I think it is plausible that someone could find a book at a grocery store that does that but if grocery stores did not carry books at all I would not be overly concerned. If grocery stores stopped carrying food that would be a problem.
The line that followed: There’s some damned fine bookstores out there for people who know that they want a book, but it’s a lot harder to acquire that knowledge than it has been for a century or so.
I don’t get what he is trying to say. Is he trying to say it is harder to find a book of substance? What is your take on that line?
money makes the world.
“commercially viable” — if it doesn’t generate monies, it’s not worth producing. soon we will have a “commercial viability calculator” like we have for things like “carbon footprints” and our worth will be evaluated by how much we consume, how many people we keep employed, how much work our lives produce.
A drug dealer might be more valuable than a soccer mom with four kids because he keeps hospitals in business with ODs and drive-bys, and he keeps the court system functioning at top capacity. The soccer mom buys some fast food a new minivan every five years and lots of Tide, so she doesn’t support the economy as well. maybe her vote doesn’t count as much or maybe she’s treated like a second-class citizen… I guess I’ll let you know when I return from my trip to the future… 2025, here I come!!!
Same as my take on the whole article.
It’s blather, and not particularly rigorous blather. Doctorow, here as before, is very much of the “Digital = Better,” “A always replaces B,” all newspapers work the same, all publishers work the same, triumphalist/universalist bent. He may or may not be a good SF author; he was clearly a good EFF spokesperson (with EFF’s unfortunate oversimplification of issues and “if everybody does it, it’s GOOD, even if it’s law-breaking and destructive” bent)…that doesn’t make him a good futurist.
I must say–the idea that it’s harder to discover interesting books now than it was 25 years ago is a particularly odd thing for an Internet triumphalist to say. Well, so much for Worldcat.org, Google Book Search, Amazon, online book reviews…
Someone on Slashdot pointed
Someone on Slashdot pointed out that the prediction of the imminent demise of print newspapers is due to some of them running up tremendous debt in buying out other media, while assuming that the abnormally high profit margins of recent years would continue indefinitely. The newspapers that didn’t overleverage themselves continue to be profitable.
yeah, what Walt said
I thought, What? Discovery tools are better than ever. They might be what keep the book going strong, along with production technology for smaller runs or on-demand printing.
Opportunity
From a library perspective, I suppose, it matters if people are readers … and bookstores matter because they’ve been our long-time partners in making books available … but if we have to rely upon bookstores to tell us what to purchase (because of popularity) we are not doing our jobs in terms of collection development.
Fewer bookstores with thinner offerings due to the current publishing mania focused on “best sellers” gives the library community a golden opportunity … *if* we can get access to new titles and review them long before viral marketing as either recognized or ignored them.
I read this while listening to TWiT 183
Mr. Doctorow’s piece doesn’t necessarily take account of history. Advertising-supported anything is a concept that didn’t really take off until the latter half of the 19th century in cultural output. Prior to that the funding for productions was subscription fees. What is referred to as the “opera” model in the piece and in TWiT 183 was the norm then and still funds things today such as PBS, NPR, the TWiT.TV Network, and more.
I am not a big fan of the ancillary income notion put forward by Doctorow and others. If such were a simple answer to all economic model woes, then materials at On-Disk and at Lulu such as this and this would have sold something. They never have. Potentially they never will.
Information is not free when it comes to its provision. Free access is not accounting for all costs. Servers are not cheap let alone bandwidth. Leo Laporte’s live video stream isn’t even paid for by him but is subsidized by Stickam. The TWiT LLC annual budget is north of $400k lately so a lot of money gets paid out to make content every week. Right now donations make up a significant chunk of that $400k and advertising a lesser amount.
Doctorow is as puzzling as ever. This one is no exception.
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Everytime a new form of media comes out
The demise of print media is predicted. When radio was developed, all sorts of people were pointing out the “educational” potential of the new medium. Farmers out in the middle of nowhere would be getting educations on how to farm better. Their children would not have to be driven fifty miles to school in the morning and afternoon. They would be schooled by radio, and send in their tests by mail. And yada, yada.
Said the same thing about television. Now the internet.
You can rely on the free market to take any new media with great potential and turn it into a commercial money making venture, selling any junk they can get away with selling.
The commercialization of any new form of media ensures the survival of print media. The book has been around for about five and a half centuries and has survived every new media that was destined to replace it. The Internet as a reference tool….(snicker).
The book itself is probably still the most convenient, portable and easiest data storage medium around. You can fit a half a megabyte of information in your pocket, and do not require a power supply or another device to access the information it holds. It is more easily indexed than digital media. Overall it is in many ways still superior to other forms of media.