“By putting digital copies of works online, Darnton has argued, we could open the collections of the country’s great libraries to anyone with access to the network. We could create a ‘Digital Republic of Letters’ that would be truly free and open and democratic. The DPLA would allow us to ‘realize the Enlightenment ideals on which our country was founded’.”
Category: publishing
Fifty Shades of Grey Author Hits Town, And Adults Queue Up Like Mad
As the author of the “mommy porn” bestselling books starts her book tour, adults act like kids at a Harry Potter book release. “‘This is a literary phenomenon,’ said Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books, the independent bookstore where E L James was signing copies. ‘E L struck a nerve, and her storytelling speaks to so many people.'”
Mystery Sculptor Strikes Again – In Mystery Writer’s Mailbox
“Ian Rankin received a series of elaborate drawings etched into the pages of old parchment on his 51st birthday yesterday, the latest in a series of unexplained sculptures to appear across the libraries and cultural locations in Edinburgh.”
Risking Death To Write Poetry In Afghanistan
“Meena’s father pulled her out of school four years ago after gunmen kidnapped one of her classmates. Now she stays home, cooks, cleans and teaches herself to write poetry in secret. Poems are the only form of education to which she has access. She doesn’t meet outsiders face to face.”
Forget E-Book Lending; Now Libraries Lend E-Readers Themselves
Lending e-readers may only hasten the e-book checkouts at libraries: “The San Francisco Public Library told Wired that if its digital lending library were counted as a single physical branch location, its monthly checkouts would rank number eight among 26 individual branches.”
Amazon Versus Publishers/Progress Versus Hanging On
“The technologically obsolete system, in which physical inventory is stored in publishers’ warehouses and trucked to fixed retail locations, will sooner or later be replaced by the more efficient digital alternative. The government’s case against book publishers arises from this continuing transformation–Amazon’s pricing model for e-books reflects the digital imperative while Apple’s and the publishers’ response attempts to delay it.”
E-Books Are Not Killing Reading (We’ve Said It Before, We’ll Say It Again)
“There are two big questions about the future of books and technology. One is: are people reading more and, by implication, buying more books? The answer is yes. … [O]verall revenues, and number of books sold in all formats, were up sizably in three years since 2008. Without e-books, the numbers would have been flat, or declined.”
A New Yorker Editor Fesses Up About The Diaeresis
“The fact is that, absent the two dots, most people would not trip over the ‘coop’ in ‘cooperate’ or the ‘reel’ in ‘reelect’ (though they might pronounce the ‘zoo’ in ‘zoological,’ a potential application of the diaeresis that we get no credit for resisting). And yet we use the diaeresis for the same reason that we use the hyphen: to keep the cow out of co-workers.”
Major Publisher Decides To Release E-Books With No Copy Restrictions
“Tor, the world’s biggest science fiction publisher and home to authors including Orson Scott Card, China Miéville and Cory Doctorow, has shaken publishing with the news that its entire list of ebooks is to be made digital rights management-free.”
The Death Of Newspaper Sports Cartooning
“They blended the skills of a caricaturist and the mind-set of a columnist. They were entertainers and ink-stained jokesters. They were newsroom denizens and deadline artists who churned out five or six cartoons a week that received prominent display. If they possessed power, it was that they drew players, owners and managers in ways that reporters could not with their words.”