Vendors

An Anonymous Patron writes "Indianapolis Bookstore flies in face of chains: Big Hat Books opened to readers last weekend in Broad Ripple. The general-interest store is the latest addition to the list of Indianapolis' tiny pool of independent bookstores.

Booksense.com, the e-commerce marketing arm of American Booksellers Association, lists only five such bookstores in the area."

Choosebooks, a competitor of ABE.com is going out of business. Choosebooks had a different business model in that they did not charge booksellers to list their books but did charge a commission on sold books. A copy of the email sent out to booksellers saying that Choosebooks is closing can be found here.

pv_sapl writes "This Slashdot article informed me that Sybase is releasing for free (as in beer) Enterprise Database for Linux. There are limitations of course, and they are: 1cpu, 2gigs of ram, and a 5gig database size. Although I find this in the similar vein of Microsoft's MSDE, the potential for smaller libraries to be able to buy into Horizon a lot more attractive. That assumes naturally that Dynix gets such license permisions from Sybase. And don't forget about Linux emulation, meaning you can try to run this Enterprise Database on other Operating Systems.."

Anonymous Patron writes "Check out Store owners find the forgotten inside pages of books, on Linda Schnelbach and Katherine DeLoach, owners of Linda's Used Books, in CA. After more than 20 years in the used-book business, Schnelbach and daughter DeLoach said they know that between the pages there can be some unintended surprises.

Dried flowers, love letters, post cards, family photos, money and cards are just a few of the things local librarians, used-book lovers and bookstore owners find. They are mementos placed inside and long forgotten. "

An Anonymous Patron writes "Book Sense celebrates their five-year anniversary in 2004, and they've put together The Best of Book Sense From the First Five Years.
The list is the result of voting by independent booksellers across the country, who cast ballots for the titles they most enjoyed hand-selling over the past five years."

Search Engine Optimization writes "Microsoft Has Announced Microsoft and Amazon will embelish and add a new dimension of Esoteric Searching capabilities in their quest to FINALLY develop their own search engines. Relevancy SERPs is not the only priority - it seem ease of use and non-standard searching will also be prioritized. This was revealed at The 13th annual World-Wide-World Conference currently taking place in New York CITY and their prestigous keynotes."

Anonymous Patron writes "Ancestry.com, the largest thing going in the for-pay genealogy world, inspires many genealogists to swear by it and some researchers to swear at it.

But some of the 2 billion names contained in its databases primary sources turn out to be difficult to pin down.

The Lebanon, PA, Daily News has the article. Though the issue isn't really explored much here, they raise a good point, always check your sources."

The Boston Globe Reports On a second-hand bookshop on Newbury Street in Boston called Avenue Victor Hugo. On June 1, after nearly three decades in business, the shop will close.

It's a sad time for the bookseller, whose shop has given him much pleasure over the years and provided him with a refuge where he can ply his trade in peace.

McCaffrey offers many reasons for the failure of his shop and other small, used-book stores: People would rather watch television than read; they would rather go to a well-organized Barnes & Noble at the mall than a cluttered bookstore off the beaten path; and they would rather buy used books on the Internet, where the prices are often cheaper.

Bob Cox writes Ann Arbor news has this story on a new technology to help small booksellers compete with the "big guys."
"One of the firm's first and most satisfied customers is Karl Pohrt, owner of the Shaman Drum bookstore in downtown Ann Arbor, who calls the technology nothing short of "revolutionary."

"I think it's essential for independent booksellers to move up to the next level," Pohrt said."

To update our recent story on Amazon.com's search engine, Anonymous Patron sends us some concerns by way of Slashdot. AP writes "You install the toolbar, then all your Web browsing, as well as all your searching, is stored as well." Slashdotters ask, "Where is all the media hype about this privacy issue?"

phoenix04 writes "For National Library Week, April 18-24, Gale is offering free trials of many databases including specialized not-usually-offered-except-for-cost. Go to www.gale.com for details. I already use Times Digital Archive, which is _The Times of London_ - back to mid-1700s!!! Truly awesome times for librarians. End-users haven't a clue till we lead 'em. Of course, Gale benefits because of the registration process."

Here's an opinion piece from the Globe and Mail about the benefit (or lack thereof) of author signings. The failed event, called "the Great Ontario Book Break", sponsored by a collective of Ontario book publishers was badly organized, a waste of money and in fact resulted in "hours of acute public humiliation" in the opinion of author Russell Smith.

Fang-Face writes "Speaking of Little Sisters, here's a story about the U.S. equivalent in Littleton, Colorado. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today to throw out a Denver zoning law that prohibits situating a sex-themed business within five hundred feet of schools or day care centers. Z.J. Gifts opened Christal's in 1999 and went to federal court that same year, arguing that the bookstore not a sex shop because only a portion of its merchandise is adult in nature. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case last October because different appeals courts have disagreed on the issue.

(Why are such laws a bad thing? Because such laws have been unethically exploited. In North Charleston, South Carolina, which case the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear,
and by the City of New York.)"

Anonymous Patron writes "This Article Reports a Vancouver, BC, gay book store is asking the Canadian courts to fund its next case.
Mark Macdonald, spokesman for Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium, said the store has spent more than $500,000 fighting against seizures deemed to be obscene. The store is now fighting seizures of a series of adult comics entitled The Meatmen. "The Meatmen comics are not obscene," Macdonald said. "They are gay male erotica and it has to do with (sadomasochistic) practices. They're certainly not for everybody's tastes and we've never insinuated that they are."

According to an Associated Press article, Northeastern UP will close in 2005. A spokesperson for Northeastern said the school can no longer afford to subsidize the publishing operation, which costs up to $450,000 per year.

Martin writes "Lexis-Nexis has begun installing kiosks in prisons and so far, everyone likes them. They save shelf space in cramped prison libraries, librarians no longer have to file updates in the books, and they make it easier for prisoners to find informtion. Prison oficials wanted to be sure that the kiosks were tamper-proof. The touch-screen monitors are covered in shatterproof glass inside a steel box bolted to a wall. "We've taken a crowbar to it. It doesn't shatter," said a company official.

AP Has The Story"

ChuckB writes "The Register has this story about how Microsoft is trying to have access to Lindows.com blocked in the Benelux countries because (get this) 'Lin---s' (the name under which Lindows is now forced to market its software; pronounced 'LinDash') 'bears an auditive resemblance to Windows.' Perhaps they're using some kind of fuzzy Soundex."

An Anonymous Patron writes "This Story Says

Amazon.co.uk has teamed up with the British Library so that information on rare, antiquarian and out of print books can be made available to buy online.

The British Library has added details of more than 2.55m books to the Amazon.co.uk books catalogue, with 1.7m of these dated before the 1970 introduction of ISBN." One hopes the BL was richly remunerated.

Richard Wray of The Guardian writes: But storm clouds are gathering on the horizon. Reed's highly lucrative scientific publishing empire, which has a tradition stretching back to 1580, is under threat from the growth of a new system of publishing on the internet known as open access. Full Story

Oxford University Press USA has laid off 35 employees as part of a reorganization. According to Publishers Weekly, the target was largely the print reference department, which the publisher is said to have "consolidated in favor of its expansive online efforts."

Publisher Laura Brown stated that OUP is "making significant investments in our higher education and professional publishing and our on-line activities, areas where we see exciting growth opportunities."

As part of the reorganization, Casper Grathwohl was named publisher, reference division, while Karen Day assumes the title of associate publisher, reference. Ms. Day previously held the publisher's position.