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Sunday, March 18, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
The Urban Library - Under Pressure and In Demand
The Huffington Post takes a look at the state of urban libraries.
From the article...
Due partly to their role as society's default providers of computer and Internet access, today's urban libraries do much more than lend books and DVDs. They help city residents--including those with limited incomes and educations--find jobs, obtain health information, and get connected to government services and benefits.
In so doing, libraries are fulfilling what has been called their "shadow mandate," supporting and complementing the work of other public and quasi-public agencies. City residents have come to see libraries, particularly neighborhood branches, as multipurpose community centers, offering business services, tax assistance, safe havens for children after school, public meeting spaces, and places where immigrants can learn English.
All of this helps explain, as city officials across the country have learned, why it is so hard to close a library branch. The public pushback, which has come in the form of protests, demonstrations and lawsuits, is just too strong. In Detroit recently, a plan to close six branches became a plan to close four, then three, and finally just one. City residents are passionate about their libraries.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Oprah's Book Selections HURT Sales?
Indeed.
From a piece on MSNBC...
In its 15-year run, Oprah's Book Club presented an idiosyncratic array of old and new books, written by a combination of unknowns and established literary names, many of which shot to bestseller status after Oprah's endorsement. "It's a tremendous brand. It's like printing money," said Peter Wahlstrom, senior analyst at Morningstar.
But from an industry perspective, Oprah's attention backfired. In a new research paper, Northwestern University professor of management Craig Garthwaite labels Oprah's endorsements "business stealing."
While sales of titles selected by Oprah spiked an average of 400 percent in the first week alone, and other books by those authors also enjoyed what Garthwaite termed an "economically significant" boost, readers' newfound interest in those authors came at the expense of other writers, titles and entire genres, he said. In the 12 weeks following each of Oprah's Book Club endorsements, sales in the adult fiction category decreased by an average of 2.5 percent, with romance, mystery and action categories showing the largest drop-off.
Kerouac Play to Finally Receive Its World Premiere?
Yes.
From a story in the Guardian...
Beat Generation, a three-act play rediscovered in a New Jersey warehouse in 2005, will be staged for the first time this October in Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. The Merrimack Repertory Theatre and the University of Massachusetts Lowell will deliver eight performances of staged reading as the centrepiece of this year's Jack Kerouac Literary festival.
Written in 1957, shortly after the publication of On the Road, Beat Generation shows a day in the life of Jack Duluoz, Kerouac's drink-and-drug-fuelled alter ego. The play draws on his own life and those of other Beat writers including Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, who subsequently starred in the film Pull My Daisy, which was based in part on the play.
Kerouac had sent his work to numerous producers and actors, including Marlon Brando, in an attempt to drum up interest for a production, but after failing to do so asked his agent Sterling Lord to shelve the script.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
No More Encyclopedia Britannica in Print?
Nope. After 244 years, nope.
From a story in the Guardian...
The Encyclopedia Britannica has announced that after 244 years, dozens of editions and more than 7m sets sold, no new editions will be put to paper. The 32 volumes of the 2010 installment, it turns out, were the last. Future editions will live exclusively online.
For some readers the news will provoke malaise at the wayward course of this misguided age. Others will wonder, in the era of Wikipedia, what took the dinosaur so long to die. Neither view quite captures the company or the crossroads.
Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc, suggested that the encyclopedia was already something of a relic within the company itself, which has long since moved its main business away from its trademark publication and into online educational tools.
"The company has changed from a reference provider to an instructional solutions provider," Cauz said. He projects that only 15% of the company's revenue this year will come from its namesake publication, mostly through subscriptions and app purchases.
The Dude Abides
Jeff Bridges is to co-author a book about Zen teachings because of his role as The Dude in The Big Lebowski?
Awesome.
The Joy of Teaching Children to Write
Inspired by his friend Dave Eggers, Irish novelist Roddy Doyle set up Fighting Words to nurture the creative skills of deprived children – with a little help from some big names.
From a story in the Guardian...
"Does anybody know why you are here this morning?" asks a woman standing at the front.
A tentative hand goes up. "To write a story," comes the reply from a pupil called Sophie.
"That's right – and we're here to help you."
The girls' legs jiggle in anticipation. This is Fighting Words, a workshop set up by the author Roddy Doyle in 2009 to encourage creative writing in students of all ages across Ireland. Since its inception, the centre has seen several thousand come through its doors. The majority are from local primary schools in Ballybough, an economically deprived area of Dublin, but other students have travelled hundreds of miles. Fighting Words, which relies largely on volunteer staff and offers all its lessons free of charge, has proved so popular that sessions are booked up a year in advance. "The interest is huge," says Sean Love, the executive director and co-founder. "We're obviously filling a gap that is not filled in formal education."
In a climate of arts cuts and economic gloom, the centre relies on private donations to keep going – its operating costs are about ¤300,000 a year (£250,000). To this end, Fighting Words is about to issue a hand-printed, collector's edition of short stories written by Annie Proulx, Colm TóibÃn, Joyce Carol Oates and Salman Rushdie among others. It is hoped that the sale of the book will raise enough for the centre to stay open for a further two or three months.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
The Beautiful Afterlife of Dead Books
The book is dead. That doesn't seem to bother Stephen Fowler, owner of a used bookstore in Toronto.
From a story in the Millions...
Cue: Stephen Fowler, owner of The Monkey’s Paw. It was while chatting with Fowler in his beautiful shop that I had an epiphany. At any given time, his bookshop is packed with over 6,000 dead titles on everything ranging from terrestrial slugs to false hair. Rows of books rest in peaceful repose on tables: gorgeous idiosyncratic corpses that would excite any literary necrophile.
These books are unquestionably deceased. I don’t think a single title in Fowler’s collection would be considered commercially viable if published today. (Some are barely readable. One can only imagine the prose challenges of a book called Carp: How to Catch Them.) Yet, oddly, it’s one of the least depressing bookshops I know. Even the bad books are not bad in the usual — vapid, trite, cynically formulaic — way. They are uniquely, bizarrely, captivatingly bad. (e.g., Vans and The Truckin’ Life, The World of Clowns, The Problem of Being An Icelander: Past, Present and Future.) A sense of strange beauty and calm pervades the shop. Fowler who describes himself as “the youngest person to come out of the old book trade,” and who was recently invited to join the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, has created a genuine Mecca for booklovers.
He has done this not by championing literature’s survival. Not at all. Fowler had accepted the book’s demise. In fact, having passed through the customary stages of grief, he may be the only person I know who can openly say, and with a smile on his face, that the book is dead. Dead as a doornail.
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