Category: publishing

“Through technological wizardry and sheer audacity, Google has shown how we can transform the intellectual riches of our libraries, books lying inert and underused on shelves. But only a digital public library will provide readers with what they require to face the challenges of the 21st century — a vast collection of resources that can be tapped, free of charge, by anyone, anywhere, at any time.”

“Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS), the largest U.S. bookstore chain, is likely to end its months-long search for a buyer without a sale of the company, said five people with knowledge of the bidding process.”

“Publishers have long been wary of letting people share digital content. Indeed, they demanded the right to disable sharing for any book in the Kindle or Barnes & Noble Nook stores. Publishers haven’t been shy to take advantage of that right.”

“The rapidity in which Amazon buys content websites and blogs in order to bring in talent and an established reader base will surprise industry watchers. The shift from paying for advertising to investing in quality editorial content will seem like a predestined change in hindsight, but during the time of this shift it will feel like a novel and risky tactic.”

“It’s amazing what you can get done when you believe you’re shirking some other, more important enterprise. That’s what every blocked writer really needs: something more significant they should be doing instead.”

“Without actually suing Google itself, Microsoft contends that in developing Android, Google has infringed on Microsoft’s patents. Microsoft has also sued Motorola over devices that use Android.”

Undergraduates at dozens of colleges are taking “humanities courses — even Shakespeare — that are deeply influenced by a new array of powerful digital tools and vast online archives.”

It is arguably the single most memorable episode of E Nesbit’s much-loved children’s book The Railway Children. … But it has now emerged that the dramatic episode may not have been purely the result of Nesbit’s imagination.”

“Practically every example of that genre, no matter how shrewd or rich its survey of the question at hand, finishes with an obligatory prescription that is utopian, banal, unhelpful or out of tune with the rest of the book. When it comes to social criticism, no one, it seems, has an exit strategy.”

Sam Tanenhaus: “Don’t run away. It’s not as depressing as it sounds. One of the enduring paradoxes of great apocalyptic writing is that it consoles even as it alarms.”