Most
libraries have a policy regarding the inclusion of
self-published or vanity
press works. But what of vanity
e-books?M.J. Rose has a relevant piece
in Wired magazine titled E-Books for Writers, Not
Readers.It is at: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,35
722,00.html
He
notes that “while 5 percent of the survey
respondents said they BOUGHT Stephen
King\’s e-book, Riding the Bullet, less than 1 percent
claim to actually have READ
it.” So was the shooter firing blanks, one
wonders?The survey was by the Book Report
Network at: http:/
/www.bookreporter.com/brc/index.asp<
Rose
goes on to note that there are over 24 million writers in
the United States but
less than 5 percent have been published. Companies
such as Xlibris, iUniverse,
and Mightywords are wooing the other 95 percent, often
as not to what used to
be called vanity publishing. And the
public library issues are thought provoking,
indeed.
Most
libraries have a policy regarding the inclusion of
self-published or vanity
press works. But what of vanity
e-books?M.J. Rose has a relevant piece
in Wired magazine titled E-Books for Writers, Not
Readers.It is at: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,35
722,00.html
He
notes that “while 5 percent of the survey
respondents said they BOUGHT Stephen
King\’s e-book, Riding the Bullet, less than 1 percent
claim to actually have READ
it.” So was the shooter firing blanks, one
wonders?The survey was by the Book Report
Network at: http:/
/www.bookreporter.com/brc/index.asp<
Rose
goes on to note that there are over 24 million writers in
the United States but
less than 5 percent have been published. Companies
such as Xlibris, iUniverse,
and Mightywords are wooing the other 95 percent, often
as not to what used to
be called vanity publishing. And the
public library issues are thought provoking,
indeed.Rose
goes on to note that there are over 24 million writers in
the United States but
less than 5 percent have been published. Companies
such as Xlibris, iUniverse,
and Mightywords are wooing the other 95 percent, often
as not to what used to
be called vanity publishing. And the
public library issues are thought provoking,
indeed.
I am
reminded of Richard Brautigan’s Library for
Books Nobody Wants. The concept is in
his book, The Abortion: An
Historical Romance 1966. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1971. The book is out of
print, and only available in libraries :-)
And, as an aside, how is this for the great
Amazon.com as clueless? Though it is out of
print, they offer two
options – e-Bay, natch, but also other "historical
romances!" Kerouac,
Ginsberg and Brautigan would have
gotten a great HOWL out of that! I saw
the best dot coms of my generation destroyed by… ah
well.
Bruatigan\’s
main character was a librarian at a mythical library. The
library was at at
3150 Sacramento Street in San Francisco. At this library
anyone who wrote a
book could add it to the shelves. Books were accepted
in any form. There was no
Dewey Decimal arrangement, nor any other order to the
library. The author alone
decides on which shelf the book should be. Brautigan
is rumored to have
self-published a work in 1968 entitled "The San
Francisco Library: A
Publishing House." No more than 10 copies are
thought to exist. http://w
ww.riza.com/richard/library.shtml
Brautigan
was at one time a best selling beat/hippie
author. Early in his career, he like many beat
authors and poets, had
trouble getting his stuff published.
One can speculate on this as his motivation
for
the library in his
novel.
According to the site just
noted, a manuscript library from Brautigan is being
housed at the Burlington VT
(Fletcher Free Library). The library is not accepting any
new submissions 🙂
Mayonnaise jars serve as
bookends!
So,
for library planning purposes we will soon have some
questions -questions that
Brautigan\’s librarian may have asked upon a
time. Do we supply only the e-book titles we
purchase/select? Or do we take
donations of e-vanity
fare? If we
take donations, won’t we
need to read them first? If not how do
we assure they are consistent with our collection
development policies, not to
mention consistency with the state and federal laws for
our library? And e-book plates
for donated vanity fare,
what do we do with them?
I
have no answers here, only questions that I think
Brautigan, among others may
have liked. But I do have an
observation, to Joe Schallan and others – I still think
it’s a great time to be
a librarian.
So
sign me once again,
datcalmguy
Thomas
J. Hennen Jr.
http://www.haplr-inde
x.com
6014
Spring Street
Racine,WI
53406
Voice:
262-886-1625
Fax: 262-886-5424
thennen@haplr-index
.com
Recent Comments